Recent News

By Category: Agents & Toxins

Renewal of 2006 preparedness law advances in US House

CIDRAP – The report for calendar year 2010, released this week, lists the amounts of countermeasures that have been acquired for anthrax, botulinum toxin, smallpox, and radiation exposures. The products are stored in the Strategic National Stockpile.

July 29, 2011
| Filed under North America, Agents & Toxins, Countermeasures, Policy & Initiatives, and Public Health
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Norway Killer Wrote of Anthrax Attacks

The man who confessed to carrying out last week’s bombing and mass shooting in Norway wrote at length on the potential for waging biowarfare with anthrax, though specialists said there was no indication he possessed or was prepared to use the deadly pathogen, the New York Times reported on Tuesday (see GSN, May 18). “He Read More »

July 28, 2011
| Filed under Europe, North America, Agents & Toxins, and Bioterrorism
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Breivik: Wanted to use Anthrax but didn’t know how

OSLO: The manifesto of the man charged in the Norway attacks spells out plans for using anthrax as part of his war to defend Europe against what he called the rising threat of Muslim domination. But experts in biological weapons said the manifesto

July 27, 2011
| Filed under Europe, South Asia, Agents & Toxins, and Bioterrorism
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Singapore Pursues Ricin Countermeasure

Singaporean government researchers have uncovered genetic material considered critical to ricin’s toxicity, offering a potential pathway to a countermeasure for the lethal biological agent, AsiaOne News reported on Sunday. The ERGIC2 host gene is central to the threat posed both by ricin and another toxin known to strike hospitalized individuals with immune system deficiencies, said Read More »

July 27, 2011
| Filed under Asia/Pacific, Agents & Toxins, and Countermeasures
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A*Star scientists discover how to combat hospital-acquired infections and life-threatening toxins

(Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore) A team of scientists from A*STAR’s Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology has discovered the secret recipe for ‘antidotes’ that could neutralize the deadly plant toxin Ricin, widely feared for its bioterrorism potential, as well as the Pseudomonas exotoxin responsible for the tens of thousands of hospital-acquired Read More »