Recent News

By Category: Biosafety

Laurie Garrett: Keeping superbugs away from terrorists

(Capital Times) Within government circles around the world, the announcement has highlighted a dilemma: How do you balance the universal mandate for scientific openness against the fear that terrorists or rogue states might follow the researchers’ work — using it as catastrophic cookbooks for global influenza contagion? Concern reached such heights that U.S. Secretary of Read More »

January 12, 2012
| Filed under Europe, North America, Biosafety, Bioterrorism, Policy & Initiatives, and Research
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Professor defends safety of UW’s bird flu research

(Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) The professor who oversees biosafety for the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s controversial avian influenza research responded Monday to mounting criticism about the necessity and safety of the research, saying “ongoing research with H5N1 remains salient.” The research is “society’s best defense against a pathogen that has shown time and time again that, in Read More »

January 12, 2012
| Filed under North America, Agents & Toxins, Biosafety, Public Health, and Research
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Federal government approved security at UW bird flu lab

(Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ) Avian influenza, or bird flu as it is commonly called, could become deadlier than smallpox before that disease was eradicated, critics contend. The New York Times in an editorial Sunday called for the H5N1 influenza virus created in the Netherlands to …

January 11, 2012
| Filed under North America, Biosafety, Public Health, and Research
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Mayor Menino to lead tour of controversial BU biolab in South End

(Boston.com) In August, BU sought a waiver from the state to proceed with research on the less hazardous materials in a biosafety level-2 lab in a section of the facility. The university plans to eventually use about 16 percent of the building as a biosafety …

January 11, 2012
| Filed under North America, Biosafety, Policy & Initiatives, Public Health, and Research
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Infectious disease lab under construction in Winnipeg

(Journal of Commerce) A vacant former laboratory building in Winnipeg’s inner city is being transformed into a state of the art infectious diseases research centre. Work is well underway on the Public Health Agency of Canada’s (PHAC) new J.C. Wilt Infectious Diseases Research Centre. The impetus for the new project is that the National Microbiology Read More »