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By Category: International

Genetically modified food-crops: blessing or curse?

(The Express Tribune) There is immense pressure on developing countries to adopt genetically modified (GM) crops in the shortest possible time to supposedly ensure food security and boost agricultural productivity. Being a signatory to the WTO’s Agreement on Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights, however, Pakistan is obliged to protect intellectual property rights (IPRs) of multinational organisations Read More »

December 17, 2012
| Filed under Asia/Pacific, North America, Biosafety, International, and Research
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Weapon-Usable Tech Seen Challenging Bioweapons Convention

(Global Security Newswire) An array of advances in science and technology threaten to undermine the Biological Weapons Convention by enabling a nefarious actor to engineer disease agents to be more virulent or resistant to medical countermeasures, treaty signatories said on Friday. Growing capabilities to render pathogens more communicable, immune system-resistant, or honed to specific targets Read More »

December 17, 2012
| Filed under Europe, North America, Biological Weapons, International, and Policy & Initiatives
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Ebola virus uses a protein decoy to subvert the host immune response

(EurekAlert) In a study published today in the Open Access journal PLOS Pathogens, researchers at Emory University have discovered a potentially important mechanism by which the Ebola virus alters and evades the immune response of its infected host. Ebola virus is the causative agent of Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever (EHF), a disease with up to 90 Read More »

December 14, 2012
| Filed under Africa, North America, Agents & Toxins, International, Public Health, and Research
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Long-term public health support needed to tackle infectious disease outbreaks

(EurekAlert) Outbreaks of infectious diseases, such as swine flu (H1N1) threaten global health and should be considered by funding agencies and humanitarian organizations as development issues rather than emergency situations, requiring long-term support and investment, according to US experts writing in this week’s PLOS Medicine. The authors from several US institutions, led by Tiffany Bogich Read More »

December 12, 2012
| Filed under Africa, Asia/Pacific, Europe, North America, South America, Agents & Toxins, International, Public Health, and Research
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New tuberculosis drug trial begins in South Africa

(EurekAlert) Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and AstraZeneca, a global biopharmaceutical company, today announced the first patient enrolled in a Phase 2a trial to assess the effectiveness of AZD5847, a new test drug for patients with tuberculosis (TB), including patients with HIV co-infection. The study is sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy Read More »