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By Category: Policy & Initiatives

New Plan To Increase Global Access To Vaccines Endorsed By World Health Assembly

(Medical News Today) Ministers of Health from 194 countries at the Sixty-fifth World Health Assembly have endorsed a landmark Global Vaccine Action Plan (GVAP), a roadmap to prevent millions of deaths by 2020 through more equitable access to existing vaccines for people in all communities…

May 30, 2012
| Filed under Africa, Asia/Pacific, Europe, Middle East, North America, South America, South Asia, International, Policy & Initiatives, and Public Health
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Senators ask downgrade of brucellosis pathogen

(Billings Gazette) Montana’s senators have stepped into the Yellowstone bison fray by requesting that two federal agencies downgrade the pathogen that causes brucellosis to ease research into a vaccine. The disease, carried by the park’s bison and now prevalent in some western Montana elk, can cause cattle to abort.

May 30, 2012
| Filed under North America, Agents & Toxins, Policy & Initiatives, and Research
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Lawmaker Seeks HHS Assessment of Strategic National Stockpile

(Global Security Newswire) Representative Sue Myrick (R-N.C.) this month requested that the U.S. Health and Human Services Department conduct an assessment of existing and future requirements for the Strategic National Stockpile of medical countermeasures against WMD agents, Government Security News reported on Thursday. In addition, the department should “consider ways to ensure that HHS reacts Read More »

May 30, 2012
| Filed under North America, Countermeasures, Policy & Initiatives, and Public Health
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Statehouse Live: Officials vow to fight for NBAF funding

(Lawrence Journal World) TOPEKA — A bipartisan effort led to Kansas winning a state-of-the-art federal research lab, but the project is running into opposition in Washington, D.C., officials said Tuesday. President Barack Obama, a Democrat, didn’t put funding for the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility in his proposed budget, and Republican leaders in Congress have Read More »

May 30, 2012
| Filed under North America, Agriculture, Policy & Initiatives, and Research
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Science Publishing and the Dual Use Dilemma

(PLOS Blogs) You may be familiar with the controversy over recent research conducted on H5N1 influenza. If you follow science news, it’s been hard to miss. Two papers, both of which report on the potential for H5N1 to become transmissible between experimental mammals, set off an international flurry over potential biosecurity concerns late last year. Read More »