Recent News

By Category: Public Health

Just Released: Clinicians’ Biosecurity Resource App

(Center for Biosecurity of UPMC) The Center for Biosecurity has just launched the Clinicians’ Biosecurity Resource (CBR) iPhone app, which is available at no charge through the iTunes App Store. The most dangerous potential biothreats: CBR provides rapid access to the information clinicians need to recognize disease caused by the most dangerous potential bioweapons and Read More »

January 19, 2012
| Filed under North America, Agents & Toxins, Countermeasures, Policy & Initiatives, and Public Health
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New National Biodefense Science Board members will advise HHS

(HHS) Seven experts from outside the federal government will join the National Biodefense Science Board (NBSB), a federal advisory committee which provides expert advice and guidance on preventing, preparing for, and responding to adverse health effects of public health emergencies to the HHS Secretary and the HHS Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR). The Read More »

January 19, 2012
| Filed under North America, Policy & Initiatives, and Public Health
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Going viral

(Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists) We’ve been lucky. The avian influenza (H5N1) virus that first emerged in Hong Kong in 1997 — which killed six and caused 18 serious illnesses — has not acquired the ability to spread easily from person to person. Virtually all of the reported cases have involved contact with infected birds Read More »

January 18, 2012
| Filed under North America, Agents & Toxins, and Public Health
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Sword and Shield: The Dual Uses of Pathogen Research

(Science Progress) Jonathan Moreno weighs in on the wisdom of scientists publishing data from studies that create deadly viruses in his recent posting “Bird Flu Blues.” As he asserts, some of the hardest questions in the process of scientific discovery aren’t about science, but philosophy. Is it wise, from what we know now, for scientists Read More »

January 18, 2012
| Filed under Europe, North America, Policy & Initiatives, Public Health, and Research
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Benefits of H5N1 research do not outweigh the risks

(Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) Over the past decade, the Center for Biosecurity of UPMC has publicly argued for the importance of such research to develop diagnostics, medicines and vaccines for the most threatening infectious diseases. But research and development for those …