Recent News

By Category: Public Health

Call to censor flu studies draws fire

(Nature.com) Keim, who chairs the US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB), is reflecting on its unprecedented recommendation to censor two scientific papers describing how to make a more transmissible form of the H5N1 avian flu virus. …

A Bird Flu Death in China. What it Means — and Doesn’t Mean

(Time) Science and news cycles sometimes converge in unhandy ways. That was the case on on January 1, when word came out of Shenzen, a Chinese city bordering Hong Kong, that a 39-year-old bus driver, surnamed Chen, had died of the H5N1 (or bird flu) virus. The deeply personal tragedy for Chen and his family  Read More »

A Public Policy Expert Looks at the Bird Flu Threat

(New York Times) In the early 1970s, the Nixon administration and the Brezhnev Soviet regime agreed to mutually destroy their bioweapons programs and signed a treaty called the Biological Weapons Convention. Mr. Brezhnev was convinced that President Nixon was trying to trick him, so he ordered creation of the Biopreparat program in the Soviet Union,  Read More »

WHO concerned that new H5N1 influenza research could undermine the 2011 Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Framework

(World Health Organization) WHO takes note that studies undertaken by several institutions on whether changes in the H5N1 influenza virus can make it more transmissible between humans have raised concern about the possible risks and misuses associated with this research. WHO is also deeply concerned about the potential negative consequences. However, WHO also notes that  Read More »

Bracelets made from deadly seeds recalled

(Telegraph.co.uk) It contains the toxin abrin, a controlled substance under the Terrorism Act that if swallowed can kill in doses of just 3 micrograms. It is related to ricin, the chemical warfare agent. People who have bought the bracelets are being urged to bag them …