Recent News

By Category: Public Health

Biosecurity 2.0: Enduring threats in the former Soviet Union

(Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists) — For the past 20 years the international community concentrated its biological nonproliferation programs in the former Soviet Union. As a result, most of the Soviet bio-warfare infrastructure has dissolved; pathogen collections are in secure storage; scientists have engaged in peaceful cooperative research; and local disease surveillance capabilities have improved. Read More »

August 5, 2011
| Filed under Europe, International, and Public Health
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CDC moves disease surveillance system to the cloud

(GCN) — The BioSense program, created by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks, is remaking itself to provide a cloud-based collaboration platform for federal, state and local health officials. “It essentially is for the rapid, automated collection and dissemination of data,” said Dr. Taha Kass-Hout, BioSense Read More »

August 4, 2011
| Filed under North America and Public Health
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Polio Can Be Beaten If U.S. Protects Worldwide Vaccination Efforts

Smallpox, which claimed 2 million lives in 1967, was stamped out by 1980 through an enormous vaccine campaign. Today the world has a shot at a second such triumph, this time over polio. It will take more than good medicine to succeed. …

July 29, 2011
| Filed under Africa, Asia/Pacific, Europe, Middle East, North America, South America, South Asia, International, Policy & Initiatives, and Public Health
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Renewal of 2006 preparedness law advances in US House

CIDRAP – The report for calendar year 2010, released this week, lists the amounts of countermeasures that have been acquired for anthrax, botulinum toxin, smallpox, and radiation exposures. The products are stored in the Strategic National Stockpile.

July 29, 2011
| Filed under North America, Agents & Toxins, Countermeasures, Policy & Initiatives, and Public Health
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HHS Official Warns of Biodefense Vulnerabilities

A senior Obama administration biodefense official on Thursday told House lawmakers that the United States does not yet have all the medical countermeasures it might need to respond to an act of biological terrorism, Congressional Quarterly reported (see GSN, June 30). Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response Nicole Lurie spoke during Read More »