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By Category: Research

Homeland Security’s BioWatch still flawed – UPI.com

Homeland Security's BioWatch still flawedUPI.comThe Department of Homeland Security's BioWatch system of air samplers has experienced numerous false alarms since first being deployed in 2003, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday. The newspaper said its investigation found the system not only …and more »

July 7, 2012
| Filed under Research
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Homeland Security Department develops foot-and-mouth disease vaccine

Los Angeles Times- It’s not often that the Department of Homeland Security makes it into a science blog, but this is an unusual week. The department announced this week that it has developed the first vaccine for foot-and-mouth disease that can be manufactured and licensed in the United States and that could be used in Read More »

July 6, 2012
| Filed under North America, Countermeasures, Public Health, and Research
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Revised Estimate Increases Global H1N1 Mortality Figures by Factor of 15

(Center for Biosecurity of UPMC) The previously reported number of deaths due to laboratory-confirmed H1N1 (18,500) during the 16 months of the 2009-2010 pandemic (April 2009-August 2010)1 is widely acknowledged to be a gross underestimate because most flu patients were not tested. Evidence of this lack of data is that less than 12% of laboratory-confirmed Read More »

July 5, 2012
| Filed under Africa, South Asia, Policy & Initiatives, Public Health, and Research
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Measuring the uncertainties of pandemic influenza

(EurekAlert!) A major collaboration between US research centers has highlighted three factors that could ultimately determine whether an outbreak of influenza becomes a serious epidemic that threatens national health. The research suggests that the numbers in current response plans could be out by a factor of two or more depending on the characteristics of the Read More »

July 5, 2012
| Filed under North America, Public Health, and Research
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Flu research moratorium important, but somewhat problematic

(Online Athens) Many scientists agreed with the decision to implement a moratorium on research designed to find how a nasty strain of bird flu is transmitted and how it might more easily spread. The University of Georgia’s Ralph Tripp was among the more than 30 scientists who backed off in January on researching the spread Read More »