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(CIDRAP News) Now that the federal government has some licensed smallpox vaccine in its stockpile, a presidential announcement on vaccination recommendations may be coming very soon, bioterrorism expert Michael T. Osterholm, PhD, MPH, predicted last week.
"I believe that in the next days you'll be hearing from the president about this vaccine," Osterholm told healthcare workers at a meeting in Minneapolis.
Federal health officials have announced plans to expand research on whether chronic wasting disease (CWD) in deer and elk poses a threat to humans and other species.
(CIDRAP News) Nearly all local public healthdepartments have made some progress on bioterrorism preparedness in the pastyear, according to a recent online survey by the National Association of Countyand City Health Officials (NACCHO).
(CIDRAP News) The Pentagon's mandatory anthrax shots caused adverse reactions in most recipients and helped prompt many Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard members to transfer to other units or leave the military between 1998 and 2000, according to a survey by Congress's General Accounting Office (GAO).
(CIDRAP News) Recent meat recalls associated with a prolonged listeriosis outbreak show that the current federal program for keeping Listeria out of meatis falling short, Elsa Murano, the US Department of Agriculture's undersecretary for food safety, said in remarks prepared for a speech yesterday.
(CIDRAP News) – The CIA has good evidence that four nations—Iraq, North Korea, Russia, and France—have secret stores of smallpox virus, according to a Washington Post report based on comments from officials speaking anonymously.
(CIDRAP News) Federal health officials have taken the unusual step of asking the public its opinion on whether the possible benefits of testing smallpox vaccine in a small group of children are worth the risks.
(CIDRAP News) The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has updated the licensing for the government's decades-old stockpile of Dryvax smallpox vaccine by approving a new vaccine kit that includes a new diluent and bifurcated needles, according to federal officials.
(CIDRAP News) Ð A second poultry processing plant has been linked by DNA fingerprinting to the multistate listeriosis outbreak in the Northeast, and two other plants are being investigated in connection with the outbreak, according to federal health officials.
(CIDRAP News) The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has a long-standing policy of not buying irradiated ground beef for the federal school lunch program, but that may change by the end of this year.
(CIDRAP News) The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has halted the importation of Mexican cantaloupes because of evidence that unsanitary conditions in melon fields and processing facilities have caused four salmonellosis outbreaks in the past 3 years.
(CIDRAP News) The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) should make a few changes in its congressionally required research program on the anthrax vaccine, including studying use of the vaccine in children and the elderly, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) said in a recent report.
(CIDRAP News) The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has finished writing rules that open the door to the irradiation of fruits and vegetables imported into the United States.
(CIDRAP News) The world's last naturally acquired case of smallpox occurred almost exactly 25 years ago, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) notes in today's issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
The smallpox case occurred in the Merca District of Somalia on Oct 26, 1977, the CDC says. Less than 3 years later, in May 1980, the World Health Organization declared the world free of naturally occurring smallpox.
(CIDRAP News) A large-scale bioterrorist attack on US agriculture would probably not lead to famine or malnutrition, but it could damage the economy, public health, and public confidence in the food system, according to a report recently released by the National Academies' National Research Council.
(CIDRAP News) Irradiated ground beef has been showing up in more and more American supermarkets this year, with at least a dozen chains representing thousands of stores now stocking it, according to reports from the Minnesota Beef Council and other industry sources.
(CIDRAP News) The federal government's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) amended its June 2002 recommendations on smallpox vaccinations for healthcare workers this week in an effort to ensure that the healthcare system will have enough immunized people to deal with a smallpox outbreak.
(CIDRAP News) In the 1960s, the rate of vaccinia virus transmission from people newly vaccinated against smallpox to nonimmunized people was low, but the rate could be higher today because of medical differences between populations then and now, according to a new analysis by smallpox experts.
(CIDRAP News) Federal health officials announced today that three environmental samples taken from a Pennsylvania poultry processing plant contained a Listeria strain matching that of patients in the current listeriosis outbreak in the Northeast. The announcement came 3 days after the company expanded its recall of turkey and chicken products from the original 295,000 pounds to a record-setting 27.4 million pounds.
(CIDRAP News) The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced this week that companies can petition the agency for permission to use terms like "electronic pasteurization" in place of "irradiation" on the labeling for irradiated foods.