News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – Foodborne disease outbreaks that occurred in schools between 1973 and 1997 made nearly 50,000 students sick and sent 1,514 to hospitals, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

(CIDRAP News) – Federal officials say that devices for quickly detecting Bacillus anthracis spores in the environment are not reliable and should not be used in assessing possible bioterrorism threats.

(CIDRAP News) – Three more cases of Escherichia coli O157:H7 infection have been linked with ground beef recalled by a ConAgra plant in Greeley, Colo., bringing the total to 19, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said yesterday.

(CIDRAP News) – The House of Representatives' version of a bill to set up a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) would keep the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in control of public health programs for dealing with bioterrorism, according to an official of the American Society for Microbiology (ASM).

(CIDRAP News) – ConAgra Foods is voluntarily recalling 18 million pounds of ground beef from a plant in Greeley, Colo., as a result of 16 cases of Escherichia coli O157:H7 infection linked with meat from the plant, US Department of Agriculture (USDA) officials announced today.

The action, one of the largest ground beef recalls on record, is an expansion of a 354,000-pound voluntary recall that USDA announced Jun 30.

(CIDRAP News) – President Bush's National Strategy for Homeland Security, released this week, lays out a lengthy agenda for defending the country against bioterrorism as well as other kinds of terrorist attacks.

Note: This article was updated on Jul 16, 2002, with comments from a senior health economist at CDC on the study discussed.

(CIDRAP News) – Though two top federal health officials recently were quoted as saying that half a million healthcare workers may be vaccinated against smallpox, the official word from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is that the scope of the vaccination program has not yet been decided.