News & Perspective

By Craig W. Hedberg, PhDUniversity of Minnesota

Editor's Note: This commentary is a follow-up to "Commentary: Blame the public health system for prolonging listeriosis outbreak," published Oct 9, 2002.

(CIDRAP News) – About 900 adults who received smallpox shots in childhood are being revaccinated in a multicenter study to determine whether they still have any immunity to smallpox.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Agriculture says it wants to hear from the public about how to implement a congressional directive to allow the purchase of irradiated foods for the federal school lunch program and other commodity programs.

(CIDRAP News) – In passing a bill to create a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) this week, Congress left the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in charge of most bioterrorism preparedness and civilian biodefense research programs—to the relief of medical research and public health groups.

Editor's note: This story was revised Nov 22 with additional information from federal agriculture and health officials.

(CIDRAP News) – A New Jersey company that recalled 200,000 pounds of poultry products Nov 2 has expanded the recall to 4.2 million pounds because a product sample collected Nov 14 was contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced this week.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced yesterday that it will begin testing environmental surfaces for Listeria in processing plants that produce deli meats and hot dogs unless the plants do their own tests and share the results with the USDA.

(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.

Editor's note: This story was updated Nov 15 to include additional information from Food and Drug Administration officials.

(CIDRAP News) – 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).