News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) yesterday approved the nation's first cell-based flu vaccine, a product from Novartis that uses technology that could help vaccinate more Americans in a pandemic but still has many of the same limitations of older egg-based flu vaccines.

The world needs much better influenza vaccines, but the quest for them faces a formidable barrier: overconfidence about the effectiveness of existing influenza vaccines.

(CIDRAP News) – The US government announced a total of $971 million in health emergency preparedness grants to states and territories yesterday, including $619 million for public health departments and $352 million for healthcare systems.

(CIDRAP News) – US health officials today announced the establishment of three public-private centers designed to give the nation a new and stronger ability to quickly make vaccines and drugs to respond to bioterrorist attacks, pandemic influenza, and other public health emergencies.

(CIDRAP News) – The federal agency tasked with shoring up the nation's preparedness against a host of public health emergencies released a plan yesterday to help it and other partners focus and coordinate steps to meet national preparedness objectives.