News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – Federal health officials yesterday released a 37-page report that they say demonstrates "tremendous progress" in developing countermeasures for bioterrorism through federally funded research since early 2002.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Health and Human Services yesterday announced $350 million in grants for eight regional centers to lead and coordinate research on defenses against bioterrorism and emerging infectious diseases.

(CIDRAP News) – A report by a consulting firm for the US Department of Transportation says a major bioterrorist attack on a US seaport could cost the nation from hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars.

But spending $5 billion to $10 billion a year on biodefense measures such as devices to detect airborne pathogens could limit the damage to a "sustainable" level, according to the report by Abt Associates Inc.

(CIDRAP News) – Six months after President Bush proposed the idea, the US House this week overwhelmingly passed "Project Bioshield," a plan to promote the development of drugs and vaccines needed to defend the nation against attacks with biological and other unconventional weapons.

(CIDRAP News) – A large-scale exercise to test the ability of government to respond to terrorism begins today with simulated signs of a biological attack in Chicago and a mock "dirty bomb" explosion in Seattle.

(CIDRAP News) – A Senate committee yesterday unanimously approved the Bush administration's "BioShield" plan to promote vaccines and treatments for biodefense but blocked the administration's proposal for compensating healthcare workers harmed by the smallpox vaccine.

Editor's note: This story was updated Jan 30, 2003, with additional information from the Department of Health and Human Services.

(CIDRAP News) – President Bush yesterday proposed an initiative, called Project Bioshield, to speed the development and production of vaccines and treatments for smallpox, anthrax, botulism, and other diseases that could be spread by terrorists.

(CIDRAP News) – A researcher's report of missing vials of the bacteria that causes plague led to a full-scale alert and investigation at Texas Tech University in Lubbock this week, but the alarm was called off when the researcher revealed he had previously destroyed the vials.