News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – A federal advisory committee is recommending that 11 bacterial species and viruses on the current "select agent" list, including anthrax and Ebola virus, be singled out for special safeguards and that another 19 agents be dropped from the list entirely.

(CIDRAP News) – The National Research Council (NRC), in a letter report, has advised the US Army to prepare a more comprehensive risk assessment than it initially proposed for a biodefense laboratory to be built at Ft. Detrick in Frederick, Md.

Two human plague cases reported in OregonTwo cases of human plague, the first in Oregon since 1995 and the only US cases in 2010, were reported by the Oregon Health Authority in September 2010, according to an article in today's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). The patients, ages 17 and 42, lived in the same household and had symptoms at the same time. Both had high fever and multiple bilateral inguinal buboes.