News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – In an analysis of the US government's pandemic influenza preparedness plan, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) yesterday called on federal agencies to clarify their leadership responsibilities and recommended interagency testing and training exercises to improve preparedness.

(CIDRAP News) – Today we are launching a new daily News Scan to help our readers keep up with the full range of current and noteworthy developments in emerging infectious diseases, biosecurity, foodborne diseases, influenza, other public health threats, and relevant policy issues.

(CIDRAP News) –Many states and some cities will receive their first pandemic H1N1 vaccine doses on Oct 6, and most will distribute the first doses to healthcare workers, though some have included young children in the very first groups to be immunized.

(CIDRAP News) – A federal advisory board meeting in Washington, DC, today approved a set of recommendations that would help mobilize the scientific response in the wake of major public health events such as the 2009 H1N1 pandemic and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

(CIDRAP News) – Although no successful attacks on the US agriculture and food system have been reported in the past decade, the nation's efforts to defend the system came in for a barrage of criticism yesterday about a lack of coordination and various other shortcomings.