News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – Two recent public opinion polls suggest that somewhere between half and two thirds of Americans would get a smallpox shot if it were offered, despite the risk of serious side effects.

(CIDRAP News) – In a brief statement today, President George W. Bush announced that the government will begin giving smallpox shots to military and other government personnel in high-risk areas and to willing front-line healthcare workers.

(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.

(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).

(CIDRAP News) – The CIA has good evidence that four nations—Iraq, North Korea, Russia, and France—have secret stores of smallpox virus, according to a Washington Post report based on comments from officials speaking anonymously.

(CIDRAP News) – The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) should make a few changes in its congressionally required research program on the anthrax vaccine, including studying use of the vaccine in children and the elderly, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) said in a recent report.

(CIDRAP News) – In response to a US senator's speculation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says there is no evidence that bioterrorism has played a role in the spread of West Nile virus to and within the United States.

(CIDRAP News) – Researchers report they have discovered the probable strategy that anthrax uses to kill macrophages, a step that may allow the pathogen to escape detection by the innate immune system.

(CIDRAP News) – The Department of Defense's (DoD's) vaccine acquisition program is poorly organized and underfunded, making it difficult for the department to obtain important vaccines and maintain the supply of existing ones, according to a new report from the Institute of Medicine (IOM).

(CIDRAP News) – After the Sep 11 attacks in New York City, health officials quickly launched a program of syndromic surveillance—the classification and counting of emergency department cases according to whether or not they initially looked like a disease potentially caused by bioterrorism. The goal was to provide an early warning of any biological attack.