News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) issued a report last week on the nation's progress in emergency preparedness, highlighting successes in all-hazards planning and gaps in cybersecurity efforts and disaster recovery.

The report is the first in a series of annual reports designed to gauge key capabilities and help national officials set priorities and fill gaps.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently released a new planning tool to help hospitals and health systems prepare for medical surges that could result from a bioterror attack, natural disaster, or other public health emergency.

(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.

(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) –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.