News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – An annual report released yesterday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) profiles a wide range of CDC influenza-related projects around the world, from flu surveillance in Indonesia to vaccine effectiveness studies in El Salvador and epidemiology training in Ghana.

(CIDRAP News) – Federal health officials today unveiled a new policy for overseeing life sciences dual-use research, such as two recent H5N1 transmission studies that have sparked bioterror concerns as well as cries of censorship.

(CIDRAP News) – International experts say that, while experiments on H5N1 avian flu transmission in mammals are important, publishing full details of such "dual-use" studies likely will not speed up the vaccine response in a pandemic, according to a news report and editorial in Nature today.

(CIDRAP News) – A Senate committee began work on reauthorizing the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act (PAHPA) yesterday by calling federal and public health officials before them to testify about gaps and what steps are needed to better prepare the nation against flu and bioterror threats.

(CIDRAP News) – A workshop summary released today by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) offers a wide range of observations and suggestions about what worked well and not so well during the pandemic H1N1 influenza vaccination campaign—a complex, months-long operation with a cast of thousands.