News & Perspective

(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) – Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials broke ground yesterday for the National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center (NBACC) at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Md.

Construction of the NBACC is slated for completion in 2008, DHS officials said in a news release. The facility's estimated cost is $128 million, according to an April 2005 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report.