News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – With tougher security requirements set to take effect next April, few state public health laboratories plan to maintain stocks of certain pathogens considered most tempting to bioterrorists, according to the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) and officials with state labs.

(CIDRAP News) – Federal health officials are inviting the public to weigh in on whether research on H5N1 avian influenza viruses, including strains modified in the lab to make them more transmissible, is risky enough to require new safety regulations and precautions.

(CIDRAP News) – The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has revised its list of potentially dangerous biological agents and toxins and the regulations covering them, and some of the changes have public health laboratories concerned.

(CIDRAP News) – A federal advisory committee is recommending that 11 bacterial species and viruses on the current "select agent" list, including anthrax and Ebola virus, be singled out for special safeguards and that another 19 agents be dropped from the list entirely.

(CIDRAP News) – The US government needs much closer collaboration with private industry—like the arrangements used in building aircraft carriers and putting men on the moon—in order to improve the nation's medical defenses against biological, chemical, radiological, and nuclear threats, says a report from a federal advisory panel.

(CIDRAP News) – Two of the nation's five biosafety level 4 (BSL-4) labs lack outer-ring security controls to protect against a terrorist attack or theft of some of the world's most dangerous pathogens, such as the Ebola and smallpox viruses, according to a new report from the Governmental Accountability Office (GAO).

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently unveiled its plan for developing and buying medical countermeasures against a range of biological, chemical, and other threats, with new anthrax and smallpox vaccines among the near-term priorities.