News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – The price-tag for federal investments in new flu vaccine technology has been difficult to get a handle on, but yesterday in a review for Congress the Government Accountability Office (GAO) put the number at $2.1 billion since fiscal year 2005.

(CIDRAP News) – Federal officials, speaking at a White House briefing on the swine influenza outbreak today, said the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is declaring a public health emergency, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed 9 more human cases.

March 24, 2009

(CIDRAP News) – The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) this week charged that federal pandemic planning efforts rely too heavily on law enforcement and national security approaches, in effect making people, not disease, the enemy.

(CIDRAP News) – Farmers, airlines, and salmon fishermen stood to benefit when Congress passed a modestly trimmed emergency spending bill yesterday, but pandemic influenza preparedness lost out.

(CIDRAP News) – In a recent update on pandemic influenza preparedness planning, the US government reported meeting more than 90% of a long list of objectives it set for itself about 6 months ago.

The report charts progress on a wide range of preparedness measures, from shoring up laboratory capabilities to planning for distribution of critical medical supplies and preparing checklists for various sectors of the economy.

(CIDRAP News) – A second vaccine against human H5N1 influenza is being developed, US Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Mike Leavitt announced yesterday.

In a speech at an immunization conference, Leavitt announced that he has authorized the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to start work on a second vaccine, according to an Associated Press (AP) report published yesterday.

(CIDRAP News) – In the event of an influenza pandemic, medical and public health personnel and workers who make critical vaccines and drugs would have first call on scarce doses of vaccine, under the pandemic plan released by the federal government yesterday.