News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – The United States still lacks a way to assess the need for high-containment laboratories and national standards for building and maintaining them, despite 2009 recommendations, according to a report yesterday from the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced a plan today to spend less time visually inspecting poultry carcasses and more time checking other safety variables, saying this will simultaneously improve food safety and save money for taxpayers and poultry companies.

(CIDRAP News) – Though much of the nation's ability to detect potentially catastrophic disease outbreaks, manmade or otherwise, is in the hands of state and local agencies, the federal government still lacks a comprehensive view of the role it plays in biosurveillance, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported.

(CIDRAP News) – A report released yesterday by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) offers yet another review of lessons from the federal government's response to the H1N1 influenza pandemic while detailing how the government spent, and is still spending, $6.15 billion that was appropriated for the response.

(CIDRAP News) – Although the Food Safety Working Group (FSWG) appointed by President Barack Obama in 2009 has been a good first step to boost food safety collaboration among government agencies, it lacks results-oriented goals and performance benchmarks, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a new report.

(CIDRAP News) – In the first of an expected annual series of reports to Congress on duplication in federal government goals and activities, the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) cites problems in three areas of public health: food safety, biodefense, and communications.