News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – The risks in working with potentially dangerous pathogens in US labs are low to the scientists involved as well as to the general public, according to two recent reports on safety incidents.

(CIDRAP News) – Public health leaders, recalling and reflecting on the anthrax letter attacks of 2001 in a lengthy report released today, say the nation is better prepared to respond to such an emergency than it was 10 years ago, but their confidence is tinged with fear of slipping backward in the current era of budget cutting.

(CIDRAP News) – A report from the National Research Council (NRC) calls for some changes in a US Army immunization program for lab researchers who work with dangerous pathogens, saying the vaccines need to be made more accessible to civilian scientists.

(CIDRAP News) – Combining vaccination with 14 days of antibiotic therapy after exposure to airborne anthrax may be an alternative to the current recommendation of 60 days of antibiotics alone, according to an animal study reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

(CIDRAP News) – Some of the world's leading experts on biological weapons and public health will meet in Geneva, Switzerland, Oct 21 and 22 for an international conference on the threat of a bioterrorist attack involving smallpox.

(CIDRAP News) – In the years when smallpox vaccine was being used to eradicate the disease, about 50 people out of every million vaccinated suffered life-threatening complications, and another 935 had serious complications. About two thirds of those complications might have been prevented with better screening, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).