News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – Kris Ehresmann, RN, MPH, clearly recalls when she learned the United States had just lost nearly half of its flu vaccine.

At 9:50 a.m. on Oct 5, Ehresmann knew that her job as manager of the immunization, tuberculosis, and international health section for the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) had instantly become much harder. That moment marked the beginning of a series of difficult decisions under fast-changing circumstances.

(CIDRAP News) – Federal health officials yesterday announced grants to build 11 new biodefense laboratories around the country, including two that will be authorized to study the most dangerous pathogens.

(CIDRAP News) – Emergency workers in the United States believe they lack adequate gear to protect themselves when responding to chemical, biological, or radiological terrorist attacks, according to a RAND study released last week.

(CIDRAP News) – Donald A. Henderson, MD, MPH, the man who did more than anyone else to eradicate smallpox, sees powerful reasons for both concern and hope in humanity's ancient battle against infectious diseases.

On one hand, with globalization and the threat of bioterrorism, the world now confronts a more dangerous microbial landscape than ever before, Henderson said this week in a lecture at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.

(CIDRAP News) – A World Health Organization (WHO) official today said the peak of the epidemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) has passed in places other than China and Hong Kong, despite the continuing increase in cases.

(CIDRAP News) – The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) has released a 68-page report on its plan for expanding research on "Category A" bioterrorism agents: anthrax, smallpox, plague, tularemia, viral hemorrhagic fevers, and botulism.

(CIDRAP News) – Comparison of an interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma) assay for latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) with the standard tuberculin skin test (TST) suggests that the interferon assay is less likely to produce false-positive results in people with prior BCG vaccination or reactivity to nontuberculous mycobacteria, according to a report in the Journal of the American Medical Association.