All News

(CIDRAP News) – Dr. Garry L. McKee is leaving his post as administrator of the US Department of Agriculture's (USDA's) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) to take a position at the FSIS Technical Service Center in Omaha, Neb., USDA officials announced yesterday.

(CIDRAP News) – Indonesia has been hit by an unusually large dengue fever epidemic this year, with more than 300 deaths among more than 17,000 cases so far, according to news service reports.

(CIDRAP News) – A pair of recent studies on variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) raises warning flags about the risk of spreading the disease through blood given by people who are carrying the illness but have no symptoms.

(CIDRAP News) – The FBI this week released a photo of a letter addressed to the White House last fall that contained ricin and threatened to "turn D.C. into a ghost town" if new trucking regulations went into effect.

The letter stated, "If you change the hours of service on January 4, 2004 I will turn D.C. into a ghost town. The powder on the letter is RICIN have a nice day Fallen Angel."

(CIDRAP News) – A detailed report on 10 Vietnamese patients who had H5N1 avian influenza, including eight who died, suggests that no currently available drugs are very effective against the disease.

(CIDRAP News) – An unusual intestinal infection that is often mistaken for appendicitis has been traced to a specific food source, iceberg lettuce, for the first time, according to a report in the Mar 1 Journal of Infectious Diseases (JID).

(CIDRAP News) – The inspector general of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) is investigating allegations that the nation's first cow with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) was not a "downer" when it arrived at a slaughter plant in December.

(CIDRAP News) – A US Department of Agriculture (USDA) advisory committee says it needs help resolving different assessments of the nation's risk for more cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) before it can complete its recommendations for further steps to prevent the disease.

(CIDRAP News) – Genetic analysis has shown that an avian influenza outbreak at a poultry farm in Texas involves a highly pathogenic H5N2 virus, but it poses little risk to humans, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced today.

(CIDRAP News) – Under a plan currently being discussed, a major bioterrorist attack could trigger use of the mail system to deliver antibiotics from a national stockpile to homes, the US Postal Service (USPS) announced this week.

(CIDRAP News) – The H5N1 avian influenza virus has killed two house cats in Thailand, but the event probably does not signal an increased threat to human health, the World Health Organization (WHO) said today.

(CIDRAP News) – Italian researchers this week reported a new form of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, that resembles sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), a human brain disease that has not previously been linked to BSE.

(CIDRAP News) – Two more human deaths caused by H5N1 avian influenza were reported today, while United Nations health officials again warned that it will take intense efforts to contain the disease.

Officials in Thailand confirmed a fatal case of H5N1 infection in a 4-year-old boy, who died Feb 3, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported. Thailand has had nine human cases, including seven deaths.

(CIDRAP News) – A second outbreak of avian influenza was reported in Japan today, while a United Nations (UN) animal health official suggested it may not be possible to eradicate the disease in Asia.

(CIDRAP News) – Complications of smallpox vaccination, such as cardiac inflammation and spreading of vaccinia virus to others, remain relatively rare after close to 600,000 vaccinations of US military personnel over the past year.

(CIDRAP News) – A leopard in a zoo near Bangkok, Thailand, died of the same H5N1 avian influenza virus that has struck eight Asian countries, according to news service reports today.

(CIDRAP News) – The recent prediction from a panel of experts that the United States is likely to see more cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) does not clash with a previous Harvard University study that described a low risk of the disease, according to a member of the panel.

(CIDRAP News) – Thailand reported two more confirmed human cases of H5N1 avian influenza and another death today, while the United Nations warned that the virus is still spreading in Asian poultry.

In the United States, meanwhile, an outbreak of avian influenza at four live-bird markets in New Jersey was attributed to a low-pathogenic strain that poses no threat to humans.

(CIDRAP News) – Fever, cough, and chest radiograph abnormalities were the most common features in preliminary clinical descriptions of 15 human cases of H5N1 avian influenza, provided today by US and World Health Organization (WHO) officials.

The WHO published information on 10 Vietnamese patients, eight of whom died, while the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported on five Thai patients, all of whom died.

(CIDRAP News) – A recent case of vaccinia virus transmission from a soldier to his wife and then to their breast-feeding baby suggests a need for greater precautions by smallpox vaccine recipients and breast-feeding mothers who live together, according to a case report published this week.