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Editor’s Note: This story was revised Oct 6 to clarify Dr Lawrence Goodridge’s role in the outbreak investigation.

(CIDRAP News) – Thirteen percent of parents follow a vaccination schedule other than the recommended one for their young children, and more than 20% of parents who follow the approved schedule have doubts about it, according to a survey report from University of Michigan researchers.

Oct 4, 2011

(CIDRAP News) – A run of stability in the makeup of seasonal influenza vaccines continued as the World Health Organization (WHO) recently recommended using the same three flu strains in next year's Southern Hemisphere vaccine as are in the current Northern Hemisphere vaccine and were used last year in southern countries.

Oct 3, 2011

(CIDRAP News) – Positioning supplies of antibiotics in communities has been proposed as the next step to prepare for a Bacillus anthracis attack, and state and local public health officials are in the best position to determine where and how they should be stored, an Institute of Medicine (IOM) expert group reported today.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced a "Retail Food Safety Action Plan" aiming to improve how food facilities manage their food safety efforts and how public health agencies oversee them.

The plan calls for strengthening state and local food safety requirements for retail facilities and improving training for their workers, the FDA said in an e-mail statement yesterday.

Sep 30, 2011

(CIDRAP News) – A new analysis of influenza outbreak patterns in several navies in 1918 suggests that the first and second waves of the pandemic were caused by "antigenically distinct" viruses, a conclusion that runs counter to some other recent studies that have tried to discern why the second wave was so much more deadly than the first.

Sep 30, 2011

Sep 29, 2011

(CIDRAP News) – Seventeen more listeriosis infections, along with five more deaths, have been linked to a multistate outbreak tied to a Colorado farm's tainted cantaloupes, pushing the total to 72 illnesses and 13 deaths, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said yesterday.

(CIDRAP News) – US government laboratories had 395 incidents that involved the potential release of select agents between 2003 and 2009, though only seven related infections were reported, according to a new National Research Council (NRC) report.

Sep 28, 2011

(CIDRAP News) – The US Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) sets a lower bar for evidence of vaccine-related harm than would be accepted in civil courts, but that's what it takes for the program to succeed in helping to protect the vaccine supply, according to a report by two Canadian analysts.

(CIDRAP News) – Vaccinating women during the postpartum period is one strategy used to protect newborns against pertussis, but an optimal antibody response may not occur fast enough to protect babies during the first few weeks of life, Canadian researchers reported yesterday.

(CIDRAP News) – Few US states have addressed ethical issues surrounding pandemic flu preparedness in recent years, according to a new study in the American Journal of Public Health.

Also, the study authors found, states that have tackled the issues have focused rather narrowly, typically on allocating scarce hospital resources, while virtually ignoring such issues as community engagement surrounding isolation and quarantine plans.

Sep 26, 2011