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(CIDRAP News) – Canada broadened its safeguards against bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, yesterday by banning the use of cattle brains, spinal cords, and certain other body parts from all animal feeds, pet foods, and fertilizer.

Are you in charge of your company's crisis response plan or part of a business team trained to manage a sizable emergency that could threaten your organization's continuity? If so, you're no stranger to the concept of "all-hazards" preparedness. The business world has increasingly emphasized such an approach since the 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina experiences—and with good reason.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) confirmed yesterday that turkeys from a Virginia farm carried antibodies indicating possible past exposure to a mild form of H5N1 avian influenza virus.

(CIDRAP News) – This year's round of federal grants to states to help healthcare facilities prepare for public health emergencies totals $430 million, down from $450 million last year, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced recently.

(CIDRAP News) – Health officials in Perth, Australia, last week advised parents to seek medical care quickly for young children with respiratory symptoms, after three children under age 5 died of pneumonia as a complication of "mild" influenza A infections.

(CIDRAP News) – Indonesia's health ministry announced today that a 6-year-old boy from Banten province died of H5N1 avian influenza yesterday, according to several media reports.

Runizar Ruesin, an official with the health ministry's avian flu information center, said the boy died in a Jakarta hospital, the Associated Press (AP) reported today. He fell ill on Jul 1 and was hospitalized 4 days later, Ruesin said.

(CIDRAP News) – A Virginia agriculture official announced today that a turkey flock in Shenandoah County has tested positive for antibodies to a nonlethal H5 avian influenza virus, indicating possible past exposure.

(CIDRAP News) – The strain of Salmonella associated with 57 recent illnesses in 18 states has been found in a recalled snack called Veggie Booty, confirming interview-based evidence linking the product to the outbreak.

The Minnesota Department of Agriculture announced this week it had found Salmonella Wandsworth, a strain it said has not been implicated in a US foodborne outbreak before, in a sealed package of the snack.

(CIDRAP News) – Only 27% of Americans describe themselves as concerned about avian influenza, down from 35% last year, according to a national survey released this week.

In an Associated Press–Ipsos Public Affairs poll released on Jul 2, 41% of respondents said they were not concerned about avian flu, an increase from 31% last year. Another 34%—the same as last year—said they were moderately concerned.

Editor's note: This story was revised July 9, 2007, to make clear that plans call for the pandemic hotline model to be made freely available to anyone interested, not marketed as a commercial product. Some statements in the original version implied that the model would be marketed commercially.

(CIDRAP News) – France's agriculture ministry said today that three swans found dead in Moselle department in the eastern part of the country tested positive for H5N1 avian influenza, making France the third European country in recent weeks to report new outbreaks in wild birds.

(CIDRAP News) – Experts have concluded that the Atlanta man whose case of drug-resistant tuberculosis triggered an international health scare in May has a less dangerous form of the disease than was previously believed.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Jun 30 ordered a biodefense research laboratory at Texas A&M University to stop all work on select agents and toxins while the CDC investigates reports of lab workers infected with the category B bioterror agents Brucella and Coxiella burnetti.

(CIDRAP News) – Federal health officials released their influenza vaccine advisory Friday for the upcoming flu season, and though they did not extend the vaccine recommendations beyond current age groups, they strongly recommended vaccination of all healthcare workers and urged providers to schedule later immunization clinics.

(CIDRAP News) – An epidemiologic investigation of 52 cases of Salmonella infection in 17 states, most of them in children, has prompted a nationwide recall of a snack called Veggie Booty, federal health agencies reported yesterday.

(CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization (WHO) today confirmed two H5N1 cases from Vietnam dating back to late May and early June.

(CIDRAP News) – Blocking proposals stemming from notorious foodborne-disease outbreaks last year, a California State Assembly committee yesterday rejected one bill aimed at reducing contamination in leafy greens and stalled voting on two others, despite the State Senate's earlier approval of all three.

How are you explaining the current risk of an H5N1-related influenza pandemic to your boss, the emergency preparedness committee, or the executive suite today? Is the task daunting? Are you being waved off with the comment that all this attention to pandemic preparedness is just public health's version of Y2K?

(CIDRAP News) – The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today banned importation of five types of farmed Chinese seafood because of contamination with outlawed antimicrobial drugs, including one that can spawn antibiotic resistance.

(CIDRAP News) – The Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued two reports that address avian and pandemic influenza planning last week, one examining how well the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) is prepared to respond to avian flu outbreaks and the other assessing efforts by US and international agencies to help vulnerable countries.