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(CIDRAP News) – The vaccine supply for the soon-to-begin influenza season is suddenly in serious condition with news that Chiron Corp., maker of about half the US supply, has been ordered to stop production by British health authorities and will not be shipping its doses.

(CIDRAP News) – Two vaccine companies have received contracts estimated at about $200 million to produce a modified smallpox vaccine for the US government.

Acambis, based in Cambridge, UK, and Cambridge, Mass., and Denmark's Bavarian Nordic both won contracts on Sep 30 to continue research on a smallpox vaccine made with a modified version of the currently used live vaccinia (Dryvax) vaccine, news services reported.

(CIDRAP News) – A young girl who died Sunday night is Thailand's 11th avian influenza victim, a health ministry spokeswoman told news services on Monday.

The girl's H5N1 infection had just been confirmed on Sunday. She was from the northern Thai province of Phetchabun and had been in the hospital for about a week, Reuters news reported. Reports put her age at 8 or 9 years old.

(CIDRAP News) – Pregnant women and children younger than 3 in California will soon no longer receive vaccines containing more than a trace of mercury, under a law approved this week.

Vaccines for those groups will contain no more than a trace of thimerosal (termed thimerosal-free in the industry)—a preservative in some vaccines that contains ethyl mercury. The law takes effect in July 2006, according to news services.

(CIDRAP News) – The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded a $9.5 million grant to a Canadian firm that aims to develop an influenza vaccine that doesn't rely on eggs.

Editor's Note: See Oct 5 CIDRAP News story for important developments regarding the supply of flu vaccine since the story below was published.

(CIDRAP News) – Flu vaccine should be on time for the 2004-2005 influenza season, and it will be safe, according to testimony this week by Howard Pien, President and CEO of Chiron, maker of Fluvirin, before the US Senate Committee on Aging.

(CIDRAP News) – New cases of avian influenza in Southeast Asia this week have heightened surveillance, as key international health organizations ratchet up concerns about the pervasiveness of the disease

A 14-month-old Vietnamese boy who died on Sep 5 has been posthumously confirmed as a victim of H5N1 avian influenza, news reports said today.

(CIDRAP News) – Three federal agencies have signed a cooperative agreement with the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture (NASDA) to improve integration of state-federal responses to food and agricultural emergencies.

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) along with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) signed the agreement on Sep 23.

(CIDRAP News) – Thailand's avian influenza outbreak is drawing widespread international attention with the confirmation of two more human cases, one of which opens the possibility of human-to-human transmission.

(CIDRAP News) – More than 12% of passenger aircraft contained Escherichia coli or coliform bacteria in a recent round of testing, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found.

(CIDRAP News) – United Kingdom health officials this week began telling several thousand Britons they may face a slightly increased risk of contracting variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) because they received blood products from donors who later were found to have the disease.

(CIDRAP News)—Raw snow peas have been linked to an outbreak of cyclosporiasis in Pennsylvania that may have sickened almost 100 people, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has announced.

(CIDRAP News) – The graying of America is leading to an increase in hospital stays related to influenza, according to a research report in the Sep 15 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

(CIDRAP News) – Few children between the ages of 6 and 23 months received influenza shots in the 2002-03 flu season, which marked the first time federal health officials formally encouraged shots for that age-group, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

(CIDRAP News) – Calling for better prevention from catchment to consumer, the World Health Organization (WHO) on Sep 21 issued new guidelines to ensure drinking-water safety worldwide.

(CIDRAP News) – The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is proposing a set of regulations to reduce Salmonella enteritidis (SE) contamination of eggs on poultry farms, with a goal of reducing human SE infections by about 28%.

(CIDRAP News) – State Public Health Veterinarian Mira Leslie, DVM, MPH, hopes to greatly expand Washington's disease surveillance network Oct 1 when she speaks at a statewide veterinary meeting.

(CIDRAP News) – In a bid to limit the threat of an influenza pandemic, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is awarding a contract to Aventis Pasteur Inc. to make 2 million doses of a vaccine for humans to protect against H5N1 avian influenza.

(CIDRAP News) – California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has vetoed a bill that would have required school boards to take formal action and provide detailed information to students and parents before serving any irradiated food in schools.

In a brief veto message published on the governor's office Web site, Schwarzenegger said the bill would impose needless costs on school districts.

(CIDRAP News) – A nationwide survey by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) suggests that risk factors for foodborne disease, such as inadequate handwashing by workers and keeping food at unsafe temperatures, are very common in the nation's restaurants, retail stores, and institutional food services.