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(CIDRAP News) – In response to a federal judge's order this week, the Department of Defense (DoD) said it would suspend the anthrax vaccination program for military personnel.

"The Department will stop giving anthrax vaccinations until the legal situation is clarified," DoD officials said in a statement dated yesterday.

(CIDRAP News) – Stating that US soldiers should not be used as "guinea pigs for experimental drugs," a federal district judge in Washington, DC, yesterday granted a preliminary injunction against the Department of Defense's (DoD's) mandatory anthrax vaccination program.

(CIDRAP News) – No more SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) cases have cropped up in the wake of the single case reported in Taiwan last week, and quarantine or self-monitoring orders for most of the patient's contacts have been lifted.

(CIDRAP News) – Forty-two children have died recently of influenza-related causes, and at least some of them had no underlying health problems, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported today.

(CIDRAP News) – Britain's health secretary reported this week what could be the world's first case of a person contracting variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) from a blood transfusion.

John Reid told the House of Commons that a person who died recently of vCJD had received blood in 1996 from a donor who became ill with vCJD in 1999 and died soon afterward.

(CIDRAP News) – The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) yesterday issued guidelines for using antiviral drugs to prevent and treat influenza during the current season.

The guidelines cover the use of four antivirals—oseltamivir, zanamivir, amantadine, and rimantadine. The CDC emphasizes using the medications to control flu outbreaks in nursing homes and other institutions housing people at high risk for flu complications.

(CIDRAP News) – Thirty-six states had "widespread" influenza outbreaks by the end of last week, 12 more states than faced that situation a week earlier, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported today.

All western states except South Dakota and Alaska had widespread flu, meaning outbreaks in at least half their regions, the CDC says in the Dec 19 issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

(CIDRAP News) – The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently approved a new test that clinical laboratories can use to help identify anthrax in cultures of bacteria from people potentially infected with the pathogen.

(CIDRAP News) – A Taiwanese scientist has contracted SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome), probably while studying the SARS coronavirus in a laboratory, the Taiwan Department of Health reported today.

Dec 31, 2002 (CIDRAP News) – Individuals receiving smallpox vaccine should wait 3 weeks before donating blood, according to guidance issued yesterday by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The recommendations are being issued as a precautionary measure to reduce the "very slight risk" of bloodborne exposure to vaccinia virus in certain patient populations, according to the agency.

(CIDRAP News) – An outbreak of avian influenza in South Korea has resulted in the deaths of 24,000 chickens at a farm southeast of Seoul.

The disease killed 19,000 chickens at the farm and prompted authorities to destroy the remaining 5,000 chickens as a containment measure, according to a report by the OIE (Office International des Epizooties), the world organization for animal health.

(CIDRAP News) – The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is buying 375,000 doses of influenza vaccine from British drug maker Chiron to boost the nation's waning vaccine supply, HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson announced today.

In addition, HHS has negotiated a contract for 3 million doses of the intranasal vaccine FluMist that state and local health departments can buy if needed, Thompson announced.

(CIDRAP News) – The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has announced details of how the compensation program for civilians who are injured by the smallpox vaccine will work.

(CIDRAP News) – New federal rules intended to prevent the use of food as a bioterrorism weapon take effect today, but it will be 8 months before the rules are fully enforced, according to the Food and Drug Admnistration (FDA).

(CIDRAP News) – Despite a flood of new federal aid, the states are only modestly better prepared to cope with major health emergencies now than they were before the terrorist attacks of 2001, according to a report by a nonprofit public health advocacy group.

(CIDRAP News) – With influenza spreading rapidly and vaccine supplies running low, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended today that people at high risk for flu complications should have priority for vaccination.

(CIDRAP News) – The federal government will buy 250,000 doses of influenza vaccine from Aventis Pasteur to augment the nation's dwindling supply, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Tommy Thompson announced today.

(CIDRAP News) – Health officials in Hong Kong are investigating a case in which a 5-year-old boy was infected with an avian influenza virus called influenza A(H9N2).

The boy was admitted to a hospital Nov 27 with fever, cough, and runny nose, the Hong Kong Department of Health said in a news release yesterday. He was discharged 2 days later and has recovered.

Dec 10, 2004 (CIDRAP News) – The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has put the finishing touches on record-keeping rules designed to help the agency trace the sources and travels of contaminated food, but food businesses have at least a year to comply.

(CIDRAP News) – The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) yesterday reaffirmed its earlier findings that recent hepatitis outbreaks in Tennessee, Georgia, and Pennsylvania were caused by green onions (scallions) from Mexico.