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(CIDRAP News) – Testing has shown that anthrax found in a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) mail-processing facility in Maryland last week was a tiny amount that probably came from cross-contaminated mail, the FCC announced yesterday.

(CIDRAP News) – The Bush administration wants to provide the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) with an extra $146 million to protect the nation's food supply in fiscal 2003.

(CIDRAP News) – Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson yesterday detailed each state's share of more than $1 billion in bioterrorism preparedness funding and said states can start spending the first 20% of their shares immediately.

(CIDRAP News) – BioPort Corp of Lansing, Mich., yesterday received Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval to begin routine distribution of its anthrax vaccine after more than 3 years of effort to bring its operation up to federal standards.

"FDA is now satisfied that BioPort's renovated facility can produce a vaccine that meets FDA standards for safety and efficacy," the agency said in a news release.

(CIDRAP News) – A bioterrorist attack that caused mass casualties would very likely lead to shortages of medical resources, so preparedness planning must include a careful look at how to ration those resources fairly, an emergency medicine specialist told a conference audience in Minneapolis this week.

(CIDRAP News) – In view of the specter of bioterrorism, it's time to overhaul the hodgepodge of outdated, little-known, inconsistent state laws dealing with public health emergencies in the United States, an expert on the subject told a conference audience in Minneapolis yesterday.

(CIDRAP News) – The Bush administration says it will seek $1.5 billion for bioterrorism-related research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in fiscal 2003, a five-fold increase over the $300 million budgeted this year.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will soon release about 20% of the $1 billion in bioterrorism preparedness funding that is slated to go to states this year, HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson announced Jan 25.

(CIDRAP News) – Food safety regulators and specialists from around the world will meet in Marrakech, Morocco, Jan 28 through 30 in what the World Health Organization (WHO) calls the first global meeting dealing with methods to ensure food safety.

(CIDRAP News) – Thousands of people who were potentially exposed to anthrax last fall will be interviewed over the next 8 weeks to assess the results of their postexposure antibiotic treatment, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced yesterday.

(CIDRAP News) – British and American scientists have teamed up with several technology corporations in seeking to enlist personal-computer (PC) owners from around the world in the hunt for a molecule that can keep the anthrax toxin out of human cells.

Jan 22, 2001 (CIDRAP News) – The case of a postal inspector who handled anthrax-tainted equipment and came down with a lingering anthrax-like illness—but never had clear evidence of the organism in his body—continues to puzzle his physicians nearly 3 months after he first got sick.

(CIDRAP News) – A preliminary study linking anthrax vaccinations in pregnant women with an increased risk of birth defects in their babies has prompted the US military to step up efforts to prevent immunization of pregnant women.

(CIDRAP News) – A recent survey of more than 10,000 people in seven states found no connection between people's risk factors for foodborne illness, such as risky food-handling habits, and their willingness to buy irradiated meat and poultry, according to a report in the December Journal of Food Protection.

(CIDRAP News) – Salmonella standards for meat and poultry will be among several topics on the table when the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods (NACMCF) meets Jan 22 to 25 in Washington, DC.

(CIDRAP News) – Dozens of people in California and neighboring states contracted Salmonella infections from eating raw alfalfa sprouts last year in an episode that has prompted the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to renew its warning that people with weak immune systems should not eat sprouts.

(CIDRAP News) – Federal health officials revealed this week that they are working on a plan to use immune globulin derived from the blood of anthrax-vaccinated military personnel for emergency treatment of patients with severe cases of inhalational anthrax, if needed.

(CIDRAP News) – A recent analysis of ground pork in grocery stores in five states showed that 4% of the samples contained enterococci with high-level resistance to gentamicin, an antibiotic used to treat enterococcal infections in humans. In addition, most Enterococcus faecium isolates were resistant to quinupristin-dalfopristin (Synercid), a streptogramin antibiotic used to treat infections caused by vancomycin-resistant E faecium.

(CIDRAP News) – The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has released two sets of guidelines designed to help food-related businesses of all kinds prevent food contamination and tampering by criminals or terrorists.

(CIDRAP News) – A new nuclear medicine technique using a radioisotope-labeled antibody has shown enough promise for early diagnosis of anthrax infection to gain the Food and Drug Administration's approval for a clinical trial, according to a recent report in the Journal of Nuclear Medicine.