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(CIDRAP News) – The US House of Representatives on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved a bill authorizing about $2.9 billion in spending on preparedness for bioterrorism and other public health emergencies.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has announced seven new research grant programs to speed efforts to prevent, diagnose, and treat diseases related to bioterrorism.

(CIDRAP News) – The American Medical Association this week declined to support any immediate steps toward vaccinating the whole population against smallpox, but endorsed planning for such a step in case it is needed in the future.

(CIDRAP News) – Rapid tests for detecting anthrax spores on surfaces should not be used alone as the basis for public health or clinical decisions, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned in today's issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

(CIDRAP News) – Eighty-five million pieces of mail were processed at anthrax-contaminated Postal Service plants in New Jersey and Washington, DC, before the plants were closed, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevented (CDC) reported today. Although the numbers suggest that cross-contaminated mail may be widespread, officials said the risk of contracting inhalational anthrax from such mail is very low.

(CIDRAP News) – Large-scale quarantine of potentially exposed people is not likely to be the optimal strategy for containing a disease outbreak resulting from bioterrorism in most circumstances, according to public health experts writing in today's issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

(CIDRAP News) – A new study commissioned by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) indicates that the risk of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) occurring in the United States is extremely low, but USDA officials who released the study said they are considering taking steps to lower the risk further.

Nov 29, 2001 (CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has awarded Acambis Inc. a $428 million contract to produce an additional 155 million doses of smallpox vaccine by the end of 2002, HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson announced Wednesday.

(CIDRAP News) – About 19% of more than 3,000 postal workers who took ciprofloxacin to prevent anthrax from the recent bioterrorist attacks reported having "severe" gastrointestinal side effects, but only 2% sought medical attention for them, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Officials described the findings as being in line with other reports on ciprofloxacin.

(CIDRAP News) – If smallpox reappears in the United States, health authorities will strive to trace and vaccinate everyone who has had contact with infected or exposed persons but probably will not mount any mass vaccination campaigns, according to a draft plan released Monday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Nov 21, 2001 (CIDRAP News)—A cluster of three unexplained deaths after routine knee surgeries in Minnesota has prompted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to hunt for similar cases nationwide and caused Minnesota health officials to call a 1-week moratorium on elective knee surgeries.

(CIDRAP News) – The nation's fifth recent death due to inhalational anthrax—that of a 94-year-old Connecticut woman—was announced today as public health officials were explaining that they don't know how the patient contracted anthrax but don't think it was from a naturally occurring source.

Nov 16, 2001 (CIDRAP News) – In the current investigation of anthrax cases, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will try to determine if some parts of the country have a normal background level of anthrax spores that poses no threat to humans and, if so, what that level is, CDC officials said today.

(CIDRAP News) – Pregnant and lactating women who may have been exposed to anthrax should be treated prophylactically with amoxicillin rather than ciprofloxacin when the anthrax strain is found to be penicillin-sensitive, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) recommends.

Nov 12 (CIDRAP News) – Improved survival among victims of the recent anthrax attacks, as compared with past anthrax cases, is probably a result of better antibiotic regimens, early recognition and treatment, and improved supportive care, among other factors, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) officials.

Nov 8 (CIDRAP News) – The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is working on model legislation to equip states to cope with public health emergencies, and the current draft is now available on the Internet, according to a recent announcement by Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy G. Thompson.

(CIDRAP News) – Teams of specialists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have been vaccinated against smallpox and are training to respond to any intentional release of the smallpox virus, the CDC has announced.

(CIDRAP News) – As part of its response to the recent anthrax attacks, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is holding daily media briefings on its anthrax investigation and related activities and posting transcripts of the briefings on its Web site.

(CIDRAP News) – Donald A. Henderson, MD, public health expert and director of the successful campaign to eradicate smallpox in the 1970s, has been appointed to coordinate the national response to public health emergencies. Tommy G. Thompson, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), named Henderson last week as director of the newly created Office of Public Health Preparedness.

(CIDRAP New) – Officials from the Mayo Clinic and Roche Molecular Biochemicals today announced the development of a DNA test that they say can accurately detect anthrax bacteria in human and environmental samples in less than an hour, far faster than currently available tests. They said they will begin making the test available free to public health laboratories this week to help combat the current spate of anthrax attacks.