Anthrax

(CIDRAP News) – The FBI, seeking to counter scientific skepticism on its investigation into the 2001 anthrax attacks, insisted this week that the anthrax powder could have been made by one person and contained no "intentional additives" to make it more dispersible.

(CIDRAP News) – The Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI's) recently revealed conclusion that the late anthrax researcher Dr. Bruce Ivins committed the anthrax letter attacks of 2001 has been greeted with skepticism by many in the scientific community.

(CIDRAP News) – Two Maryland pharmaceutical companies recently announced that they have submitted proposals to produce and deliver at least 25 million doses of a next-generation anthrax vaccine to the nation's Strategic National Stockpile.

(CIDRAP News) – Emergent BioSolutions Inc. recently announced it had secured two federal grants totaling $4.5 million for development of its botulism and next-generation anthrax vaccine candidates.

Emergent, maker of the nation's only licensed anthrax vaccine, announced the grants from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) in a Jul 24 news release.

(CIDRAP News) – The president of the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) complained to Congress last week that the federal program that monitors the air for dangerous pathogens in major cities is a heavy burden on state and local laboratories.

(CIDRAP News) – The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) plans to adopt new automated equipment that will be able to detect dangerous airborne pathogens in major US cities in as little as 4 hours, with a goal of starting deployment in the fall of 2010, DHS officials told Congress last week.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today announced that it is allocating states and major metropolitan areas $1.1 billion to strengthen public health preparedness and help healthcare facilities respond to emergency events such as an influenza pandemic or terrorist attack.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently offered another antibiotic option for combating inhalational anthrax in children by approving the quinolone drug levofloxacin (Levaquin).

In a letter dated May 5, the FDA endorsed the use of levofloxacin, made by Ortho-McNeil, in children 6 months of age and older. The agency had approved use of the drug for postexposure treatment of anthrax in adults in 2004.

(CIDRAP News) – VaxGen Inc. announced this week the sale of its experimental anthrax vaccine—which the US government pulled the plug on in 2006—to Emergent BioSolutions, maker of the only US-licensed anthrax vaccine.

(CIDRAP News) – Technical barriers have prevented the widespread use of human monoclonal antibodies as potent diagnostic and treatment tools, but scientists now say they have found a way to produce antibodies against seasonal influenza much faster than was previously possible.