Anthrax

(CIDRAP News) – The Bush administration today released a long catalog of what it considers the nation's biodefense and public health preparedness gains over the last 3 years and promised more improvements to come.

(CIDRAP News) – The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced plans today to buy up to 75 million doses of a new anthrax vaccine, or enough to inoculate 25 million people.

(CIDRAP News) – Under a plan currently being discussed, a major bioterrorist attack could trigger use of the mail system to deliver antibiotics from a national stockpile to homes, the US Postal Service (USPS) announced this week.

(CIDRAP News) – Test results announced today confirmed that a white powder found yesterday in Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's office was ricin, a deadly poison derived from castor beans, according to news services.

(CIDRAP News) – The Department of Defense (DoD) yesterday ordered the resumption of its mandatory anthrax vaccination program after a federal judge in Washington, DC, lifted an injunction that had halted the program Dec 22.

An order for immediate resumption of the inoculations was issued by David S. C. Chu, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, and was posted on a DoD Web site.

(CIDRAP News) – The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) formally stated yesterday that the licensed anthrax vaccine is safe and effective for preventing all forms of anthrax, including inhalational anthrax, thereby undermining the rationale of a recent court injunction that halted the Pentagon's anthrax vaccination program.

(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.

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) – 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.