Editor's Note: CIDRAP's Public Health Practices online database showcases peer-reviewed practices, including useful tools to help others with their planning. This article is one of a biweekly series exploring the development of these practices. We hope that describing the process and context of these practices enhances pandemic planning.
(CIDRAP News) The National Institutes of Health (NIH) today announced the appointment of two committees to help address public worries about the safety of a biodefense laboratory under construction in Boston, 3 months after the National Research Council (NRC) sharply criticized an NIH risk assessment of the project.
(CIDRAP News) A federal district judge has dismissed a lawsuit aiming to stop the Pentagon's mandatory anthrax vaccination program for troops serving in some areas overseas, the Associated Press (AP) reported today.
Judge Rosemary M. Collyer in Washington, DC, said the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) acted appropriately when it determined the vaccine was safe and approved its use, according to the AP.
(CIDRAP News) Officials at Texas A&M University announced yesterday that the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has accepted the school's offer to pay a $1 million fine in connection with a 2007 report on several safety violations at its biodefense laboratory.
(CIDRAP News) The distribution of more than $5 billion in federal funds since 2001 has greatly improved states' preparedness to deal with disease outbreaks, natural disasters, and other public health emergencies, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today in a first-of-its-kind assessment.
(CIDRAP News) FluWiki, an online resource and community forum, has its finger on the pulse of pandemic influenza planning issues and avian flu news, but today it featured something unusual: a dialogue with a top federal science advisor who's directly involved in the government's pandemic preparations.
(CIDRAP News) – The Sunshine Project, a nonprofit group that has monitored biological weapons developments and helped expose safety breaches at several US biodefense research facilities, announced on Feb 1 that it had ceased operations.
(CIDRAP News) – The Bush administration today unveiled a $3.1 trillion budget for the 2009 fiscal year that cuts a number of public health initiatives but includes an increase for the Food and Drug Adminstration's (FDA's) food safety efforts.
(CIDRAP News) A RAND Corporation study of how well local health departments handle telephone reports of urgent disease cases found that the best performers had a live person answering calls at all hours.
(CIDRAP News) Several states have made progress preparing for a major public health emergency such as a pandemic or bioterror attack, but funding shortfalls at the federal level threaten to stall or even reverse recent gains, according to a report today from the nonprofit organization Trust for America's Health (TFAH).
