(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).
(CIDRAP News) Amid controversy around the construction of a biodefense laboratory in Boston, a project risk assessment from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which is funding the lab, has been condemned as unsound by the National Research Council (NRC).
(CIDRAP News) The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently released a guide to help communities retool their health-related call centers into systems for meeting the needs of the public in homes or shelters during emergencies such as a pandemic or bioterrorist attack.
(CIDRAP News) – The White House recently issued a lengthy homeland security directive aimed at bolstering the response of federal, state, and local public health systems to national emergencies such as bioterrorist attacks, influenza pandemics, and natural disasters.
(CIDRAP News) – The US government recently awarded contracts totaling about $34 million to two companies for development of drugs to treat pneumonic plague, tularemia, and anthrax, three of the diseases terrorists are deemed most likely to try to exploit.
