News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – A year-long voluntary moratorium on research involving transmissible H5N1 avian flu viruses ended today with a letter from a group of scientists that supports resuming the work in countries that have addressed the biosafety issues involved.

(CIDRAP News) – A World Health Organization (WHO) official said the agency will play a role in leading discussions on issues related to controversial H5N1 avian influenza transmission studies, as more experts called for a further global discussion of the issues.

(CIDRAP News) – An article published by the British Medical Journal says three scientists who helped frame World Health Organization (WHO) guidance on pandemic influenza preparedness had consulted for pharmaceutical companies that stood to profit from the WHO guidance and that the WHO did not disclose the scientists' industry ties.

(CIDRAP News) – An influenza expert who formerly headed the World Health Organization's (WHO's) flu program and now works for Novartis has suggested developing a prepandemic vaccine to get the jump on the next flu pandemic—an idea that other experts are greeting with caution or skepticism.

(CIDRAP News) – Leading public health officials and experts have sharply rejected charges from some European officials that pharmaceutical companies used exaggerated claims about the H1N1 pandemic threat to scare governments into buying unnecessary stockpiles of vaccines.

(CIDRAP News) – With so much uncertainty over how broad and severe the next wave of H1N1 influenza could be, now is the time to focus on the two top goals of saving and sustaining lives, Dr. Julie Gerberding, former director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told business groups today.

(CIDRAP News) – After delaying action for weeks as the novel H1N1 influenza virus took hold in far-flung parts of the globe, the World Health Organization (WHO) today declared a full-fledged pandemic, formally recognizing that the virus is becoming a global contagion.

(CIDRAP News) – Health officials from Kansas and New York today announced more confirmed and probable swine influenza cases, as an emergency panel of the World Health Organization (WHO) met but stopped short of raising the global pandemic alert level.

(CIDRAP News) – A new report from the University of Minnesota warns that an influenza pandemic could disrupt the coal industry, thereby endangering the nation's significantly coal-dependent electric power system and everything that depends on it.