See what we’re reading this week at Global Biodefense on topics including improving biosurveillance systems, turning competitors into collaborators during epidemics, and therapeutic windows for ricin post-exposure treatment.
BIOPREPAREDNESS
- Using the lessons of economics to stop global pandemics before they start (Quartz)
- Strengthening the US Medical Countermeasure Enterprise for biothreats (HS)
- Congress needs to prepare itself, the nation, for the next pandemic (The Hill)
- Improving biosurveillance systems for health emergency situational awareness (HS)
- GMU trains first responders against infectious disease (Pandora Report)
- A global plan to defend against the future’s deadliest diseases (The Atlantic)
- Healthcare preparedness: Saving lives (Health Security)
- Sustainable clinical laboratory capacity for health in Africa (The Lancet)
- We’re not prepared for future Ebola outbreaks, experts warn (STAT)
- Finding treatments fast: How to turn competitors into collaborators (Nature)
POLICY, PRACTICES & POLITICS
- Scientists buck opposition to preprints in NIH grant applications (The Scientist)
- Congress demands details of secret CDC lab incidents (USA Today)
- Malaria champions see Trump uncertainty at crucial time (Reuters)
- Atlanta’s CDC could lose millions in Obamacare repeal (Online Athens)
- Surprising contenders emerge for Trump’s NIH chief (Nature)
- New rule on clinical trial reporting doesn’t go far enough (STAT)
- Proposed presidential autism–vaccine panel could help spread disease (SciAm)
- The future of emerging infectious diseases in the Trump era (BugBitten)
- A biosafety agenda to spur biotech development and prevent accidents (HS)
- Trump’s CDC may face serious hurdles (Scientific American)
- Elevating feelings over facts is a bad way to make health policy (STAT)
- Funding and organization of US federal health security programs (HS)
SELECT AGENTS
- Completing the development of Ebola vaccines (CIDRAP)
- Frieden: ‘We were days away’ from Ebola pandemic (STAT)
- Validation of a new reliable method for the diagnosis of avian botulism (PLOS)
- Whole-genome relationships among Francisella bacteria of diverse origins (OSTI)
- Short-term clinical safety profile of brincidofovir in the treatment of smallpox (AR)
- Extended therapeutic window for post-exposure treatment of ricin intoxication (Toxicon)
- Prevention of the development or use of biological weapons (Health Security)
- Cationic host defense peptides against Category A pathogens (PGH)
- Effects of differentiation and neurotoxin on gene expression in neuronal cells (DiVA)
- Autoinducer-2 signaling as virulence regulator in a mouse model of pneumonic plague (ASM)
- New blood test can predict outcome for Ebola-infected patients (GEN)
- Perceptions and management practices on anthrax in East-Central Bhutan (RG)
MEDICAL COUNTERMEASURES
- The “why vaccines don’t cause autism” papers (PLOS)
- We will miss antibiotics when they’re gone (NY Times)
- First U.S. death from pan-resistant superbug reported (IDSE)
- New vaccines against epidemic infectious diseases (NEJM)
- Toward a virus-free polio vaccine (The Scientist)
OUTBREAK NEWS & THREAT SURVEILLANCE
- Study: CRE could be spreading more widely than we think (CIDRAP)
- Person-to-person contact may cause most drug-resistant TB cases (Reuters)
- Dangerous superbug appears to be spreading stealthily in US hospitals (STAT)
- Lassa fever is back on the rise in Nigeria (Ventures Africa)
- More H5N8 Europe, H5N1 outbreaks in India and Niger (CIDRAP)
- Why is extensively drug-resistant TB on the rise? (NPR)
- Yellow fever emergency in Brazil: A disease to watch (Tracking Zebra)
- Chinese team posts analysis of early, sudden H7N9 spike (CIDRAP)
RESEARCH & TECH
- Evolving norovirus genotypes: implications for epidemiology and immunity (PLOS)
- Essential public health functions in the Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMHJ)
- Gene-edited animals face US regulatory crackdown (Nature)
- Advancing phage therapy (ASM)
SPECIAL INTEREST
- War as a driver in tuberculosis evolution (Contagions Blog)
- DA Henderson – physically gone but his impact will live on forever (A of E)
- Smallpox virus retention controversy (Wikipedia)
