See what we’re reading this week at Global Biodefense on topics including the H5N8 outbreak, a blueprint to prevent epidemics, and a nerve-agent assassination.
POLICY, PRACTICES & POLITICS
- FEMA training center suspected lethal toxin mix-up years ago (USA Today)
- Talking about bioethics & policy under the Trump Administration (Contagion)
- To increase vaccination rates, share information on disease outbreaks (HBR)
- National Institutes of Health FY 2018 appropriations statement (ASM)
- The anti-vaccine movement gains a friend in the White House (NY Times)
- An essential guide to food safety challenges in the 21st Century (New Food)
- Half the funding for a federal vaccine program is tied up in the ACA (Vox)
- CDC FY 2018 appropriations statement (ASM)
- An R&D blueprint for action to prevent epidemics (WHO)
- Are biosafety failures the new norm? (Contagion)
BIOPREPAREDNESS
- BARDA, Project Bioshield report details core national security role (CBN)
- First line of defense against outbreaks is financing pandemic preparedness (WB)
- Plague! How to prepare for the next pandemic (New Scientist)
- Enhancing community engagement in preparedness (ECDC)
- Preparing for the worst means training like the best (ASPR)
- When nature is a terrorist (Washington Post)
- The next pandemic could be dripping on your head (NPR)
- CEPI: preparing for the worst (The Lancet) – subscription
- Not if, but when: A warning (Bifurcated Needle)
- Strategic National Stockpile responders (CDC)
SELECT AGENTS
- Chemical weapon found on body of North Korean leader’s half-brother (NPR)
- Holographic deep learning for rapid optical screening of anthrax spores (bioRxiv)
- Inside the Chinese lab poised to study world’s most dangerous pathogens (Nature)
- F. tularensis Type B infection from a fish hook injury — Minnesota, 2016 (MMWR)
- Omadacycline against Bacillus anthracis and Yersinia pestis (AAC)
- Ebola preparedness: Rapid approaches for proficiency testing (ASM)
MEDICAL COUNTERMEASURES
- Test shows doctors if antibiotics will work or not – so why isn’t it being used? (TC)
- MIT undertakes Grand Challenge for innovation in vaccine manufacturing (MIT)
- Feverish sprint for a Zika vaccine faces a strange hurdle this summer (SciAm)
- NIH begins study of vaccine to protect against mosquito-borne diseases (NIH)
- Exactly how bad is antibiotic resistance right now? (Popular Science)
- To test Zika vaccines, scientists need a new outbreak (NPR)
- CDC: 2016-2017 flu vaccine nearly 50 percent effective (AAFP)
OUTBREAK NEWS & THREAT SURVEILLANCE
- Spain reports outbreak of highly contagious H5N8 bird flu virus in ducks (Reuters)
- Three deadly viruses that could spawn the next pandemic (IRIN)
- Risk of sustained sexual transmission of Zika is underestimated (bioRxiv)
- Alarming superbugs a risk to people, animals and food, EU warns (Reuters)
- Animals as surveillance tool for monitoring bioterrorism, human health hazards (SD)
- Responding to the threat of urban yellow fever outbreaks (The Lancet)
RESEARCH & TECH
- In the age of biological therapeutics, chemists move to ADCs (Labiotech)
- IARPA wants ways to protect nation from genome editing (Nextgov)
- Who owns the revolutionary gene editing technology CRISPR? (Vice News)
- Are emerging pathogen outbreaks correlated with construction of wetlands? (NAS)
- How we can use light to fight bacteria (The Conversation)
- Harvesting therapeutic proteins from animal slobber (C&EN)
- The race to map the human body — one cell at a time (Nature)
SPECIAL INTEREST
- Summer workshop on pandemics, bioterrorism, and global health security (Pandora Report)
- Scientists compete to build a ‘Star Trek’-style medical tricorder (STAT)
- The politics of fear had major impact on Ebola epidemic response (MSF)
HISTORICAL REFLECTIONS
- Collapse of Aztec society linked to catastrophic salmonella outbreak (Nature)
- Ribosome-inactivating proteins – in honor of Professor Fiorenzo Stirpe (MDPI)
- A taste for pork helped a deadly virus jump to humans (NPR)
