See what we’re reading this week at Global Biodefense on topics including bioterrorism forensics, the federal budget for readiness and response, and pandemic risk factors.
BIOPREPAREDNESS
- ‘You can’t bomb Ebola’: how nations should respond to the next pandemic (TIME)
- Worse than Ebola: U.S. not preparing for the next bio-threat (NBC News)
- If a pandemic hits, the U.S. isn’t ready (US News)
- Baltimore practices for widespread medical emergency in drill (CBS)
POLICY, PRACTICES & POLITICS
- The dark underbelly of hospital reporting (Contagion Live)
- How the House health care bill undercuts bioterror and pandemic defenses (BOTAS)
- To quarantine or not to quarantine? (HSPH)
- CDC faces budget loss of hundreds of millions after AHCA passes House (STAT)
- US budget plan includes support for readiness, research, response (CIDRAP)
- Remarks by Jeff Schlegelmilch to the Blue Ribbon Study Panel (NCDP)
- G20: Can the world’s richest economies innovate for global health? (Devex)
- Public policy brief: omnibus funding bill agreed to (ASM)
- As Zika season nears, states brace for an end to CDC funding (Frontline)
- Populism, politics and measles (NY Times)
CHEMICAL WEAPONS
- International probe underway to lay blame for sarin attack (ABC News)
- Science and clarity in the chemical fog of war (War on the Rocks)
SELECT AGENTS
- Forensic approaches to detect possible agents of bioterror (PubMed)
- Anthrax immune globulin iv recipients during the 2009-10 anthrax outbreak (ATS)
- Responses of black-tailed prairie dogs oral plague 2-dose vaccine (Wildlife Disease)
- Study supports inclusion of anthrax immunoglobulin in Strategic National Stockpile (ATS)
- Dynamics of F1 antibody responses to Y. pestis infection in Rhombomys opimus (PubMed)
MEDICAL COUNTERMEASURES
- Host-oriented as an innovative countermeasure (HDIAC)
- Gates Foundation supports Achaogen’s antibacterial platform with 20.5M (GEN)
- Surveillance for Guillain-Barré syndrome after flu vaccination in Medicare population (SD)
- A new hope: vaccine supply chains get more attention (Forbes)
OUTBREAK NEWS & THREAT SURVEILLANCE
- Liberia illness cluster grows as officials await toxicology results (CIDRAP)
- Unexplained cluster of deaths – Liberia (WHO)
- Leaked document says Puerto Rico underreporting Zika complications (CIDRAP)
RESEARCH & TECH
- Clues to Zika damage might lie in cases of twins (NY Times)
- White paper outlines pandemic risk factors (Bovine Veterinarian)
SPECIAL INTEREST + HISTORICAL
- Summer biodefense workshop discount extended (George Mason University)
- Spotlight on the South Texas Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases (STCEID)
- Hopkins consolidates care for patients with infectious diseases in new center (Baltimore Sun)
- Bozeman doctor spins yarn of historic pandemic (Great Falls Tribune)
- Harvard doctor’s million-dollar idea could prevent a pandemic (Futurism)