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Purdue researchers attack food contamination with lasers and gas
University quickly establishes itself as a go-to center for homeland security technology; Bacteria Rapid Detection Using Optical Scattering Technology can identify bacteria by its scatter pattern; investors show early interest in a chlorine gas approach to produce contamination
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Blood transfusions may serve as stop-gap during flu epidemics
Therapy from the 1918 Spanish flu outbreak is reconsidered as health officials worry about vaccine supplies; recovering patients could transfer antibodies to the sick; studies will continue to test applicability to avian flu
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Public health scientists lobby to put children at the head of innoculation line
Officials have long struggled with whether to give vaccines first to the elderly or to infants; new study finds the best way to break chains of transmission is to focus on school-aged children instead
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Nanotechnology proves an effective barrier against anthrax infection
Clemson University chemist uses carbon nanotubes to attract anthrax spores; once bound, particles are too large to lodge in the lungs; aerosol spray, gel, and foam are likely commercial applications
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Patent awarded for cell phone-mounted airborne particle detector
Bio and chemical terrorism detection one possible application; allergy suffers will benefit from pollen alerts
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CDC warning system proves itself during E. coli outbreak
PulseNet allows public health authorities to compare DNA signatures and trace outbreaks; CDC officials took only one day to find similarities between Oregon and Wisconsin strains before they warned the public
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E. coli lawsuits spread faster than infection
Seattle firm Marler Clark takes the lead in bringing spinach companies to court; Natural Selection and Dole head to the dock, but settlement is the name of the game; liabilities range from $25,000 to $15 million
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New anthrax vaccine passes first round of tests
Avecia, working with $71 million in DHS dollars, looks to step in where VaxGen stumbled; research based on Army efforts in coordination with British Ministry of Defense; long-term trial currently underway
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Authentication technology may help track food contamination
ARmark’s food grade taggants can hold sixteen lines of text and can be sprayed on food or packaged in coatings; “track and trace” data is read with a handheld microscope attached to a computer; one head of lettuce could hold 1000 miniature devices
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SunGard offers Pandemic Response Planning system
Three-part program includes assessment and a simulated pandemic exercise; threat of disease outbreak often mistakenly overlooked by business continuity planners
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Project BioShield on the brink of death as competing vaccine firms collide
Effort to create stockpile stymied by poor government planning, decision to award contract to single, unqualified firm, and reliability problems; VaxGen threatens to sue government if it turns business over to rival Emergent; demands up-front payment before coducting new tests
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Dick Durbin latest congressman to support increasing nation's veterinarian force
Shortage threatens food safety and public health; bill would provide $1.5 billion over ten years to expand veterinary schools
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Contamination of leafy vegetables spurs new research
A U.S. Department of Agriculture-funded study at Ohio State will look at lesions and other problems particular to spinach and lettuce; if beef poisoning is due to undercooking, insufficient cleaning of vegetables may increase risk as well
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Experts look for source of recent outbreak
Possible culprits include contaminated water, unsanitary packaging, and storage in humid conditions
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World-wide bird flu epidemic would cost the world economy $2 trillion
The World Health Organization and the World Bank revise upward their earlier estimates of the likely cost — and human toll — of a world-wide avian flu epidmeic; the problem has not disappeared, only the news coverage of it
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The long view
Is There a Role for the Biological Weapons Convention in Oversight of Lab-Created Potential Pandemic Pathogens?
Fourteen labs in the United States are working on creating mammalian-airborne-transmissible, highly-pathogenic, avian-influenza live viruses. These viruses are examples of lab-created potentially pandemic pathogens that bring up questions reflecting real concerns: Should details of this dual-use research be published? Could lab-created potentially pandemic pathogens be accidentally released from a laboratory into the community and seed a human pandemic? Could they be employed as biological weapons? The probability of accidental release into the community from one of the laboratories in this research enterprise is uncomfortably high. For these and other lab-created potentially pandemic pathogens, just one laboratory-infected researcher could seed a pandemic. Furthermore, a laboratory worker with hostile intent could introduce a potentially pandemic pathogen into the community.
Measles Epidemic: Parents Reluctant to Vaccinate Their Children Need to Hear of the Horrors of Forgotten Diseases
There’s been a surge in measles cases across Europe, putting people’s lives at risk according to new findings from the World Health Organization. This has in part been put down to disinformation about the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine on social media putting parents off vaccinating their children. Why are people reluctant to have screening tests and vaccinations to prevent diseases? Sarah Pitt writes in The Conversation that while some of the reasons may include loss of trust in “experts” and people in authority, I wonder if it is also partly because the stories of such diseases have been long forgotten. “Gruesome photos on cigarette packages, for example, massively help to reduce tobacco use, so maybe something similar now needs to happen in terms of vaccinations to tackle the latest epidemic and anti-vaxxer campaigns around the world,” she writes.
In the Event of a Killer Asteroid, Volcanic Apocalypse, or Nuclear Holocaust, Mushrooms Could Save Humanity from Extinction
About 66 million years ago, an asteroid plummeted through Earth’s atmosphere and crashed into the sea floor, creating an explosion over 6,500 times more powerful than the nuclear bomb the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima. The impact sent clouds of debris and sulfur into Earth’s atmosphere, blocking the sun’s light and warmth for about two years. Photosynthesis ground to a halt, which meant no more plant growth. The surviving dinosaurs starved to extinction. But fossil records show that fungi thrived in the aftermath. “Blot out the sun, and even the best-prepared survivalist, a master of the wilderness, will starve to death along with everyone else,” Bryan Walsh writes in his new book, End Times. In order to survive, he says, people would need to adopt sunlight-free agriculture — cultivating mushrooms, rats, and insects.
The Secret History of Fort Detrick, the CIA’s Base for Mind Control Experiments
Suburban sprawl has engulfed Fort Detrick, an Army base 50 miles from Washington in the Maryland town of Frederick. seventy-six years ago, however, when the Army selected Detrick as the place to develop its super-secret plans to wage germ warfare, the area around the base looked much different. In fact, it was chosen for its isolation. For decades, much of what went on at the base was a closely held secret. Directors of the CIA mind control program MK-ULTRA, which used Detrick as a key base, destroyed most of their records in 1973. Some of its secrets have been revealed in declassified documents, through interviews and as a result of congressional investigations. Together, those sources reveal Detrick’s central role in MK-ULTRA and in the manufacture of poisons intended to kill foreign leaders.
The World Knows an Apocalyptic Pandemic Is Coming
A new independent report compiled at the request of the United Nations secretary-general warns that there is a “very real threat” of a pandemic sweeping the planet, killing up to 80 million people. A deadly pathogen, spread airborne around the world, the report says, could wipe out almost 5 percent of the global economy. And we’re not ready. Laura Garrett writes that twenty-five years ago, in 1994, she published her book on the subject, The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance, arguing that human disruption of the global environment, coupled with behaviors that readily spread microbes between people and from animals to humans, guaranteed a global surge in epidemics, even an enormous pandemic. She writes that epidemic outbreaks were aided and abetted by inept health systems, human behavior, and the complete lack of consistent political and financial support for disease-fighting preparedness everywhere in the world. Will the UN report’s warning be heeded now?
Biosafety Levels in Laboratories – What is the Difference?
The United States is home to several types of laboratories that conduct medical research on a variety of infectious biological agents to promote the development of new diagnostic tests, medical countermeasures, and treatments. The CDC has devised a system of Biosafety Labs (BSL) designations. Ranked from lowest to the highest level of containment, they are BSL-1, BSL-2, BSL-3, and BSL-4. The BSL designations outline specific safety and facility requirements to achieve the appropriate biosafety and biocontainment. The BSL is assigned based on the type of infectious agent on which the research is being conducted. For example, a BSL-4 conducts research on dangerous and exotic agents with a high-risk of causing life-threatening disease, the possibility of aerosol transmission, and no known treatment or therapy (e.g., Marbug virus, Congo-Crimean virus, Ebola virus).