OUR PICKSTightening Oversight of “Gain of Function” Research | Bioshield: Twenty Years of Preparedness | The Wrong Way to Fight Anti-Semitism on Campus, and more
· US Pledges $200 Million to Help Track, Contain Bird Flu on Dairy Farms
The new funds include $101 million to continue work to prevent, test, track and treat animals and humans potentially affected by the virus
· US Funders to Tighten Oversight of Controversial “Gain of Function” Research
New policy on high-risk biology studies aims to address criticism that previous rules were too vague
· Twenty Years of Preparedness
Reflecting on the Legacy of The Project BioShield Act of 2004
· It Should Not Be Easy to Buy Synthetic DNA Fragments to Recreate the 1918 Flu Virus
It should be exceedingly hard to obtain,without authorization, the synthetic DNA needed to recreate the virus that caused the deadly 1918 influenza pandemic. But it is surprisingly easy
· The Wrong Way to Fight Anti-Semitism on Campus
A well-intentioned bill making its way through Congress could chill speech at colleges across the country
US Pledges $200 Million to Help Track, Contain Bird Flu on Dairy Farms (AP / VOA News)
U.S. health and agriculture officials pledged nearly $200 million in new spending and other efforts Friday to help track and contain an outbreak of bird flu in the nation’s dairy cows that has spread to more than 40 herds in nine states.
The new funds include $101 million to continue work to prevent, test, track and treat animals and humans potentially affected by the virus known as Type A H5N1, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said.
And the aid includes about $98 million to provide up to $28,000 each to help individual farms test cattle and bolster biosecurity efforts to halt the spread of the virus, according to the Agriculture Department.
In addition, dairy farmers will be compensated for the loss of milk production from infected cattle, whose supply drops dramatically when they become sick, officials said. And dairy farmers and farm workers would be paid to participate in a workplace study conducted by the USDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
US Funders to Tighten Oversight of Controversial Gain-of-Function Research (Max Kozlov, Nature)
After years of deliberation, US officials have released a policy that outlines how federal funding agencies and research institutions must review and oversee biological experiments on pathogens with the potential to be misused or spark a pandemic.
The policy, which applies to all research funded by US agencies and will take effect in May 2025, broadens oversight of these experiments. It singles out work involving high-risk pathogens for special oversight and streamlines existing policies and guidelines, adding clarity that researchers have been seeking for years.
“This is a very welcome development,”says Jaime Yassif, vice-president of global biological policy and programs at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a research Centre in Washington DC that focuses on national-security issues. “The US is the biggest funder of life sciences research [globally], so we have a moral obligation to guard against risks.”
