• Crowds, social gatherings facilitate disease transmission

    Large gatherings — from music festivals to religious pilgrimages to sporting events — have long been known to increase risks of infectious disease outbreaks. Now results from a new study associate even small-scale community gatherings with increased transmission of diarrheal diseases.

  • U.S. measles total climbs by 60 to reach 940 cases

    The nation’s number of measles cases continues to climb steadily, with 60 more cases reported over the last week, raising this year’s total to 940 cases. Meanwhile, in global measles development, European officials today warned of a high risk of more widespread circulation due to gaps in vaccine coverage.

  • Biodefense Manhattan Project

    The Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense will hold a day-long meeting to discuss a national, public-private research and development initiative to defend the United States against biological threats. The discussants will be “representatives from the same sorts of organizations that contributed to the original Manhattan Project,” the Blue Ribbon Panel says.

  • Antibiotics found in some of the world's rivers exceed “safe” levels

    Concentrations of antibiotics found in some of the world’s rivers exceed “safe” levels by up to 300 times, the first ever global study has discovered. Researchers looked for 14 commonly used antibiotics in rivers in 72 countries across six continents and found antibiotics at 65 percent of the sites monitored.

  • Coal-fired power plants may affect your drinking water

    When you get a drink of water from your fridge or sink, do you think about where that water came from? A new study takes a national look at whether coal-fired power plants are unintentionally affecting drinking water treatment plants.

  • Immune to drugs: Antimicrobial resistance could kill 10 million a year

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) contends that, “Antibiotic resistance is one of the greatest public health challenges of our time.” Annually, at least 700,000 people die from drug-resistant diseases, and that number is expected to increase to 10 million deaths per year by 2050 if nothing is done. In the U.S., antimicrobial resistance causes more than 2 million infections and 23,000 deaths per year – the equivalent of a Boeing 747 crashing each week. Nicole Fisher writes in Forbes that at present, the incentives to get something done are so misaligned, that in addition to the personal tragedies, there are other frightening possibilities. For example, experts note that “without immediate global action, the crisis of drug resistance bacteria and viruses could lead to an economic catastrophe as bad as the 2008-2009 global financial crisis, and by 2030 could force as many as 24 million people into poverty.”

  • Statistical model helps predict future disease outbreaks

    Researchers have created a statistical method that may allow public health and infectious disease forecasters to better predict disease reemergence, especially for preventable childhood infections such as measles and pertussis.

     

  • Scent-based strategy blocks mosquito transmission of disease

    Could it be that your scent is just a bit too attractive? It is known that mosquitoes are drawn to certain human chemical odors that lead the insects to sources of food. New technology would temporarily modify skin microbiome to reduce attraction of disease-causing mosquitos by altering human scents.

  • DRC Ebola cases exceed 1,800 amid burial team attacks

    Blowing past the 1,800 case mark, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) reported 39 cases over the weekend as well as a pair of assaults on burial teams, along with 10 new infections today, according to the latest official reports, raising the outbreak’s total to 1,826.

  • Current vaccination policies not enough to prevent measles resurgence

    Current vaccination policies may not be sufficient to achieve and maintain measles elimination and prevent future resurgence in several advanced countries. “Our results suggest that most of the countries we have studied would strongly benefit from the introduction of compulsory vaccination at school entry in addition to current immunization programs,” says the author of a new study.

  • Will the next cyberattack be in the hospital?

    You may not think of hackers targeting hospitals, but this is where our wired world may be most vulnerable, and the results could be deadly. Israeli startup Cynerio aims to stop hackers from targeting medical devices, a potent new danger in our connected world.

  • Predicting top 25 U.S. counties at risk for measles outbreaks

    A team of researchers has identified 25 U.S. counties that are most likely to experience measles outbreaks in 2019. As of late May, the U.S. has seen more than 800 [cases of measles this year, the highest number in decades. Although measles was officially eliminated from the U.S. in 2000, the ongoing outbreak shows that the nation remains at risk.

  • Anti-vaccine advocates spread misinformation at an anti-vaccine rally amid raging measles outbreaks

    Andrew Wakefield, Del Bigtree, and other prominent anti-vaccine advocates unleashed fear and toxic misinformation on Monday, 13 May, at a well-attended symposium in New York’s Rockland County, the location of one of the largest and longest-standing measles outbreaks in the country. Beth Mole writes in ArsTechnica that the event was billed as being a “highly informative night of science and discussion addressing your concerns, fears, and doubts,” but that the speakers made numerous unsubstantiated and egregiously false claims—as usual. In one instance, Brooklyn Orthodox Rabbi William Handler reportedly made the unsubstantiated claim that getting measles, mumps, and chickenpox reduces the risk of cancer, heart disease, and stroke by 60 percent. He did not provide a citation.

  • The author of “World War Z” is worried about germ warfare

    What if Zika had been cooked up in a lab? Max Brooks, the author of World War Z, writes in Slate that in 2016, he asked that question in an op-ed for the New York Daily News. At the time, Zika was spreading across the country, and Congress seemed to be treating it like the common cold. But what about the next time? What if the next attack comes not from bacteria like anthrax but from a virus like the 1918 influenza? What if someone digs up a frozen, infected corpse or, like Amerithrax, smuggles the disease out of a lab? If we were caught by surprise by a natural outbreak like Zika—which is waning now but was devastating for those affected—how could we even hope to survive an artificial plague?

  • Tracking down the people behind a pamphlet that's fueling New York's measles outbreak

    Dr. Patricia Ruppert, the health commissioner of Rockland County, New York, where there have been 225 measles cases confirmed since October, told CBS News that misinformation is fueling the rise in cases, especially within the county’s orthodox Jewish community. For at least the last four years, what’s come to be known as the “PEACH pamphlet” has been targeting orthodox Jewish communities in the Northeast. “It holds a lot of unscientific and erroneous information,” Ruppert said. The pamphlet claims vaccines are a contributing factor in causing autism even though the overwhelming consensus of the scientific community is that vaccines do not cause autism. But Ruppert had no idea who is behind the pamphlet. So we tried to find out.