• Latest terror threat in U.S. aims to poison food

    CBS reports that DHS uncovered a plot to attack hotels and restaurants over a single weekend; the plot uncovered earlier this year is said to involve the use of two poisons — ricin and cyanide — slipped into salad bars and buffets

  • House passes sweeping food safety bill

    The House has passed a sweeping bill aimed at making food safer following recent outbreaks in peanuts, eggs and produce, sending it to President Obama for his signature; the legislation passed Tuesday would give the government broad new powers to inspect processing plants, order recalls and impose stricter standards for imported foods

  • GAO: HHS does not have plan for IT pandemic surveillance

    The Health and Human Services (HHS) Department has not developed a strategic plan for a national electronic network for public health situational awareness four years after being told to do so by Congress, according to the GAO

  • U.S. will carefully watch, but not regulate, synthetic biology

    White House commission says biologists can engineer custom organisms from synthetic genomes, with the government watching but not regulating the research; critics claim synthetic biology will create unnatural organisms likely to wreak havoc on the larger ecosystem if they got loose in the wild — to say nothing of the risks of bioterrorists using design pathogens; self-regulation, say the critics, is equivalent to no regulation

  • Fourth International Symposium on Agroterrorism announced

    The fourth International Symposium on Agroterrorism is scheduled for 26-28 April 2011, at the Hyatt Regency and Westin Crown Center Hotels in Kansas City, Missouri; it will focus on the need closely to communicate and coordinate among private industry, law enforcement, government agencies, science, academia, and the health and medical professions in order to protect the global food supply

  • Hope for Plum Island in unease about Kansas biolab?

    Last month the National Research Council issued a safety report which concluded that there is a 70 percent chance of pathogen release from the proposed Manhattan, Kansas BioLab-4 over a 50-year period; The New York congressional delegation points out that upgrading safety at Plum island will cost far less than the $400 million price tag for the Kansas lab

  • Hutchinson: Canada's food system at risk from terrorism

    Fomer DHS undersecretary Asa Hutchinson says the Canadian food industry is not sufficiently protected from tampering and potential terrorism; the Canadian food industry points out that Canada’s food safety system is tied for fourth place with the United States, behind Denmark, Australia, and the United Kingdom

  • Virulent Haitian cholera strain to dominate the Americas

    The high death rate of the Haiti cholera relative to earlier outbreaks in the region (for example, Peru 1991) could partly be because medical care, nutrition, and HIV levels are worse in earthquake- and poverty-stricken Haiti than Peru — but it could also be due to a nastier cholera toxin

  • FBI submits new materials, delaying Academy report on 2001 anthrax attacks

    In September 2008, the FBI asked the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to review the science behind the case against U.S. Army researcher Bruce Ivins; in the absence of a trial, the NAS review was seen as an important step toward understanding what the government had done — even though its focus was entirely on the science; on 3 December, FBI officials provided new material and asked for an opportunity to make a presentation before the committee — delaying the NSAeport until at least February 2011

  • Pakistan floods released tons of toxic chemicals

    The floods in Pakistan earlier this year, in addition to forcing about 20 million people out of their homes, also released long-lived chemicals, known collectively as persistent organic pollutants (POPs); these include several banned pesticides and the insect repellent DDT; they are dispersed around the planet by atmospheric patterns, do not degrade naturally, and are linked to hormonal, developmental, and reproductive disorders, and increased risk of diabetes, cancer, and dementia

  • New Jersey lab on the forefront of fighting bioterrorism

    A New Jersey company is working on defense against biological warfare; the 3-year $8.2 million contract with the Department of Defense calls for it to develop drug molecules used to combat biological warfare pathogens — centering its research around eight bacterial pathogens (although for security reasons, the list of pathogens has not been made public)

  • U.S. supply chain cyber-security weaker, more vulnerable than thought

    New study finds that the U.S. supply chain may be even more prone to cyber-attacks than commonly believed; the alarming study shows how vulnerable the businesses behind the U.S. supply chain and resources network — goods and services forming the backbone of the country’s well-being and economy — are to cyber-attack

  • UN peacekeepers to blame for Haiti cholera, report says

    A scientific report prepared for the Haitian and French governments says that Nepalese soldiers — members of the UN peace keeping contingent in Haiti — are the likely source of the cholera epidemic which so far has killed 2,120 people and required medical treatment for 100,000 more; the study found that the source of the outbreak was a Nepalese peacekeeping base, whose toilets contaminated the Artibonite river; the river was the main focus of the outbreak when it began in October, but cholera has since spread throughout the country

  • Capitalism to strengthen U.S. response capability to epidemics, bioterrorism

    The H1N1 flu pandemic highlighted critical gaps in the response capability of the United States, among them: the United States relies almost entirely on foreign suppliers for influenza vaccines and, perhaps as important, production of vaccines for a novel disease strain can take as long as six months; the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) wants to reinvent the U.S. medical countermeasures enterprise, from new doctrines for regulatory approvals to nimble, domestic manufacturing capability developed in partnership with the private sector

  • Underground "physical Internet" to distribute food, goods

    A start-up proposes automatically routed canisters to replace lorries for the purpose of delivering food and other goods in all weather with massive energy savings; the proposal envisions putting goods in metal capsules 2-meter long, which are shifted through underground polyethylene tubes at speeds of up to 60 miles per hour, directed by linear induction motors and routed by intelligent software to their destinations