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Wooden or plastic pallets are a dangerous link in food chain
Pallets are often stored in warehouses or outside behind grocery stores, where they are easily reached by debris from garbage or bacteria from animals; new sanitation tests found that about 33 percent of the wooden pallets it tested showed signs of unsanitary conditions, where bacteria could easily grow; 10 percent tested positive for e. coli, which can cause food poisoning, and 2.9 percent had an even nastier, and often deadly, bug called listeria
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Coral snake antivenin to run out in October
If you live in Florida, you should now be doubly careful not to be bitten by the poisonous coral snake; the only company making antivenin for coral snake bites is no longer producing the drug — and the last batch will hit its expiration date in October.
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Safer food imports goal of public-private venture
With imports accounting for 15 percent of the U.S. food supply, the United States needs a better way of ensuring food safety than border inspections; the University of Maryland teams up with a Massachusetts company to launch training center for foreign foodproducers
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Food-labels contaminate food
Chemicals used in adhesive which is used to attach food labels to packaging can seep through packaging and contaminate food; one of those chemicals is considered highly toxic and found in high concentration in some adhesives
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Defeating anthrax bacterium's natural defenses may hold key to new treatments
Up to 90 percent of untreated cases of inhalational anthrax result in death; Bacillus anthracis, the causative agent of anthrax, is particularly lethal because of its protective coating, or capsule, which enables the pathogen to escape destruction by the host’s immune system; researchers discover a way to “trick” the bacterium into shedding its protective covering
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Katrina, Rita cleaned up polluted, lead-laden New Orleans soil
It appears that hurricanes Katrina and Rita, with all the devastation they have caused, made one beneficial contribution to the future of New Orleans: decades of Louisiana-type corruption and collusion between the oil industry and the state government have caused the city’s soil to be heavily polluted, laden with lead, arsenic, and other poisonous substances; the sediments washed into the city by the hurricanes have blanketed the polluted soil, resulting in a dramatic drop in the presence of lead and arsenic in the city’s soil — and in the blood stream of children in the city
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Utah implements harsh triage guidelines for bioterror, epidemic emergencies
Utah’s new triage health emergency guidelines would see some children and some seniors turned away from hospitals during a bioterror or epidemic emergency; those who are severely burned, have incurable and spreading cancer, fatal genetic diseases, end-stage multiple sclerosis, or severe dementia will be turned away; people older than 85 also would not be admitted in the worst pandemic; those who have signed “do not resuscitate” orders could be denied a bed
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Is there a connection between ending smallpox vaccination and the explosive spread of HIV?
Smallpox immunization was gradually withdrawn from the 1950s to the 1970s following the worldwide eradication of the disease, and HIV has been spreading exponentially since approximately the same time; researchers show that vaccinia immunization, given to prevent the spread of smallpox, produces a five-fold reduction in HIV replication in the laboratory; is there a connection between the end of smallpox immunization and the spread of HIV?
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Workshop to evaluate threat of insect-based terrorism
One way terrorists may use unleash a bioterror attack on U.S. population centers is by introducing pathogen-infected mosquitoes into an area, then let the insects pursue their deadly mission; many of the world’s most dangerous pathogens — Rift Valley, chikungunya fever, or Japanese encephalitis — already are transmitted by arthropods, the animal phylum that includes mosquitoes
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Wisconsin researcher punished for unauthorized research on bioterror agent
A university of Wisconsin researchers conducted unauthorized research on bioterror agent; the researcher developed antibiotic-resistant variants of brucellosis and tested them on mice; the University of Wisconsin was fined $40,000 by the National Institutes of Health, and the professor was ordered to stay out of a lab for five years
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HIV positive Michigan man fights bioterrorism charge after allegedly biting neighbor
Daniel Allen of Michigan got into a fight with his neighbor; the neighbor complained that Allen bit him during the fight; when, a few days later, Allen admitted in a TV interview that he was gay and HIV positive, the prosecution charged him with violating Michigan’s bioterrorism law; the prosecution claims that the law’s reference to using a “harmful device” in the commission of bioterror attack may be applied to Allen “use” of his HIV virus as a weapon
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Faster salmonella strain detection now possible with new technique
New scientific method identifies salmonella strains much faster than current methods in use; faster detection of specific strains can mean recognizing an outbreak sooner and stopping tainted food from being delivered and consumed
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Failure to test for six strains of E. coli leaves gaps in U.S. food safety network
Six E. coli strains are not regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture; E. coli O157:H7 causes 73,000 illnesses and 50 deaths every year in the United States; the six other strains are considered less pervasive, sickening an estimated 37,000 people a year and killing nearly 30; they could be causing more illnesses that labs do not detect because they are not testing for them
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DHS's Fort Detrick biolab about to open
The new DHS biolab at Fort Detrick, Maryland, is slowly coming to life; the eight-story building has three distinct sections: administrative offices near the front, biosafety level 2 and 3 labs, and then biosafety level 4 labs on the other side of a thick concrete wall; designing the BSL-4 labs as essentially their own building has several benefits; most importantly, a fire or other hazard in the other section of the building wouldn’t require the BSL-4 labs to be frantically evacuated
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DHS in Manhattan, Kansas, to discuss the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility
DHS visits the site of the site of the planned $725 million National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility in Manhattan, Kansas, on the campus of the Kansas State University; DHS officials held a public meeting with Manhattan residents to discuss the new lab
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More headlines
The long view
Canada’s Biosecurity Scandal: The Risks of Foreign Interference in Life Sciences
In July 2019, world-renowned biological researchers Xiangguo Qiu and Keding Cheng were quietly walked out of the Canadian government’s National Microbiology Lab (NML). The original allegation against them was that Qiu had authorized a shipment to China of some of the deadliest viruses on the planet, including Ebola and Nipah. Then the story seemed to go away—until now.
Action Needed to Improve U.S. Smallpox Readiness and Diagnostics, Vaccines, and Therapeutics: Report
A new report says that action is needed to enhance U.S. readiness for smallpox and related diseases, as well as to improve diagnostics, vaccines, and therapeutics that could be used in case of an outbreak. The COVID-19 pandemic revealed weaknesses in the ability of U.S. public health and health care systems to adapt and respond to an unfamiliar pathogen, as did challenges during the recent mpox outbreak to rapidly making diagnostics, vaccines, and therapeutics available at scale.