• First case of highly drug-resistant TB found in U.S.

    The first case of extremely drug-resistant (XXDR) TB is found in the united States; one of the U.S. leading experts on tuberculosis says about the patient: “He is really the future….This is the new class that people are not really talking too much about. These are the ones we really fear because I’m not sure how we treat them”

  • Mystery solved: Scientists now know how smallpox kills

    New discovery fills a major gap in the scientific understanding of pox diseases and lays the foundation for the development of antiviral treatments, should smallpox or related viruses re-emerge through accident, viral evolution, or terrorist action

  • DoD bill will fund biological attack sensors

    The $636 billion Defense bill will send money to Michigan for bioterror research; $1.6 million will go to Dexter Research Center in Dexter, Michigan, to continue its development of a security sensor meant to protect military installations from chemical and biological attacks; Kettering University in Flint, Michigan will receive $1.6 million to help DoD with its Chemical Agent Fate Program

  • Maine to receive more than $3 million to aid bioterror research

    Research institutions in Maine will receive more than $3 million for bioterrorism research; a grant of $1.9 million will go to Orono Spectral Solutions to continue its development of an infrared detection system for chemical and biological agents; another $1.3 million will be set aside for Sensor Research & Development in Orono, for real time test monitoring of chemical agents, chemical agent stimulants and toxic industrial chemicals

  • Food facilities failing to register with FDA

    The Bioterrorism Act of 2002 requires food facilities — exempting farms, retail facilities, and restaurants — to register with the FDA; the FDA had expected about 420,000 domestic and foreign food facilities to register because of the 2002 law; according to an FDA spokesman, as of 14 December, 392,217 facilities had registered — 157,395 in the United States and 234,822 foreign facilities that export to the United States

  • Regional biodefense stockpiles could aid Europe in event of bioattack

    A plan for European preparation for a terrorist bioattacks calls for a regional stockpiling system within Europe; a Baltic stockpile, Nordic stockpile, and so on would be of great import and would aid in covering countries that have not expressed a desire to form their own stockpiles.

  • Senator Cochran’s earmark savvy benefits Mississippi biodefense center

    Republican Senator Thad Cochran of Mississippi is famous for his support of federal earmarks and regularly ranks near the top among senators for the number and size of his annual earmark haul; on Sunday the Senate passed a $1.1 trillion omnibus federal spending bill for the 2010 fiscal year, and Cochran managed to insert $150 million worth of earmarks for Mississippi; among the beneficiaries is Jackson State University’s National Center for Biodefense Communications, which conducts research and compiles data on bioterrorism threats to agriculture, and which is slated to receive $750,000 through the bill

  • Expert: U.S. stance on bioweapons important, does not require inspectors

    The Obama administration has been criticized for, on the one hand, expressing more support than its predecessor for the goals of the Biological Weapons Convention but, on the other hand, for continuing the Bush administration’s objection to a tight inspection regime; an expert says inspections are appropriate for nuclear weapons, but largely irrelevant to biological weapons

  • Sathguru’s center launches first global food safety management program

    Indian research center to hold a program of lectures and seminars for executives dealing with different aspects of food safety; directors of the program say that emerging trends in food production, processing, and distribution require augmented food safety protocols and strategies to ensure safe food supply, especially in emerging economies and world.

  • FDA bars Virginia seafood dealer from importing food for 20 years

    In the FDA’s first debarment of food importer, the agency imposed a 20-year penalty on a Virginia businessman who participated in a conspiracy to sell frozen catfish fillets falsely labeled as sole, grouper, flounder, snakehead, channa, and other species of fish to avoid paying federal import tariff

  • Nicholls to get money for seafood research institute

    Nicholls State University in Louisiana will receive funds to launch the Institute for Seafood Studies, which would aid studies of seafood species, coastal restoration and protection, as well as development of local fisheries and industries connected to them; one of the problems the research institute will address is food safety, which one expert said is a top fear among consumers; “This will enable the seafood community, working with the seafood institute, to help allay those concerns,” the expert said

  • New center monitors safety of U.S. food imports

    A new center will target shipments of imported cargo, including food, for possible safety violations; The center is one of six commercial targeting centers in the United States under Customs and Border Protection.

  • Combating bioterrorism needs to be a collaborative effort

    ISBI founder: “If you want to damage the United States, from a terrorist perspective, there are ways to do this extremely effectively that do not entail an attack on the U.S. homeland. There are ways that our economy could be catastrophically devastated and our political system substantially set back in terms of our global leadership that have nothing to do with a centralized domestic attack. Our vulnerabilities do not stop at the border’s edge.”

  • OSU president Burns Hargis defends anthrax research cancellation decision

    Hargis had ended an anthrax vaccine research project at OSU because it would have resulted in euthanizing baboons; he says he did not bow to pressures from animal rights activists – or from the wife of billionaire T. Boone Pickens, both OSU alumni and major donors to the school.

  • Military researcher infected with tularemia at research laboratory

    Researchers at U.S. Army Research Institute of Infectious Diseases has contracted tularemia; tularemia, which is not transmitted by person to person contact, is considered a potential agent of bioterrorism and biowarfare.