• A wave of food recalls fuels drive for food safety reform

    The FDA told consumers Monday to stop eating anything containing pistachios; the FDA was tipped off by Kraft Foods on 24 March, after the company found salmonella in routine testing and recalled some trail mix

  • Targeting mosquito larvae to control malaria

    Larvicides were used in the early twentieth century, but the successful introduction of the pesticide DDT to kill adult mosquitoes meant that larvicides fell out of favor; new Tanzania study reopens debate on whether we should go back to targeting larvae

  • Lax meat-import rules open Canada to bioterrorism

    Former Canadian food inspector says the rules governing meat imports into Canada leave Canadians vulnerable to bioterrorism and outbreaks of dangerous bacteria such as listeria

  • Predicting population of disease-carrying mosquitoes

    Researchers at University of Adelaide in Australia create a model predicting population peaks of disease-carrying mosquitoes; model will help in developing cost-effective mosquito control policies

  • PharmAthene in $5.5 million public equity offering

    Developer of countermeasures against biological and chemical attacks raises $5.5 million in public offering

  • Disease maps may help turn Zimbabwe's health crisis around

    The government of Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe destroyed the country’s health care system and shut down water treatment facilities; the result has been an uncontrolled cholera outbreak; international aid organizations launch a Web site to help the poor people of Zimbabwe find disease-related information — because their government not only would do nothing to curb the epidemic, it also conceals crucial information from the citizenry

  • U.K. to train workers in counter-terrorism

    Home Office says 60,000 U.K. workers will be trained in counterterrorism so they can assist in responding to terror incidents; the trained workers will augment the existing force of 3,000 dedicated counterterrorism police officers

  • Questions raised about private inspections of food companies

    What the mortgage meltdown did to the financial services sector, the recent salmonella outbreak has done to to food industry: critics charge that both cases exposed the inherent weaknesses of industries regulating and inspecting themselves

  • Drug industry uneasy with Obama's choice for FDA deputy

    Food, pharmaceutical, and medical device groups said they were happy with Margaret Hamburg, President Obama’s pick to lead the Food and Drug Administration (FDA); these groups are less comfortable with Joshua Sharfstein, the nominee to be her deputy; Sharfstein worked under Henry Waxman (D-California)

  • Killing mosquitoes dead with laser

    They used to tell us that rather than kill mosquitoes, we should dry up the swamp; forget that: a new handheld laser can locate individual mosquitoes and kill them one by one

  • Obama to bolster food safety

    Each year, about 76 million people in the United States are sickened by contaminated food, hundreds of thousands are hospitalized, and about 5,000 die; thirty-five years ago, the FDA. did annual inspections of about half of the nation’s food-processing facilities; last year, the agency inspected just 7,000 of the nearly 150,000 domestic food facilities; its oversight of foreign plants was even spottier

  • Dedicated band for medical devices

    Making medical records digital, and transmitting medical information among doctors, pharmacies, and insurance companies, would save a lot of money and avoid many medical mistakes; the same with allowing patients to stay at home and have the medical equipment they rely upon monitored and activated from afar; trouble is, such digital system is susceptible to network congestion and hacking

  • Questions raised about private inspections of food companies

    What the mortgage meltdown did to the financial services sector, the recent salmonella outbreak has done to to food industry: critics charge that both cases exposed the inherent weaknesses of industries regulating and inspecting themselves

  • Roche takes over Genentech for $47 billion

    Swiss drug giant pays $95 per share for 44 percent of Genetech (Roche already owns 56 percent); the combined company would be the seventh-largest U.S. pharmaceutical company in terms of market share and would generate about $17 billion in annual revenues with a payroll of around 17,500 employees in the U.S. pharmaceuticals business alone

  • Cost of bioterror false alarms, anthrax hoaxes rises

    The U.S. government has spent more than $50 billion since the 2001 anthrax attacks to beef up U.S. defenses against biological attacks; there has not been another attack so far, but the cost of hoaxes and false alarms is rising steeply