• Bush administration asks court to block comprehensive testing for mad cow disease

    A small meatpacking company wants to conduct testing for mad cow disease on all the animals it processes; the Department of Agriculture requires testing of less than 1 percent of slaughtered animals; the Bush administration, goaded by large meatpacking companies, urged a federal appeals court to stop the small company from doing more comprehensive tests

  • Past patients to provide fast flu vaccine to new patients

    Currently it takes at least six months to produce a flu vaccine after a new strain appears; researchers find that a faster way would be to treat people with antibodies produced by earlier patients

  • Doctors develop a list of those allowed to die in a catastrophe

    Physicians, government agencies draft a grimly specific list of recommendations for which patients would be treated - and which would not — during a pandemic

  • Canada confirms tuberculosis in Manitoba cow

    For the first time since 2004, a Canadian cow is diagnosed with TB; Canadian health authorities says no part of the infected cow entered the human or animal food chain

  • Death toll in China disease outbreak hits 34

    China issues national alert after rapid spread of hand, foot, and mouth disease brings toll to 34 and nearly 25,000 infected; most of the deaths have involved enterovirus 71, or EV71

  • U.S. hospitals could not handle terror attack

    Inquiry into the disaster preparedness of hospitals in several major U.S. cities conclude that they are — and will be — incapable to handle even a modest terrorist attack in those cities; one reason for for the lack of hospitals’ capacity: the Bush administration’s cuts in Medicaid reimbursements to hospitals overwhelm emergency rooms with patients suffering from routine problems, leaving no capacity to absorb and treat disaster victims

  • China accuses U.S. of hampering probe into tainted heparin

    Chinese scientists say they were refused information about victims of the recent heparin contamination and other specific details related to the case; the FDA says that federal law prevents it from sharing individual patient information with China unless information that would identify the patient is removed

  • Secrets of bubonic plague bacteria's virulence revealed

    Bubonic plague has killed more than 200 million people during the course of history and is thus the most devastating acute infectious disease known to man; scientists are closer to understanding bacteria’s virulence

  • Drug-resistant tuberculosis on the increase in the U.K.

    The incidence of tuberculosis in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland has been on the increase with more than 8,000 cases reported in 2006; the cause: changing population structure and ongoing migration

  • New ultrasensitive assay detects most poisonous substance known

    One gram of botulinum toxin could kill more than one million people — little wonder, then, that CDC identifies botulinum neurotoxin as one of six “maximum threat” bioterrorism agents; researchers have now developed a new ultrasensitive assay to detect botulinum neurotoxin

  • Debate over private biolabs in Seattle

    Biolabs bring high-paying jobs to a community and contracts from government and the pharmaceutical industry; there is always a danger, though: an accident may occur and a deadly pathogen may be released into the environment to wreak havoc and death; in Seattle they debate the wisdom of locating biolabs in residential communities s

  • FDA: Heparin contamination may have been deliberate

    Blood-thinner heparin costs manufacturers $900 a pound; a similar chemical, oversulfated chondroitin sulfate, costs $9 a pound; Chinese drug manufacturer uses the latter chemical to produce fake heparin — causing the death of nearly 100 and sickness of thousands around the world; FDA initially said this was a case of “economic fraud,” but now says something more sinister may be afoot

  • Chinese officials accused of covering up killer virus

    Chinese authorities are criticized for covering up an outbreak of a deadly enterovirus 71, which left 20 dead and more than 1,500 ill

  • Researchers find source of lethal heparin

    A common blood-thinning drug heparin, produced in China, was linked to more than 400 illnesses and as many as twenty-one deaths across the United States, and many more around the world; researchers find that the source of contamination was a complex carbohydrate named oversulfated chondroitin sulfate, which has a structure so similar to heparin but which is nearly undetectable

  • Indonesia runs airport bird flu drill

    Indonesia is the nation worst hit by the bird flu so far, with 107 dead since the first human case appeared here in 2005; authorities run a bird flu detection drill at the Bali airport