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Authentication technology may help track food contamination
ARmark’s food grade taggants can hold sixteen lines of text and can be sprayed on food or packaged in coatings; “track and trace” data is read with a handheld microscope attached to a computer; one head of lettuce could hold 1000 miniature devices
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SunGard offers Pandemic Response Planning system
Three-part program includes assessment and a simulated pandemic exercise; threat of disease outbreak often mistakenly overlooked by business continuity planners
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Project BioShield on the brink of death as competing vaccine firms collide
Effort to create stockpile stymied by poor government planning, decision to award contract to single, unqualified firm, and reliability problems; VaxGen threatens to sue government if it turns business over to rival Emergent; demands up-front payment before coducting new tests
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Dick Durbin latest congressman to support increasing nation's veterinarian force
Shortage threatens food safety and public health; bill would provide $1.5 billion over ten years to expand veterinary schools
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Contamination of leafy vegetables spurs new research
A U.S. Department of Agriculture-funded study at Ohio State will look at lesions and other problems particular to spinach and lettuce; if beef poisoning is due to undercooking, insufficient cleaning of vegetables may increase risk as well
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Experts look for source of recent outbreak
Possible culprits include contaminated water, unsanitary packaging, and storage in humid conditions
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World-wide bird flu epidemic would cost the world economy $2 trillion
The World Health Organization and the World Bank revise upward their earlier estimates of the likely cost — and human toll — of a world-wide avian flu epidmeic; the problem has not disappeared, only the news coverage of it
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Napkin to help in detecting bioterror, infection agents
The humble table napkin may soon assume important responsibilities in detecting bioterror agents and infectious pathogens; Cornell University researchers are developing a nanofabric-made napkin to do just that
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Electronic Sensor Technology signs deal with USDA
Company’s zNose chemical sensors to be deployed to fish ponds to detect algae overgrowth; deal the latest in a string of successs for the California company; recent deals also made with Saudi Arabia and China
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Health officials link E. coli sickness to packaged spinach
New methods are needed to test and contain the deadly bacteria; we review two new technologies
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Expanded bioterror research raises dual-use risks
Since the fall 2001 anthrax scare the U.S. government has dramatically expanded bidefense research, spending billions of dollars on new facilities, thousands of rsearchers, and new lines of research; important scientific breakthrough have been achieved; the U.S. government’s effort has not been accompanied by an equally enetrgetic camopaign to educate scientists to the fact that this very expansion — and these very breakthroughs — also hold great dual-use risk: An insider with the knowledge, the means, and the malice may inflict great harm; the FAS is doing something important about the dual-use part of the equation
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Canada strikes back against new U.S. agro-terror fees
Agriculture minister meets with U.S. officials to express displeasure with program, claims Canadian inspection system sufficient
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California's Central Valley shores up counter-agroterror programs
Butte County sets an example for others with tight controls on cropdusters, fertilizer and pesticide storage
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Efforts genetically to engineer pathogens runs into evolutionary trouble
Scientists, rogue or traditional, must overcome “one-kill cycle” of new bacteria and viruses; new strains kill hosts too quickly to cause pandemic
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Worried about crop smuggling, USDA imposes new fees on Canadian fliers, transport
Rise of tropical fruit smuggling worries USDA; $5 fee to be imposed on airline travellers; $5.25 for trucks, $7.50 for every railway car, and $488 on each maritime vessel
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The long view
What We’ve Learned from Survivors of the Atomic Bombs
Q&A with Dr. Preetha Rajaraman, New Vice Chair for the Radiation Effects Research Foundation in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.
Combatting the Measles Threat Means Examining the Reasons for Declining Vaccination Rates
Measles was supposedly eradicated in Canada more than a quarter century ago. But today, measles is surging. The cause of this resurgence is declining vaccination rates.
Social Networks Are Not Effective at Mobilizing Vaccination Uptake
The persuasive power of social networks is immense, but not limitless. Vaccine preferences, based on the COVID experience in the United States, proved quite insensitive to persuasion, even through friendship networks.
Vaccine Integrity Project Says New FDA Rules on COVID-19 Vaccines Show Lack of Consensus, Clarity
Sidestepping both the FDA’s own Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee and the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), two Trump-appointed FDA leaders penned an opinion piece in the New England Journal of Medicine to announce new, more restrictive, COVID-19 vaccine recommendations. Critics say that not seeking broad input into the new policy, which would help FDA to understand its implications, feasibility, and the potential for unintended consequences, amounts to policy by proclamation.
Are We Ready for a ‘DeepSeek for Bioweapons’?
Anthropic’s Claude 4 is a warning sign: AI that can help build bioweapons is coming, and could be widely available soon. Steven Adler writes that we need to be prepared for the consequences: “like a freely downloadable ‘DeepSeek for bioweapons,’ available across the internet, loadable to the computer of any amateur scientist who wishes to cause mass harm. With Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4 having finally triggered this level of safety risk, the clock is now ticking.”
“Tulsi Gabbard as US Intelligence Chief Would Undermine Efforts Against the Spread of Chemical and Biological Weapons”: Expert
The Senate, along party lines, last week confirmed Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National intelligence. One expert on biological and chemical weapons says that Gabbard’s “longstanding history of parroting Russian propaganda talking points, unfounded claims about Syria’s use of chemical weapons, and conspiracy theories all in efforts to undermine the quality of the community she now leads” make her confirmation a “national security malpractice.”