• Thousands of deadly bracelets made from toxic plant recalled

    An urgent recall is underway after it was discovered that a bracelet sold in the United Kingdom was actually made from a highly toxic seed; the red and black bracelets were made with the Jequirity bean, the deadly seed from the abrus precatorious plant, which contains the toxin abrin

  • Georgia readies portable hospitals

    On Monday local health and emergency response officials from Georgia’s West Central Health District gathered to learn how to quickly set up a portable hospital in the event of an emergency

  • Thai health officials prevent outbreaks in historic floods

    Thanks to Thailand’s aggressive public health and emergency response operations, the country managed successfully to prevent disease outbreaks following record floods

  • Key to disaster preparedness is “training, training, training”

    Bonnie S. Michelman, CPP/CHPA, the director of police, security, and outside services at Massachusetts General Hospital, recently took the time to speak with Homeland Security NewsWire’s executive editor Eugene K. Chow; in their interview, Michelman highlights the recent technological security measures Massachusetts General has installed, finding the right balance between security and openness, and preventing terrorists from stealing the low-grade radioactive materials that are housed in hospitals

  • Study promises possible therapy for radiation sickness

    Studies of potential radiation therapies suggest they would be effective in humans only if administered within a few minutes or hours of radiation exposure, thus making them impractical for use in response to events involving mass casualties; the larger time window for administering a new 2-drug regimen ofeers the prospect that it could become a mainstay of the response to public health threats such as a nuclear power plant accident or nuclear terror attack

  • Ionized plasmas as cheap sterilizer in tough places

    Scientists show that ionized plasmas like those in neon lights and plasma TVs not only can sterilize water, but make it antimicrobial; these plasma devices could be life-savers in developing countries, disaster areas, or on the battlefield where sterile water for medical use is in short supply and expensive to produce

  • Jefferson County tests flu pandemic vaccination capabilities

    Local public health authorities in Jefferson County, New York are currently testing their ability to administer large quantities of flu vaccines in the event of a pandemic by offering to inoculate its residents for free

  • Mysterious incident leaves more than 20 high-schoolers sick

    Public health authorities in Texas are investigating a mysterious incident that left more than twenty people sick during a high school football game in Houston last Friday; the stadium was immediately evacuated and a Hazmat team dispatched, while a total of twenty-two students were taken to several local hospitals for treatment

  • 11,000 California parents refuse basic vaccinations for their children

    Even with the massive whooping cough outbreak last year in California that sickened more than 9,100 people and killed ten babies, over 11,000 hesitant parents chose not to vaccinate their children against the infectious disease; with record numbers of children going unvaccinated, there have been an increasing number of outbreaks of highly infectious diseases like measles and whooping cough

  • Millions of yet-to-be-described viruses found in raw sewage

    There are roughly 1.8 million species of organisms on planet Earth, and each one is host to untold numbers of unique viruses, but only about 3,000 have been identified to date; a new study reveals a vast world of unseen viral diversity that exists right under our nose — in ordinary raw sewage, to be precise

  • Emergency medical response in a post-9/11 Washington, D.C.

    Beverly Pritchett, the senior deputy director of the Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Administration at the D.C. Department of Health, is a 27-year veteran of the U.S. Army Medical Service Corps; Pritchett discusses improvements made to the city’s emergency medical response capabilities, the integration of smartphones and social media into disaster response plans, and the need for continued funding to sustain the gains made in public health over the past ten years

  • Simple solution for removing arsenic from water

    Almost 100 million people in developing countries are exposed to dangerously high levels of arsenic in their drinking water, unable to afford complex purification technology; scientists developed a simple, inexpensive method for removing arsenic based on chopped up pieces of ordinary plastic beverage bottles coated with a nutrient found in many foods and dietary supplements

  • Lawmakers struggling to end critical medicine shortage

    Critical shortages for medicines needed in treating life-threatening illnesses have lawmakers and public health officials scrambling to find solutions; this year alone, a record high of more than 180 drugs crucial for treating childhood leukemia, breast and colon cancer, infections, and other diseases have been declared in short supply

  • A natural food preservative kills food-borne bacteria

    Salmonella and E. coli account for more than half of all food recalls in the United States; salmonella contributes to an estimated 28 percent of more than 3,000 U.S. deaths related to foodborne illness each year; researchers have discovered and received a patent for a naturally occurring lantibiotic — a peptide produced by a harmless bacteria — that could be added to food to kill harmful bacteria like salmonella, E. coli, and listeria

  • Gold nanoparticles help to diagnose flu in minutes

    Arriving at a rapid and accurate diagnosis is critical during flu outbreaks, but until now, physicians and public health officials have had to choose between a highly accurate yet time-consuming test or a rapid but error-prone test; University of Georgia researchers offer a solution