Wednesday, February 25, 2004

Anthrax – The anthrax outbreak is getting under control in Zimbabwe.

• The Herald: Anthrax Under Control

Agroterrorism – An isolated case of mad cow disease and an outbreak of bird flu on U.S. farms indicates the vulnerability of American agriculture to disease – either spread accidentally or intentionally – and the economic disruption that could result.

• Washington Times: Outbreak points out vulnerability of U.S. food supply

Simulation – Lessons learned from last year’s global bioterrorism exercise Global Mercury.

• Washington Post: WHO Assails Wealthy Nations on Bioterror
• Global Health Security Initiative: Exercise Global Mercury Post Exercise Report

Smallpox – An excellent history by Richard Preston of smallpox as a disease, and how it can be turned into a lethal weapon.

• The New Yorker: The Demon in the Freezer

Tuesday, February 24, 2004

Research – A report that attempts to address how to balance the openess of scientific research with the potential dangerous uses it can be put to???

• American Medical News: Balancing research with national security
• National Academies Press: Biotechnology Research in an Age of Terrorism: Confronting the ‘Dual Use’ Dilemma

Smallpox – ???and some of the recent research from late last year that made the above report extrememly relevant???

• New Scientist: US develops lethal new viruses

Monday, February 23, 2004

Francisella tularensis – A look at research being performed on Francisella tularensis at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

• San Mateo County Times: Bioweapon out of California gives up mysteries at local lab

Sunday, February 22, 2004

Disease Surveillance – A look at the WHO’s world wide disease surveillance system.

• Reuters: U.N. Disease Early Warning System Proves Its Worth

Saturday, February 21, 2004

Public Policy – The non-profit organisation, Trust for America’s Health, reports that more than 2 years after the Sept 11 attacks and after spending almost US$2 billion on bioterrorism preparedness, most US states are only “modestly” better prepared to respond to health emergencies. The report examines indicators to assess improvement and vulnerability, including rapid availability of funds, public-health infrastructure, and communications preparedness. The full report and related materials are posted here.

• Washington Post: Bioterror Preparedness Still Lacking, Health Group Concludes
• Trust for America’s Health: Ready or Not? Protecting the Public’s Health in the Age of Bioterrorism

Friday, February 20, 2004

Yersinia Pestis – There has been a breakthough in a vaccine against Yersinia Pestis.

• BBC: Black Death vaccine developed

Public Health – Judith Miller on how New York City is preparing to defend against an attack by Weapons of Mass Destruction.

• New York Times: New York Police Training for Catastrophic Terrorism

History – A review of the Influenza Epidemic of 1918.

• Boston Globe: 1918’s explosion of devastating flu

Thursday, February 19, 2004

Smallpox – A computer model of how to defend against a smallpox attack.

• New Scientist: Bioterror simulations back targeted treatment

Smallpox – What the Russians are doing with the smallpox virus they have stored at the Vector Institute.

• Reuters: Russian ‘Vector’ Lab Probes Secrets of Smallpox

Anthrax – How to deliver antibiotics via the US postal service in the event of a bioterror attack.

• Reuters:
  U.S. Post Could Deliver Medicine After a Bio Attack

Research – Is the US doing enough to defend itself against emerging pathogens?

• Washington Post: The Next Plague

Wednesday, February 18, 2004

Agroterrorism – Targeted initiatives could reduce the vulnerabilities of American agriculture and food industries to deliberate acts of biological terrorism.

• RAND: Agroterrorism – What is the threat and what can be done about it?

Saturday, February 14, 2004

Smallpox – A baby showed signs of smallpox vaccine virus exposure after being breastfed by the wife of a US soldier given the jab.

• BBC: Smallpox vaccine ‘infects’ baby

Ricin – A look at how the US Marine Corps Chemical and Biological Incident Response Team responded to the US Senate ricin attacks.

• Henderson Hall News: CBIRF Responds to Ricin Scare

Self-Defense – An excellent guide, from the RAND Corporation, for surviving a weapons of mass destruction attack.

• RAND: Individual Preparedness and Response to Chemical, Radiological, Nuclear, and Biological Terrorist Attacks

BiodefenseEducation.org is taking a break for a few days and will next be updated Wednesday February 18th. See you then.

Friday, February 13, 2004

Anthrax – More anthrax cases are reported in Zimbabwe.

• The Herald: 3 More Anthrax Cases Reported in Masvingo

Public Policy- The GAO claims that state public health departments are still not ready to react to bioterrorism events.

• Federal Computer Week: GAO finds bioterror protection gaps

Thursday, February 12, 2004

Research – The US plans to build a biodefense research campus, comprising several federal agencies, at Fort Detrick, Maryland.

• Baltimore Sun: U.S. biodefense campus set for Fort Detric

Wednesday, February 11, 2004

Ricin – Antidotes and vaccines for the poison could be on their way

• MSNBC: Scientists work on strategies to defeat ricin

Disease Surveillance – A nice overview of the role disease surveillance systems play in biodefense.

• Healthcare Informatics: Battling Bioterror

Tuesday, February 10, 2004

Research – Judith Miller looks at the controversies over the construction of new BSL-3 and BSL-4 lab space, as well as whether biodefense research should be conducted in secrecy or in the open.

• New York Times: New Germ Labs Stir Debate Over Secrecy and Safety

Anthrax – The cause of the anthrax outbreak in Zimbabwe is said to be the land redistribution that is occurring nationwide.

• SABC: Land redistribution triggers anthrax

Research – Funding on biodefense intiatives in the US is scheduled to increase in next year’s budget.

• Los Angeles Times: Bush to Seek More Money to Thwart Bioterrorism

Monday, February 9, 2004

Anthrax – He says he’s a patriot, and some on the front lines of the war against terror sing his praises. But his provocative life and career have kept him at the center of the FBI’s frustrating hunt for the anthrax killer of 2001.

• Washington Post: The Pursuit of Steven Hatfill

Saturday, February 7, 2004

Self-Defense – A look at how some businesses are trying to protect themselves from bioterrorism.

• Baltimore Sun: The office as fortress
  

Friday, February 6, 2004

History – Scientists have worked out how the virus which caused the world’s worst ever influenza epidemic in 1918 infected man.

• BBC [Science]: 1918 killer flu secrets revealed

Research – Can the nation deal with a bioterror attack? Anthony Fauci says that ’substantial’ progress has been made since 2001óbut more work lies ahead

• Newsweek: The Challenge is to Stay Vigilant

Thursday, February 5, 2004

Ricin – More on the use of ricin as a bioweapon.

• Washington Post: Scientists Play Down Ricin’s Lethal Threat
• New York Times: Ricin Poses Postal Risk, but Different From Germs
  

History – A concise history of the use of biological agents in warfare.

• WebMD: Biological and Chemical Terror History
  

Wednesday, February 4, 2004

Ricin – A letter containing ricin is sent to the US Senate; it is also revealed that a letter containing ricin was sent to the White House last year.

• BBC: Ricin find shuts Senate offices
• Washington Post: Letter With Ricin Vial Sent To White House

Tuesday, February 3, 2004

Iraq – Nine months after the fall of Saddam Hussein, the U.S. has still not found any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. An inside look at the hunt for WMD – and the still unanswered questions.

• PBS Frontline: Chasing Saddam’s Weapons

  The transcript of the entire program is here.

Monday, February 2, 2004

Smallpox – Is Al Quaeda trying to launch a biological attack against the U.S. by sending infected individuals onto airliners bound for the U.S.? The U.S. has intellgence to suggest so???

• Reuters: Flights cancelled over attack fears
• Daily Telegraph: One terrorist with deadly disease ‘could cause deaths of millions’

Saturday, January 17, 2004

Anthrax – Slightly more than two years after some tainted letters caused five deaths and significant nationwide panic, the question remains: Is the United States more ready today than it was in 2001?

• American Medical News: Researchers step up battle against ongoing anthrax threat

BiodefenseEducation.org is taking a break until February 1. See you then.

Friday, January 16, 2004

Public Health – How the SARS epidemic helped Singapore prepare for bioterrorist attacks.

• The Straits Times: Sars crisis helped S’pore prepare for bioterrorism

Smallpox – How the weaponisation of smallpox was perfected by the Russians during the Cold War – and how this biological weapon may still threaten the lives of millions.

• BBC: Silent Weapon: Smallpox and Biological Warfare

Thursday, January 15, 2004

Iraq – How could we have been so far off in our estimates of Saddam Hussein’s weapons programs? A leading intelligence analyst, Ken Pollack, gives a detailed account of how and why we erred???

• The Atlantic: Spies, Lies and Weapons: What Went Wrong

Wednesday, January 14, 2004

History – A review of the new book “Greek Fire, Poison Arrows & Scorpion Bombs: Biological and Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World”

• Newsday: Bio Warfare Rears Its Head –
  Ancient world had the concept and wrestled with its consequences

Anthrax – More on anthrax in Zimbabwe.

• UN: ZIMBABWE: Anthrax outbreak continues

Iraq – A reasoned look at what happened to Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, by Ken Pollack.

• The Atlantic: Weapons of Misperception

Ricin and Clostridium Botulinum – The terror cell arrested in France was also planning attack in the UK, using ricin and botulinum toxin.

• Daily Telegraph: Islamic cell ‘planned ricin attack in Britain’

Tuesday, January 13, 2004

Vaccines – In the United Kingdom, the first official backing has been given for claims that the cocktail of vaccines given to soldiers before the 1991 war with Iraq caused illnesses which became known as Gulf War syndrome. The innoculations included anthrax, botulism, plague and other biological warfare agents???

• The Times: Official report links vaccine to Gulf War syndrome
• BBC: Jabs linked to Gulf War Syndrome

Monday, January 12, 2004

Clostridium Botulinum and Ricin – France claims to have arrested a terrorist cell dedicated to producing and dispensing botulism and ricin toxins.

• The Guardian: Al-Qaida terror plot foiled, say French police

Anthrax – More on the anthrax outbreak in Zimbabwe.

• Herald Reporter: More anthrax cases continue to surfac

Sunday, January 11, 2004

Public Policy – More must be done to secure the world’s supply of biological and chemical agents.

• Yale Global: Stopping Bioterrorism Before It Starts
  

Saturday, January 10, 2004

Smallpox – A description of the dangers posed by smallpox chimera viruses.

• US News and World Report: Smallpox mixes make a stir

Smallpox – The US could face further outbreaks of dangerous monkeypox if the virus has gained a foothold among native animals, say experts writing in The Lancet Infectious Diseases

• BBC [Lancet Infectious Diseases]: New warning over monkeypox threat

Disease Emergence – With outbreaks of new and frightening infectious diseases such as SARS and monkey pox jumping from the animal kingdom to humans, tracking their spread is vital to public health efforts to contain them. A novel mathematical model now gives public health leaders another tool to assess the risk of new infectious disease emergence that emphasizes the potentially perilous role of pathogen evolution.

• Science Daily [Nature]: Potential For Pathogens To Evolve Missing From Emerging-disease Models

Friday, January 9, 2004

Welcome! – Today’s stories cover all the biodefense stories from January 1, 2004 – January 9, 2004. We intend to update the site on a daily basis in the future.

Iraq – ???In public statements and unauthorized interviews, investigators said they have discovered no work on former germ-warfare agents such as anthrax bacteria, and no work on a new designer pathogen — combining pox virus and snake venom — that led U.S. scientists on a highly classified hunt for several months???

• Washington Post: Iraq’s Arsenal Was Only on Paper

Anthrax – The Pentagon is resuming anthrax vaccinations of troops after a federal judge removed a legal restraint on the program.

• Associated Press: Pentagon Resuming Anthrax Vaccinations

Anthrax – ???and the Pentagon has just purchased a new supply of anthrax vaccine???

• Reuters: US Army Buys $30 Million in Anthrax Shots

Anthrax – South Korea is taking precautions to guard against an anthrax attack.

• Associated Press: South Korea Orders Tightened Security

Anthrax – Research which may lead to the production of drugs to combat the deadly toxin secreted by anthrax bacteria.

• Harvard Crimson [Nature Structural and Molecular Biology]: HMS Researchers Find New Anthrax Treatment
  

Anthrax – Biologists have determined how toxin produced by anthrax bacteria blocks a person’s normal immune response, a discovery that could lead to new treatments for anthrax infection.

• Science Daily [Journal of Immunology]: Study By UCSD Gives New Insight Into How Anthrax Bacteria Can Evade A Host’s Immune Response

Anthrax – There is an outbreak of anthrax im Zimbabwe.

• The Herald: Vet Dept fights anthrax outbreaks in Masvingo
  

Public Health – The steps that India is taking to protect itself against bioterrorist attacks.

• The Times of India: An anti-WMD force to reckon with

Self-Defense – A Florida inventor has patented a germicidal mailbox that would let consumers sterilize their incoming letters through irradiation

• Reuters: Patented: Germ-zapping mailbox