Recent News

By Region: North America

Canada confines mutant flu to maximum-security facilities

(Nature.com) Canada this month announced that any research on mammalian-transmissible strains of the H5N1 avian flu virus in the country’s labs would need to be done at the strictest level of biocontainment, biosafety level 4 (BSL-4). It’s the first country to …

February 24, 2012
| Filed under North America, Biosafety, and Policy & Initiatives
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Disarming the botulinum neurotoxin

(Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute) Researchers at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute discovered how botulinum neurotoxin, a potential bioterrorism agent, survives the hostile environment in the stomach on its journey through the human body. Their study, published Feb. 24 in Science, reveals the first 3D structure of a neurotoxin together with its bodyguard, a protein made simultaneously Read More »

February 24, 2012
| Filed under North America, Countermeasures, and Research
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Three US lawmakers sent threatening letters

(AFP) he letters were received by organizations such as The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Fox News and National Public Radio, reports said. CBS News quoted a law enforcement official as saying that in missives to comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, the sender warned that 100 letters were sent to the Read More »

February 23, 2012
| Filed under North America and Bioterrorism
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Suspicious Letters to Lawmakers Prompt House-Senate Alert

(Global Security Newswire) WASHINGTON — House and Senate members were alerted on Wednesday that a House member’s district office and at least two senators’ state offices have received threatening mail this week containing a suspicious powdery substance, all later determined to be harmless. Memos sent to members’ offices from the sergeants-at-arms of both chambers notified Read More »

February 23, 2012
| Filed under North America and Bioterrorism
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Publish lethal flu virus work, says WHO

(New Scientist) BATTLES continue over whether or not to publish research in which H5N1 bird flu transmitted readily among mammals. Last week, a group of flu virologists, public health experts from countries where H5N1 circulates, bioethicists and the World Health Organization advised that the work should be published – even though the top US biosecurity Read More »