Recent News

By Region: North America

Anthrax capsule vaccine protects monkeys from lethal infection

(EurekAlert) Vaccination with the anthrax capsule—a naturally occurring component of the bacterium that causes the disease—protected monkeys from lethal anthrax infection, according to U.S. Army scientists. The study, which appears in the Jan. 20th print edition of the journal VACCINE, represents the first successful use of a non-toxin vaccine to protect monkeys from the disease.

January 13, 2012
| Filed under North America, Agents & Toxins, Countermeasures, and Research
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Report Finds No Signs of Harmful Effects From Anthrax Vaccine

(Global Security Newswire) A U.S. government study has turned up no indications of harmful psychological or physiological symptoms produced by the sole Food and Drug Administration-licensed anthrax vaccine over the first 30 months following its administration to Laboratory Response Network personnel, the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy reported on Tuesday. The U.S. Centers Read More »

January 13, 2012
| Filed under North America, Countermeasures, Public Health, and Research
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Livermore Lab bioweapons center debated in court

(San Francisco Chronicle) Research at the center is intended to help the government detect biological pathogens such as anthrax, plague, brucellosis and Q fever. The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked the facility in 2006, saying the Department of Energy’s environmental assessment had failed to study the possibility that terrorists could cause a release Read More »

January 13, 2012
| Filed under North America, Biological Weapons, Biosafety, Bioterrorism, and Research
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BWC Meeting Makes Incremental Changes

(Arms Control Today) As most observers expected, the states-parties did not narrow their differences on contentious issues relating to treaty compliance and verification at the three-week conference in Geneva. Other areas had been seen as more likely to produce agreement. For example, some key states had pushed for a strengthened “intersessional process,” the annual meetings Read More »

January 13, 2012
| Filed under Africa, Asia/Pacific, Europe, Middle East, North America, South America, South Asia, Countermeasures, International, and Policy & Initiatives
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Bird flu and the future of biosecurity

(Nature) Amy Patterson, director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Science Policy, which administers the NSABB, is taking the lead on the bird flu issue for the agency. Nature asks her what led to the NSABB’s decision and what will come out of it.