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By Region: North America

A Public Policy Expert Looks at the Bird Flu Threat

(New York Times) In the early 1970s, the Nixon administration and the Brezhnev Soviet regime agreed to mutually destroy their bioweapons programs and signed a treaty called the Biological Weapons Convention. Mr. Brezhnev was convinced that President Nixon was trying to trick him, so he ordered creation of the Biopreparat program in the Soviet Union, Read More »

January 3, 2012
| Filed under Europe, North America, Biological Weapons, and Public Health
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Flu research and biological warfare A deadly balance

(The Economist) After the anthrax attacks of 2001, America created the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) to advise the health department. Until now the body has exercised a light touch. For example, it did not flinch when, in 2005, researchers at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Maryland reconstructed the Spanish flu Read More »

January 3, 2012
| Filed under Europe, North America, Biological Weapons, Bioterrorism, International, Policy & Initiatives, and Research
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WHO concerned that new H5N1 influenza research could undermine the 2011 Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Framework

(World Health Organization) WHO takes note that studies undertaken by several institutions on whether changes in the H5N1 influenza virus can make it more transmissible between humans have raised concern about the possible risks and misuses associated with this research. WHO is also deeply concerned about the potential negative consequences. However, WHO also notes that Read More »

January 2, 2012
| Filed under Africa, Asia/Pacific, Europe, Middle East, North America, South America, South Asia, Public Health, and Research
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Bioterrorist Battles

(Scientist) In 2001, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Studies coordinated a 2-day terrorist attack simulation using the smallpox virus, called “Dark …

January 2, 2012
| Filed under Europe, North America, Bioterrorism, International, Policy & Initiatives, and Research
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How to Do Research on Deadly Flu Germs Without Helping Terrorists: View

(Bloomberg) Biomedical research projects that have the potential to be exploited for bioterrorism should be evaluated before they begin. The National Institutes of Health needs a system for doing that. Such a review process was recommended eight years ago by a …