Recent News

By Region: North America

The germ hunters: lessons from Iraq

(Foreign Policy) An important new book on biological weapons and nonproliferation is being published this week. Amy E. Smithson's Germ Gambits: The Bioweapons Dilemma, Iraq and Beyond (Stanford University Press) is a carefully researched and fascinating study of the …

September 6, 2011
| Filed under Middle East, North America, and Policy & Initiatives
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Scientific Experts for 9/11 Biosecurity, Microbial Forensics and Anthrax Stories

(Newswise) She is one of the most highly cited investigators in the field of microbiology, is a leading researcher in microbial forensics, and advises US agencies involved in biosecurity and serves on the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity.

September 6, 2011
| Filed under North America, Bioterrorism, Public Health, and Research
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Public health agencies learned to work together after Sept. 11, anthrax attacks

(The Augusta Chronicle) Pam Tucker remembers people undressing outside businesses and being sprayed down with firehoses. “Not to take any chances of course, measures were taken to decontaminate people who may have been contaminated with anthrax,” she said. “We just didn’t know.” The fearful and sometimes chaotic response to those anthrax letters in October 2001 Read More »

September 6, 2011
| Filed under North America and Public Health
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Anthrax vaccine in works in NC

(News & Observer) North Carolina was not targeted in the 2001 anthrax mailings that killed five people in Florida and the Northeast. But the Triangle is home to the development site for a new vaccine against the deadly bacterial powder …

September 6, 2011
| Filed under North America, Countermeasures, and Public Health
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Debating Bioweapons

(The Diplomat) The Seventh Review Conference of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) will take place this December in Geneva. As I noted in April, the current president of the BWC, Paul van den Ijssel, has set out an ambitious course focused …