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By Region: North America

Anthrax Attack Remains Major National Security Threat

EXAMINER — At the May 13, 2011 House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Response, and Communications, Chair Gus Bilirakis (R-Florida) and Ranking member Laura Richardson (D-California) heard a chilling warning from Alexander Garza, M.D., Chief Medical Officer of the Department of Homeland Security: “The threat of an attack using a biological agent is real Read More »

May 17, 2011
| Filed under North America and Research
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Pitt scholar: Destroy stockpiled strains of smallpox

PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW — Three decades after leading the worldwide effort to eradicate smallpox, Dr. D.A.Henderson at the University of Pittsburgh said on Monday the final stockpiled strains of the virus should be destroyed. No known cases of the disease have been reported since 1978, but the United States and Russia keep hundreds of strains for Read More »

May 17, 2011
| Filed under Europe, North America, International, and Policy & Initiatives
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Industry, Academia Race to Create Drugs Against Biological Warfare

NATIONAL DEFENSE MAGAZINE — Experts tend to arrange biological threats in tiers. And anthrax may very well have an entire shelf to itself. After all, it was a series of deadly letters containing anthrax sent through the mail just weeks after 9/11 that spawned the biodefense industry as it exists today. On the heels of Read More »

May 16, 2011
| Filed under North America, Biotechnology, Bioterrorism, and Countermeasures
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Verdict on Smallpox Cache Near

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL — Global health officials are expected to decide this week whether to grant a stay of execution to the last known stocks of smallpox, a move the U.S. argues is critical for the development of medicines to counter a potential bioterrorist attack. The decision, to be made at an annual meeting Read More »

May 16, 2011
| Filed under North America, International, Policy & Initiatives, and Public Health
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Protest Filed Against BARDA Over Smallpox Antiviral Biodefense Contract

Siga, a pharmaceutical company that develops medicines to fight the effects of potential bioterrorism attacks, announced Friday afternoon that it had won a contract to deliver its smallpox antiviral medicine to the government's stockpile of emergency …