ABC News reports that a new strain of influenza has appeared in several states.  CDC officials are worrying that it might become the predominant strain this flu season.  Based on modelling, CDC thinks Tamiflu might help.  (However, Tamiflu only shortens bouts of flu by one day, according to the package insert.  It is probably a…

This article is by Natasha Bita, who just won a Walkley journalism prize for her series on flu vaccine dangers in The Australian. UPDATE:  The public’s responses to her story “Virus in the System.”  It is astounding that after the widely publicized problems with last year’s childhood flu vaccine, the Health Minister (a lawyer) has…

… But the [2009 swine] flu was much milder than expected, and this, combined with safety fears over the new vaccine, led to only around seven percent of Germans opting to get the vaccine. Germany actually purchased two different types of swine flu vaccine:  one with a novel adjuvant (that used less antigen and instead…

From the Associated Press, Maureen Stevens settles with the US government for her husband’s death by anthrax, due to lax control of the material at government’s Fort Detrick lab. UPDATE:  From Scott Shane at the NY Times: … A Justice Department spokesman, Charles S. Miller, said he could not comment on why the government was…

More details emerge from this piece by Edward Jay Epstein about the Dominique Strauss-Kahn affair at the New York Sofitel hotel.  This does not wrap up the case, but provides additional information about the sequence of events and about the missing Blackberry, which DSK had arranged with his wife to be examined for a security…

Infectious Disease News has posted a report of a paper, “H1N1 pandemic less severe among adults with history of flu.”  The paper suggests that people with preexisting antibodies to different H1N1 strains had more immunity to swine flu H1N1 than those without.  Getting a flu infection (whether or not you actually get sick… since the…

As long as the research is methodologically sound and designed to capture a broad range of possible adverse outcomes from radiation released at Fukushima (where people have been exposed to many different isotopes through skin contact, inhalation and ingestion at widely varying doses), you will probably learn a lot about how the radiation affected health. …

Last month I went to Chicago to do a video interview with Dr. Joe Mercola on bioterrorism issues, anthrax, government responses and some of their ramifications (especially vaccines).  I thought he performed masterfully, asking the right questions and providing perspective.  The material he elicited builds a surprising story, which encapsulates most of my work over…

UPDATE:  Senator Claire McCaskill calls for DHHS IG to investigate the government’s sole-source contract with Siga. If you are unconvinced that government seeks ways to buy products from “insider” companies that tithe to those at the center of government, read David Willman’s article in today’s LA Times.  A few grams of anthrax, grown from stock…

A McClatchy piece I thought was duplicative, but there is more meat than I realized at first glance: … The existing security procedures _ described in two long-secret reports _ were so lax they would have allowed any researcher, aide or temporary worker to walk out of the Army bio-weapons lab at Fort Detrick, Md,…

The Alliance for Human Research Protection has written about the NBSB recommendations for testing anthrax vaccine in children: … The NBSB recommendation was made despite its own report acknowledging that: “Currently, U.S. children are not at immediate risk from anthrax and would not benefit directly from pre-event AVA [anthrax vaccine] administration.” “There is no known…

From the Daily Mail’s Miles Goslett: The death of Dr David Kelly is to be examined at the High Court next month after a senior judge ordered a special hearing as part of  his review of the case. Mr Justice Kenneth Parker is considering an application from retired West Country surgeon David Halpin to challenge…

From the Public Citizen advocacy organization, discussed by periodical The Hill: November 1, 2011 The Honorable Kathleen Sebelius Secretary Department of Health and Human Services 200 Independence Avenue, SW Washington, DC 20201 RE: Proposed Clinical Trials Testing the Anthrax Vaccine on Children Dear Secretary Sebelius: Public Citizen, representing more than 225,000 members and supporters nationwide,…

Here is another blog post coming from the long NY Times article on our government’s response to the threat of bioterrorism.  This article is brilliant in its simplicity.  It simply covers the field.  The author interviewed over 100 people who work in biodefense, and he makes clear that the $60+ billion spent on bioterrorism efforts…

Thanks to author Steven Salzberg, who worked sequencing anthrax for the FBI letters investigation, writing in Forbes: The anthrax vaccine is a truly bad idea. The U.S. has wasted billions of dollars on it, and it just seems to go from bad to worse. Now a government panel has recommended that we test the vaccine on…