In her third excellent Scientific American blog post, Infectious Disease doctor Judy Stone has delved into the ethical and regulatory framework under which clinical research must be conducted.  Dr. Stone provides a succinct historical overview of the important documents, and how they were enshrined in regulations guiding the conduct of research in humans.  For readers…

Unmanned satellite-aircraft devices can now stay in orbit more than a year, then return to earth and make a soft landing at a military base!  Just imagine the accuracy and precision of the measurements and analysis needed to achieve this.  This accomplishment deserves more than a hat-tip to the scientific method. Yet when it comes…

Very interesting:  the Narcolepsy Association discovered that specific lots were involved, after the Swedish Medical Products Agency denied it.  Bad lots may mean that the regulators were not doing their job.  If this devastating narcolepsy epidemic was caused by bad lots, liability for the injuries might land on the manufacturer, in this case GSK.  From…

From infectious disease MD Judith Stone at Scientific American comes this comprehensive look at what is behind the push to keep buying anthrax vaccine and even give it to children: In my last post, we began to play “Follow the Money” to better understand the history of the anthrax vaccine and the current proposal to…

From the University of Pittsburgh Center for Biosecurity comes this short report, a reiteration that the spores in the anthrax letters could not have come directly from those prepared by Bruce Ivins at Fort Detrick, as they lacked two substances contained in the RMR1029 anthrax spore collection. Thanks to Ross Getman for the citation. Additional…

Why are Super PACs different than all other PACs?  [No, we are not discussing Passover tonight.]  See what the NY Times has to say.  But here is a quick summary: Super PACs can accept and spend donations throughout the year, not just during election periods Super PACs have few or maybe only one donor, and…

The federal government has spent $547 million issuing grants to “independent” “health information exchanges” to collect and share citizens’ medical records.  Each state and territory has an agency established for this purpose.  The federal government has promised up to $27 billion in Medicare/Medicaid incentives for medical practices and hospitals to use electronic medical records, which…

From the Lansing State Journal:  The anthrax vaccine manufacturer, with one product and basically one buyer, YOU (your taxes at work) plans to expand.  But sorry, there won’t be any new jobs as yet, although Michigan will have to pay its share.   How the state will benefit is unknown. …Emergent BioSolutions would fund the…

Thanks to Teresa Binstock for this tip– An exposure to nano-scale copper oxide particles stunted the shoots and roots of radishes and two species of rye grass.

I have treated so many patients with sinusitis in the last several weeks, I decided to review new guidelines that were issued by the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) recently on sinusitis.  Wow, the changes were BIG and I had missed them.  Seems the drugs I used to use don’t work so well any…

From Dr. Stephen Frost, one of the doctors making this request of the Attorney General: I am one of the doctors who have been fighting for an inquest into the suspicious death of Dr David Kelly in July 2003, pointing out that due process of the law has been subverted by four successive UK governments,…

Published on Deccan Chronicle (http://www.deccanchronicle.com) Rise in paralysis cases after polio vaccine Cases of non-polio acute flaccid paralysis, better known as AFP, has sharply increased with the increase in the administration of oral polio vaccination (OPV) in the country under the much-acclaimed polio eradication programme. According to a report by Dr. Neetu Vashisht and Dr….

All the Irish papers report on the government’s announcement that Pandemrix swine flu vaccine is associated with many cases of narcolepsy.   The Irish Times reported: An official report has concluded that an increase in the sleep disorder narcolepsy among young people since 2009 is associated with the swine flu vaccine Pandemrix. The report, commissioned by…

Having dissected the false claims made for Tamiflu, which the US government stockpiled to the tune of $1.5 Billion dollars, Peter Doshi and Tom Jefferson draw some important conclusions about drug data and regulation in this NY Times Op-ED of April 10: IN the fall of 2009, at the height of fears over swine flu, our…

Today FDA said that YAZ, Yazmine, Beyaz and Safyral  (oral contraceptives made by Bayer) cause a higher than usual increase in blood clots in users.  Blood clots are increased by all contraceptives and other drugs utilizing female hormones.  It is estimated that in the US, 200,000 people die yearly from blood clots that travel to…

With respect to the 44.75 million doses of anthrax vaccine that Emergent BioSolutions (EBS) has announced it is selling to DHHS for the civilian stockpile (for the past several years), comes this curious notice from the Maryland Gazette.  Perhaps not all federal bureaucrats are happy about paying a king’s ransom for an unsafe and unproven…

Total information awareness, we can know all about those over here who are plugged in.  But those people over there who aren’t, well, they aren’t so easy to know about.  So let’s ignore them, and watch the ones we can.  Hey, some of us plugged in ones may be financing some of the unplugged and…

Welcome to the 2012 US Homeland.   Where’d we mislay that old Constitution? Ours is now the land of extrajudicial killings performed by drones; strip searches for speeding, or for bicycling without an audible bell or having a too-audible muffler; widespread extralegal cell phone surveillance by police, mobile phone companies (for whom it is a new…

Documented flu cases have dropped by 97 percent compared with this time last year.  There have been NO flu-related deaths registered in Pennsylvania this year. Why are pharmacies still advertising flu shots? CDC reports only 5 child deaths due to flu, in the entire United States, have occurred this 2011-2012 flu season. The reason for…

On February 9, 2012, I wrote about how Merck manages to evade FDA regulations on advertising by funneling money through third party intermediaries: educational institutions and education/PR companies.  These third parties then pay doctors to provide advertising to other professionals in the form of continuing medical education.  Merck can then have the doctors speak about…

Bradley Manning spent nearly a year in solitary, being tortured with ploys like forced nakedness (perfected in Iraq as a torture method?).  He is unlikely to ever be free.   Julian Assange got the honeypot treatment and is likely to spend much of his remaining life incarcerated. Yet we were told those leaked cables had…

One particularly obnoxious quality of mine is that I do not suffer fools gladly.  I get mad;  I get contemptuous;  and I want to get even.  So when I read this uneducated paean to VACCINES I was forced to respond.  When the newspaper would not publish my response and instead sent a little box that…

Peter Aaby’s group from Statens Serum Institute, Denmark, has been studying the effects of many vaccines in African children for many years.  The group has found some similar results in the past.  The fact that they continue to see the same effect (huge increases in death rates in young vaccinated female infants, increases not seen…

This story was reported today in Science News, and the scientific publication from which the story was derived also came out today in PLOS. The concept is troubling:  toxic materials we encounter in everyday life may seriously scar our progeny generations later.  Although this research was performed for the Army, using toxics encountered by military…

One million Americans have received faulty hips, which continue to be promoted by manufacturers according to the British Medical Journal. The cobalt and chromium they release into local and distant tissues destroy muscle and bone and cause so-called genotoxicity, which may translate into cancer.  Definitely worth a read of the whole article, but excerpts are…

Over the past two weeks, several people asked me about illnesses they developed a number of years after exposures to the Gulf War, to anthrax vaccine, and to other toxic products.  Because this is an extremely complex subject, and a recurring issue, I thought I should address it in the blog, rather than try to…

An estimated five lives were saved in Sweden by swine flu shots–while 170 Swedish children have developed narcolepsy as a result, and no one has any information on how many other severe side effects were due to the vaccine.  (Sarcoidosis, for example:  see below.)  Add in the cost of the vaccinations (about $100 million was…

If you read the second post below this one, you will see evidence from several countries that suggests a previous seasonal flu vaccine may actually increase the risk of getting flu, and may worsen one’s short and long-term immune response to a newer flu vaccine. As if that wasn’t enough reason to avoid getting routine…

Narcolepsy has been in the news the past 10 days.  Severe disabilities in 31 affected Irish children were reported; 70-100 Finnish children were reported with the disorder after receiving Pandemrix; 86 Norwegian claims have been made; now 170 Swedish children are affected, according to Sweden’s health minister.  A Swedish study found the relative risk of…

1.  A significant number of healthcare workers (HCW) are already immune to new flu strains, due to exposures from previous years, crossover immunity, and high levels of exposure.  Thus a Spanish study found that 25% of its healthcare workers were already immune to swine flu prior to the 2009 epidemic.  Vaccinating those with preexisting immunity…

On February 8, a federal government vaccine advisory group (NVAC) made five recommendatios to increase healthcare worker flu vaccinations.  Members have significant conflicts of interest, such as Marie McCormick, who has chaired many IOM committees on vaccine safety and efficacy.  As reported by CIDRAP: … The NVAC’s recommendations urge US hospitals to establish comprehensive infection…

Thanks to CDC for these weekly influenza stats

Thank retired Colonel John Grabenstein, Merck Vaccine’s King of Spin, for the following marketing technique, which detours around all FDA regulations about what companies can tell doctors regarding their products.   If the issue was stopping the spread of HPV, then CONDOMS would be the most effective strategy. Here’s the strategy Merck used, delivered to my…

Public Commentary — for meeting on February 2-3, 2012 Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues 1425 New York Avenue NW, Suite C–100 Washington, DC 20005 info@bioethics.gov     Re:  Pediatric anthrax vaccine trial     Dear Members of the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues:   In this statement, I want to…

 Is any doubt left about whether US vaccine recommendations are excessive?  This wretched recommendation will surely expel the last doubt.  Universal vaccination for boys with a vaccine whose efficacy, safety and duration of effect are unknown, is being recommended for —  can you believe it? — genital warts!  Okay, rarely the warts lead to penile,…

From the Financial Times‘ Science Editor, Clive Cookson: UK research is plagued with misconduct, according to a survey of 2,700 scientists by the British Medical Journal. It found that 13 per cent had first-hand knowledge of UK-based researchers deliberately altering or fabricating data, while 6 per cent were aware of misconduct that had not been…

The Washington Post reviews the spectacle of the Florida DoJ denying that Bruce Ivins had the ability to prepare the anthrax that killed five and made at least 17 people ill.  He didn’t have the equipment within the hot room to dry anthrax.  That does seem to be a limiting fact. But then the DC…

The DHHS’ momentum to test anthrax vaccine in kids did not abate after the NBSB advisory committee suggested the pediatric trial should go forward, following review by an ethics panel.  That way the NBSB members would not be the last ones holding the bag. On January 10, DHHS Secretary Sibelius (ex-Governor, insurance commissioner and lobbyist)…

The validity and quality of research underpin the entire research enterprise worldwide.  However, a number of studies have shown that many researchers take “shortcuts” and that perhaps 1-3% of research is grossly false, fitting into the category of research misconduct. Research misconduct has been defined in US federal law as fabrication, plagiarism and/or falsification.  Identified…

J Hosp Infect. 2011 Dec;79(4):279-86.  Abstract is here. Ng AN, Lai CK. Infectious Disease Control Training Centre, Hospital Authority/Infection Control Branch, Centre for Health Protection, Department of Health, Hong Kong SAR, China. ngngaiming@gmail.com Abstract Vaccination is considered a key measure to protect vulnerable groups against influenza infection. The objectives of this review are to determine…

Damon Winter/The New York Times The NY Times obtained a classified coalition report that acknowledges “a rapidly growing systemic homicide threat, a magnitude of which may be unprecedented between ‘allies’ in modern military history”– i.e., US soldiers are being murdered by the very Afghani forces they are training and working alongside.  A full 6% of…

From US News and World Report: Relatively few cases reported, experts say, but that doesn’t mean a surge can’t happen… One barometer of flu activity, the percentage of visits to hospitals or doctors’ offices linked to influenza, also suggests a mild season so far. For example, just 1.4 percent of outpatient visits during the week…

A new paper on anthrax vaccine safety, presumably published to support DHHS’ desire to test the vaccine in small children, has just been published online.  Its authors are all from CDC, and most have previously published papers of very poor quality supporting the so-called safety of anthrax vaccine.  I don’t understand why they still have…

Interesting that the authorities vaccinated 500 health workers with smallpox vaccine, but are only stockpiling anthrax vaccine, not using it preemptively.  Yet you can vaccinate with smallpox vaccine up to several days after an exposure and it will still prevent the disease, due to smallpox’s several week long incubation period.  On the other hand, one…

 From The Vaccine Exchange: We have been writing about the anthrax vaccine here at Vaccine Xchange for some time. It seems clear that Emergent BioSolutions, the maker of the only human anthrax vaccine (BioThrax) currently available in the US, is working to aggressively market the vaccine, including ensuring that its vaccine is authorized for use…

Per YLE, the government of Finland is paying out small sums to 80 children who developed narcolepsy after Pandemrix vaccination, while 30 cases are still being evaluated.  That is a lot of childhood narcolepsy in a country of only 5.4 million people, and only about 44 swine flu-related deaths. Compensation is being granted to youngsters…

Fifteen minutes on vaccine regulation/safety on YouTube.

In my view, the term “American exceptionalism”had a meaning, which stemmed from our adherence to the Constitution and Bill of Rights.  Those days are gone, and institutionalized brutality is no longer unlawful.  The NY Times essay below, published on the 10th anniversary of the opening of Guantanamo prison, was written by the former Sarajevo Red…

How well does flu vaccine work? Two major reviews have come out in the past two months.  Michiels et al from the University of Antwerp found that the vaccine does prevent influenza among those aged 6-65, “however, there is strikingly limited good-quality evidence of the effectiveness of influenza vaccine on complications such as pneumonia, hospitalization…

And the judge adds insult to injury by asking retired surgeon Halpin to pay Attorney General Grieve’s legal costs.  The Mail provides the details: A retired surgeon lost a major court battle yesterday in his campaign to secure a proper coroner’s inquest into the death of weapons inspector Dr David Kelly. Dr David Halpin was…

From the Daily Mail: A retired surgeon campaigning for a full coroner’s inquest into the death of Dr David Kelly will have his case heard by a High Court judge  on Monday (December 20). David Halpin, 71, is seeking permission to challenge the Government’s decision in June not to order a coroner’s inquest into the…

This story, detailed by David Willman in the LA Times (and blogged by me 4 weeks ago) has now been re-reported (in great detail for television) by CNN.  It certainly deserves plenty of scrutiny, especially after SIGA’s stock rose 32% yesterday, supposedly due to board member Fran Townsend’s denying company interference with the contract.  DHHS…

Sidney Wolfe, MD, is a well-known drug safety advocate and founder/ director of the organization Public Citizen’s Health Research Group.  FDA finally blessed the quality of his work and reputation by inviting him to join its Drug Safety and Risk Management Advisory Committee in 2008. But suddenly FDA has disqualified him from full voting membership…

Half the US GDP was loaned to banks with no collateral.  Recall that (former NY Attorney General and Governor) Eliot Spitzer was investigating the Wall Street banks at the time his indiscretions with call girls led to his resignation, ending any hopes of seeking the presidency.  Not only American, but many foreign banks were bailed…

The Japanese government and TEPCO have released new information (based on simulations, however) on the extent of damage to the Fukushima nuclear reactors.  The Australian reports on the catastrophe: MOLTEN nuclear fuel in one reactor at Japan’s stricken Fukushima Daiichi plant burned through the steel pressure vessel and three-quarters of the surrounding concrete containment vessel…

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…

Why did the most important trial to have been conducted on anthrax vaccine safety (by CDC between 2002 and 2007, with 1564 civilian subjects) only publish an interim report, and never discussed the 229 serious adverse events reported in trial participants?  The trial tested serologic efficacy also.  The investigators published partial data in JAMA on…

I decided to just say briefly what happened yesterday at the NBSB conference call. Every member of the NBSB, with the exception of Iowa’s top public health officer, Patricia Quinlisk, MD, voted in favor of testing anthrax vaccine in children.  Kudos to Dr. Quinlisk for making clear that her public health background precluded agreement. Panel…

  From the Daily News:  Take our Poll Poll Results Do you think an anthrax vaccine should be tested on children? Yes 11% No 80% Not sure 8%

From the NY Times, adapted by Global Security Newswire: … The nation’s preparations for a biological strike face numerous challenges, according to more than 100 interviews with high-level officials at participating federal entities such the National Institutes of Health and the White House, as well as the the Health and Human Services, Defense and Homeland…

From the Palm Beach Post: … While he is legally prohibited from revealing much of what he learned and many of the court documents are sealed, Weisser said he was stunned by the lack of security at the lab. In court papers, the government conceded that before the attacks, Fort Detrick didn’t have cameras to…

From the NY Times, adapted by the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, U Minnesota: Oct 28, 2011 (CIDRAP News) – An expert advisory panel today approved a recommendation that the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) develop a plan to study the use of anthrax vaccine in children before an attack…

From the Scottish Press and Journal: Don’t panic, says Scottish government probe launched into drug batch Flu vaccine doses recalled in scare over side effects The Scottish Government is recalling thousands of flu vaccines over fears that the drug is making some people ill, the Press and Journal can reveal. About 300,000 doses of Preflucel…

According to the FDA: As of 2008, an estimated 50 to 60 percent of prescription drugs used to treat children have been studied in some part of the pediatric population. Still, the likelihood that a medicine has actually been studied in neonates—children less than a month old—is close to zero. So nearly a decade into…

The people on the NBSB could only come up with a recommendation to test anthrax vaccine on children if they were ignorant about the vaccine and/or the law’s requirements for testing children under 45 CFR 46.407.  I will have much more to say about this unfolding story over the next few days.  Here is Rob…

Greg Gordon and Stephen Engelberg continue their important series of reports for McClatchy and ProPublica, here focusing on the inadequate security at USAMRIID and potentially wide access to Ivins’ anthrax spores by 419 or more people: The Army laboratory identified by prosecutors as the source of the anthrax that killed five people in the fall…

From the Irish Herald: We need a jab inquiry The link between the Pandemrix swine flu vaccination and narcolepsy in at least 16 children has to be scrutinised. Manufacturers GlaxoSmithKline were indemnified by the State from any liability for side effects as the vaccine was rushed through. We need a full explanation from the Irish…

From the Infectious Diseases Society of America annual meeting comes this [WHO] discussion of how novel adjuvants affect the immune response, and how we can expect to see more of these adjuvants added to vaccines in the US: … Martin Friede, PhD, who heads the Technology Transfer Team within the Department on Innovation, Information, Evidence…

Barry Kissin’s Opinion piece at the Frederick News-Post Back on Aug. 29, 2008, The FNP published a column by Katherine Heerbrandt titled “If not Ivins …” Heerbrandt began with the viewpoint of Norm Covert, a well-known former Fort Detrick public affairs officer: “The anthrax in the mailings, he says, was ‘highly bred, weapons-grade … with…

The Washington Post calls for Congress to perform a definitive investigation of the anthrax letters attacks, adding to the impact of the NY Times’ editorial asking for the same 3 days earlier: BRUCE E. IVINS has been dead for three years, but questions still abound about whether he carried out the 2001 anthrax attacks that…

 What does $60 billion buy in terms of enhanced security?  From CIDRAP we get a detailed look at what our government’s bioterrorism establishment has been shopping for: If someone tried to kill Americans with Bacillus anthracis spores today, the nation would have a better medical tool chest for treating the sick and those potentially exposed than it…

Today’s NY Times wants to know if the FBI’s evidence — linking Bruce Ivins to the anthrax letters — really holds up.  Frontline/ProPublica/McClatchy last week informed us, after reviewing thousands of FBI documents obtained through FOIA, that the FBI misled us.  Ivins’ late-night hours at the lab in September-October 2001 were not really that different…

From Pro Publica: A senior Republican senator says it would take a powerful grassroots movement or startling new evidence to reopen the Justice Department’s investigation that branded a now-deceased Army researcher as the anthrax mailer who killed five people a decade ago. Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and…

David Willman continues to write stories designed to sell his book on Bruce Ivins, and buttress the FBI ‘s Ivins theory.  I thought journalists were required to at least make a stab at even-handedness, but this once-great journalist didn’t bother. Here’s an example:  Willman mentions, then tries to discredit, the paper of Hugh-Jones, Rosenberg and…

From the vaccinexchange website, on October 12, 2011 · Leave a Comment It seems that Emergent BioSolutions, the only manufacturer of the anthrax vaccine in America, has been working aggressively to promote its vaccine throughout our nation. Its efforts have paid off: according to MarketWatch.com, the company has been awarded a $1.25 billion contract to…

In case you were looking for a synopsis of the important parts of the Frontline anthrax letters program, here it is.  This piece was written by the TV show’s investigative team, and details important flaws in the FBI’s case.  Definitely worth a read, and maybe a reread, to feed your anthrax letters obsession.

See Part I of The Anthrax Files.  This terribly important 1 hour documentary uncovered new evidence in the case.  Additional videos related to the case are accessible at the site.  Enjoy.

From the LA Times: California Gov. Jerry Brown stepped into the middle of a debate over parental rights Sunday by signing legislation  giving children 12 or older the power to consent to medical care involving the prevention of sexually transmitted disease. Asssemblywoman Toni Atkins (D-San Diego) sponsored AB 499 with the aim of providing young…

David Zurawik at The Baltimore Sun writes about tomorrow’s important Frontline story on Bruce Ivins and the anthrax letters.  This will be the first episode. Nobody does investigative journalism on TV like Public Television’s “Frontline” — nobody, and week in, week out that includes “60 Minutes.” And Tuesday night at 9, the venerable series revisits…

William Broad and Scott Shane have written a very useful NYT piece on the anthrax letters.  It discusses a new academic paper by Martin Hugh-Jones, Stuart Jacobsen and Barbara hatch Rosenberg, which explores the meaning of the tin and silicon found in the anthrax spore preparation of the anthrax letters. A decade after wisps of anthrax…

From the LA Times: The phony campaign was aimed at helping find and kill Osama bin Laden, but the doctor involved now faces treason charges, and real immunization workers say Pakistanis don’t trust them. …Aid teams heading polio vaccination drives reported that more parents were refusing to allow their children to be vaccinated after news…

 From the University of Wyoming: …  “The scientific evidence clearly shows that the (anthrax) wasn’t produced in our laboratory (USAMRIID),” the two UW professors say. “The FBI based part of its case on unusual activity that took place in our lab for one week. There is no way he could produce that amount of spores…

Let’s do a back-of-the-envelope risk-benefit calculation on swine flu vaccine: In 2009-10, 44 Finns of all ages died of swine flu.  [With 5.3 million Finns, this is one death per 120,000 people of all ages.] About half the population of Finland received Pandemrix.  Had the vaccine been given before the pandemic struck (a near impossibility)…

From Agence France Presse: HELSINKI — The Finnish government and major insurance companies announced Wednesday they will pay for lifetime medical care for children diagnosed with narcolepsy after receiving the swine flu vaccine. “The compensation will provide much-needed financial assistance for the families, although it cannot take away the emotional distress caused by this condition,” Social…