Today's Headlines: May 17, 2019
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Biological Agents & Infectious Diseases
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Government Affairs & National Security
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USDA Enhances African Swine Fever Surveillance Effort
(USDA) The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) is furthering its overall African Swine Fever (ASF) preparedness efforts with the implementation of a surveillance plan. As part of this plan, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) will work with the swine industry, the states, and veterinary diagnostic laboratories to test for ASF.
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When science and politics collide: Enhancing the FDA
(Science)
For the better part of a century, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) preserved public health by rigorously applying the scientific method. The central tenet of the
Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938 which created the FDA calls for “experts qualified by scientific training and experience to investigate the safety of drugs.” In recent times, however, partisan political interposition has grown increasingly worrisome.
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Global Platform on Disaster Risk Reduction: We Need a Drastic Change of Course
(Reliefweb) The impacts of climate change, associated sea level rise and extreme weather are amplifying as a result of record greenhouse gas levels and combining with urbanization, environmental degradation and water stress to produce interlocking crises. There needs to be a drastic change of course, according to the top global forum on disaster risk reduction.
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Soviets Tried So, So Hard to Eliminate the Plague
(The Atlantic) The Soviet anti-plague system grew from a network of facilities that began in the czarist era, when the plague was causing many small but not catastrophic outbreaks. (Scientists are still figuring out why the Black Death bacteria were so exceptionally deadly.) Later, the system took on other endemic diseases such as anthrax, and eventually started working on bioweapons.
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Notes from the Field: Measles Outbreaks from Imported Cases in Orthodox Jewish Communities — New York and New Jersey, 2018–2019
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MMWR) On October 1, 2018, the Rockland County (New York) Department of Health (RCDOH) alerted the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) of an unvaccinated teenaged traveler with diagnosed measles. During the next 17 days, RCDOH learned of an additional six unvaccinated travelers with measles. On October 24, 2018, the Ocean County (New Jersey) Health Department alerted the New Jersey Department of Health (NJDOH) of a case of measles in an international traveler, with rash onset October 17. The unvaccinated travelers reported recent travel in Israel, where an outbreak of approximately 3,150 cases of measles is ongoing (1). Investigations during October 1, 2018–April 30, 2019, identified 242 laboratory-confirmed and epidemiologically linked measles cases in New York, excluding New York City, and during October 17, 2018–November 30, 2018, identified 33 in New Jersey (Figure). The cases of measles were primarily in members of orthodox Jewish communities.
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Other 21
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Century Threats
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Was It an Invisible Attack on U.S. Diplomats, or Something Stranger?
(New York Times Magazine) The piercing, high-pitched noises were first heard by a couple of recently arrived United States Embassy officials in Havana in late 2016, soon after Donald Trump was elected president. They heard the noises in their homes, in the city’s leafy western suburbs. If they moved to a different room, or walked outside, the noise stopped. The two officials said they believed that the sound was man-made, a form of harassment. Around the same time, they began to develop a variety of symptoms: headaches, fatigue, dizziness, mental fog, hearing loss, nausea.
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Published by Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security
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