• A wave of food recalls fuels drive for food safety reform

    The FDA told consumers Monday to stop eating anything containing pistachios; the FDA was tipped off by Kraft Foods on 24 March, after the company found salmonella in routine testing and recalled some trail mix

  • Targeting mosquito larvae to control malaria

    Larvicides were used in the early twentieth century, but the successful introduction of the pesticide DDT to kill adult mosquitoes meant that larvicides fell out of favor; new Tanzania study reopens debate on whether we should go back to targeting larvae

  • Predicting population of disease-carrying mosquitoes

    Researchers at University of Adelaide in Australia create a model predicting population peaks of disease-carrying mosquitoes; model will help in developing cost-effective mosquito control policies

  • Disease maps may help turn Zimbabwe's health crisis around

    The government of Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe destroyed the country’s health care system and shut down water treatment facilities; the result has been an uncontrolled cholera outbreak; international aid organizations launch a Web site to help the poor people of Zimbabwe find disease-related information — because their government not only would do nothing to curb the epidemic, it also conceals crucial information from the citizenry

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  • Killing mosquitoes dead with laser

    They used to tell us that rather than kill mosquitoes, we should dry up the swamp; forget that: a new handheld laser can locate individual mosquitoes and kill them one by one

  • Roche takes over Genentech for $47 billion

    Swiss drug giant pays $95 per share for 44 percent of Genetech (Roche already owns 56 percent); the combined company would be the seventh-largest U.S. pharmaceutical company in terms of market share and would generate about $17 billion in annual revenues with a payroll of around 17,500 employees in the U.S. pharmaceuticals business alone

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  • Deadly avian flu virus found in wild duck in Germany

    German authorities discovered the virus in a wild duck shot during a hunt near Starnberg, in Bavaria; this is the first case of a virus found in a wild bird for over a year

  • Human vaccine against bird flu a reality with new discovery

    Aussie researchers added a compound, known to increase immunity, to the flu vaccine in an animal model; the addition of this compound promoted significant generation of potent killer T cell immunity and provided protection from infection

  • Innovative pandemic flu vaccine effective against H5N1 in mice

    The current method of growing seasonal influenza vaccines in chicken eggs is slow and inefficient; Emory University scientists have developed an alternative: virus-like particles, empty shells that look like viruses but do not replicate

  • Salmonella contamination found at Texas peanut plant

    Salmonella found in ground peanuts in a Plainview, Texas plant which received peanuts from the now-bankrupt Georgia peanut processing company; contaminated products from the Plainview company were found in Colorado

  • More and more nations are food-insecure

    Globalization, life style changes, and fierce competition among food producers make developing nations food-insecure; “Epidemics are a disastrous but unavoidable consequence that we can only hope to limit,” one expert says

  • Houseplant pest offers clues to potential new anthrax treatment

    A humble bacterium with a long name — Pectobacterium chrysanthemi (Dickya dadantii) — attacks, and often kills, the popular African violet, which is found in many urban and suburban back yards; it does so by competing with its host — the violet — for iron; Warwick University researchers find that the bacteria’s chemical pathway could be blocked or inhibited to prevent the bacterium from harvesting iron, essentially starving it; this work has major implications for the treatment of several virulent and even deadly mammalian infections including Anthrax

  • Monoclonal antibodies effective against bird flu, seasonal flu

    Worldwide, more than 250,000 deaths from seasonal influenza occur annually; if a breakout of avian flu occurs, the number of deaths is incalculable; scientists identify human monoclonal antibodies effective against bird and seasonal flu viruses

  • Woman dies of bird flu in Vietnam

    The World Health Organization reports that H5N1 has killed 254 people across the world since 2003; the latest victim is a Vietnamese woman, bringing the death toll from avian flu in Vietnam to 53 since the end of 2003 — the highest in the world

  • Food poisoning strike 25 percent of Americans each year

    Food poisoning affects an estimated 25 percent of Americans every year; calculations say there are 87 million cases every year, with 371,000 requiring hospitalizations and 5,700 dying