Word: flu
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Proposals to fix BioShield have gained a new sense of urgency, however, as fears of another biological threat--avian flu--have mounted. China and Indonesia recently reported human fatalities from the disease, bringing the total number of deaths as of late December to 73, and the U.S. is now scrambling to stockpile medicines--such as the antiviral Tamiflu--to thwart a possible pandemic. Bush has asked Congress, as part of his $7.1 billion response plan, for a "crash program" to speed the development of new vaccine technologies, and Congress last month passed a defense bill that included $3.8 billion, mainly...
...damages caused by any drug deemed a bioterrorism countermeasure, and BARDA would be exempt from the Freedom of Information Act, keeping its work largely veiled from public scrutiny. HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt has said new liability protections should apply only to vaccines and medicines for pandemic flu, which is likely to delay action on Burr's "BioShield 2" bill until next year...
...market forces that have given us flu-drug shortages are also working against biodefense. With the industry's profits under pressure, none of the big firms are keen on diverting research from potential blockbusters to drugs for exotic germs like Ebola and plague, which may be stockpiled and used only in an emergency. Biodefense is "not attractive to Big Pharma, which is making money off things we use a few times a day," says Michael Greenberger, director of the Center for Health and Homeland Security at the University of Maryland. Companies are also leery of huge liability risks if biodefense...
...cold is already taking a toll, as hundreds of enfeebled men, women and children flock to medical camps each day complaining of chest colds, flu and other seasonal ailments. "The quake destroyed the entire private set-up of village doctors and paramedics," says Faisal Edhi, trustee of Karachi-based NGO the Edhi Foundation. "There is a shortage of doctors and nurses, so people now have to travel far to get to the doctors in makeshift medical camps." Because people have no money for fuel, they can't cook meals, adds Rana Khurshid Amed, a Neelum Valley forestry official, "so they...
With its natural disasters, disease outbreaks, war and terrorism, 2005 was a frightening year?and 2006 holds many of the same concerns, according to a TIME/CNN poll. Residents of four countries and one territory in the Asia-Pacific region said avian flu topped a list of issues expected to affect the world in the coming year, followed closely by fears of economic slowdown and terrorism. But the results varied widely from place to place: in Hong Kong, where the H5N1 virus first appeared in 1997 and where SARS killed 300 in 2003, more than half of those surveyed called avian...