December 2010
14 posts
As frustration grows, airports consider ditching... →
Some of the nation’s biggest airports are responding to recent public outrage over security screening by weighing whether they should hire private firms such as Covenant to replace the Transportation Security Administration. Sixteen airports, including San Francisco and Kansas City International Airport, have made the switch since 2002. One Orlando airport has approved the change but needs...
Flu piles pressure on 'critical care' units (The... →
NHS pressure group Health Emergency today claimed a number of hospitals in East Anglia were on black and red alert, saying the NHS was already struggling as a result of the flu outbreak.
Chairman Geoff Martin said the James Paget University hospital in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, yesterday declared a black alert – the most severe status level – and that the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital...
Implementing food safety law to pose big... →
The big food safety bill passed this week hands a heavy bundle of new responsibilities to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and most of the changes specified in the legislation are unlikely to come swiftly or easily…
GOP-ers who voted against #foodsafety now say they... →
An Iowa lawmaker who has a say in funding the Food and Drug Administration predicts there will be little if any money for the increased spending and staff authorized by a sweeping new food safety bill.
“We simply don’t have the money to pay for it,” Republican Rep. Tom Latham said in an interview. He voted against the bill yesterday, as did every other Republican on the House agricultural...
Look, up in the sky! Microbes in the atmosphere.... →
The air is teeming with microbes, and scientists are finally starting to understand how they influence everything from meteorology to epidemiology.
Every cubic meter of air holds up to 100 million microorganisms, but the diversity and behavior of these microbes remains masked to microbiologists — until recently, that is.
Thanks to next-generation sequencing techniques, scientists are finally...
Infectious risks in family doctor’s offices... →
Don’t let infection control efforts lapse now that swine flu is over:
“As the threat fades into memory, there’s an understandable tendency to hide the mops in the closet and leave the masks in the box.
But Ontario’s top infectious disease doctor is urging primary care providers to maintain aggressive infection prevention and control measures in their practices year-round.
Returning...
"The most important stories don't break, they...
In a special issue about the renewed important of the beat to journalism (“The next wave of journalistic progress will channel its power from the underlying principle of the reporter’s beat: the creation by an expert of valuable content that readers need and can’t find anywhere else.”), Nieman Reports sets aside a section to examine the new challenges of science-writing. It has...
5 ways to save antibiotics (The Scientist) - →
The world is facing a crisis: Bacteria have become more and more resistant to virtually all existing antibiotics, yet many companies are abandoning the field in favor of more lucrative medicines.
People are proposing various solutions, such as offering financial incentives to the pharmaceutical industry to spur the development of vitally needed antibiotics. But along with creating new drugs, we...
Effort to curb antibiotic use stalls (Sydney... →
A move to reduce prescription of antibiotics by Australian GPs has stalled, despite official vows to tackle the rising global problem of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
The latest figures released by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) show the amount of antibiotic drug prescription has not budged since 2003/04, after declining from a high in 1998/99.
“Over the past decade...
Should feral cats be shot? University of Nebraska... →
A University of Nebraska report paints a stark picture of the impact of cats on birds, and recommends aggressive measures be taken to reduce the population of feral cats, which the researchers there estimated at 60 million in the United States.
The recommendations include trapping cats and euthanizing them — even shooting them with shotguns. And according to the Associated Press, the...
How Julian Assange Learned to Love Networked... →
chanders:
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, on why his original version of commons-based news analysis failed, why he turned back to the professional news organizations, and what amateurs still bring to the world of networked journalism.
I basically went through this same learning process myself over a…
Locally acquired falciparum malaria in... →
The Duval County Health Department (DCHD) has identified a case of Plasmodium falciparum malaria in a 31-year old female resident of Jacksonville with no history of international travel. Although the risk of ongoing transmission is low as the weather becomes cooler and drier, the health department would like health care providers and residents to be aware of additional malaria cases, and requests...
Oh you naughty tweeters – you've upset the... →
(Quoting blogger Martin Weller) “…politicians, the police, CPS, judges, media are all acting from the same unspoken emotional base. This can be summarised as: they hate you. They hate that you undermine their carefully crafted messages and turn them into jokes. They hate that you are forming new methods of entertainment that they don’t understand. They hate that you can organise...
Has the Food Safety Train been derailed? (Marler... →
S. 510, the food safety bill that passed just yesterday after languishing in the Senate for nearly two years appears deadlocked because Senators violated a constitutional provision requiring that tax provisions originate in the House (“shall originate in the House of Representatives”). Section 107 of S. 510 included a set of fees that are classified as revenue raisers, which are technically...
