WHO Monitoring 3 Cases of Bubonic Plague in Asia
The World Health Organization said Tuesday it is monitoring a case of bubonic plague in China after being notified by authorities in Beijing.
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China Downplays Potential New Swine Flu Pandemic
China on Wednesday played down the threat of a new swine flu strain with pandemic potential that researchers discovered in pigs, saying the study is “not representative.”
Read moreThe Poisonous Politics of a Pandemic
A new chapter in the long and depressing history of politicizing disease is unfolding during the coronavirus pandemic, with political leaders around the world and their followers engaged in dangerous scapegoating of ideological, religious and ethnic enemies.
Read moreThe Perils of Politicizing a Plague
Politicization of disease has a long, depressing history in what we know today as the Western World.
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Warning of Silent Spreaders, Covid-19 Task Force Calls for More Testing
Unwitting carriers of Covid-19 are spreading the disease and need to be tested as lockdown measures ease up, the White House Coronavirus Task Force said Friday, holding its first briefing since April.
Read moreUrban Prairie Dogs
A federal judge dismissed Prairie Protection Colorado’s lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture, contesting its ruling that urban prairie dogs can be killed; plaintiffs argued that no bubonic plague had turned up yet in the little critters.
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Scientists Track Pesticide Resistance in Malaria-Carrying Mosquitoes
In the war to control malaria, disease-spreading mosquitoes are fighting back.
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Officials Deny Influence From Trump on Easing Virus Testing
President Donald Trump has said otherwise, but the nation’s leading public health experts told Congress Tuesday that they have never been told by the White House to slow down testing for Covid-19.
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Measles Vaccine Could Prevent Worst Symptoms of Covid-19, Study Finds
A vaccine commonly used against the measles and mumps could be used to prevent the kind of severe lung damage that frequently leads to people dying of Covid-19, two New Orleans-based researchers say.
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Study: Climate Change Will Worsen Disease Outbreaks for Ocean Mammals
A pair of conservationists have found that viruses are largely to blame for the deadliest mass die-offs in marine mammal species in decades — and the changing climate will only intensify the factors contributing to these outbreaks.
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Study Links Blood Type to Covid-19 Risk: O May Help, A Hurt
A genetic analysis of Covid-19 patients suggests that blood type might influence whether someone develops severe disease.
Read moreAlaskan Native Tribes Face Health and Government Challenges With Fishing Season
Like many tribal members in Alaska, Melanie Brown lost a generation of her family to influenza in 1918. Now, with Covid-19 circulating among the tens of thousands of fishermen and cannery workers arriving in the remote villages of Bristol Bay, Brown fears history is repeating itself.
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Inmates Battle Florida at 11th Circuit to Preserve Hepatitis Treatment
With an eye toward ending a saga of preventable deaths from hepatitis C in Florida jails, inmates are fighting to preserve a court order that forces Sunshine State prisons to treat early stages of the disease.
Read moreScientists Expect More Pandemics in Age of Globalization, Climate Change & Assault on Nature
Here’s an unsettling possibility: The deadly coronavirus infecting millions of people around the planet may turn out to mark the onset of an age in which a natural world under siege from human activities injects more new diseases into humanity’s ever-more-globalized bloodstream.
Read moreNo Prisoner Release
A federal judge in New York denied six inmates’ request to release all prisoners at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn whose age or medical condition puts them at a heightened risk from Covid-19. The judge noted there had been no Covid-related fatalities and only one Covid-related hospitalization at the facility.
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Connecticut Hashes Out Deal to Release Medically Fragile Inmates
Resolving a federal lawsuit over the spread of Covid-19 in Connecticut prisons, the ACLU said the state has agreed to prioritize elderly and medically vulnerable inmates for release.
Read moreJapanese Firms Say Electrified Clothes Kill Bacteria
Here’s a shocking idea: a fabric that can produce small amounts of electricity powered by movement, allowing your clothing to zap microbes and bacteria as you go about your day.
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Denying Release, a Judge Reiterates: Bernie Madoff Will Die in Prison
Bernie Madoff’s terminal illness will not alter a federal judge’s ruling from just more than a decade ago: The man behind an “extraordinarily evil” Ponzi scheme will die in prison.
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Plant Detectives Develop Tool to Track Spread of Major Crop Disease
Researchers from Oregon State University have developed a method that targets the spread of a disease-causing bacterium — a promising development for preventing ailments of more than 100 plant species, according to a new study.
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