Soligenix Inc. announced the allowance of a new U.S. patent protecting its ricin toxin vaccine, RiVax®. The patent, titled “Multivalent Stable Vaccine Composition and Methods of making same,” supports combination vaccines protecting against ricin intoxication as well as other toxins, such as those associated with anthrax.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced the launch of the Tri-Agency Task Force for Emergency Diagnostics. This task force has been created to help leverage the expertise of each agency to advance rapid development and deployment of diagnostic tests in clinical and public health laboratories during public health emergencies.
First responders and emergency managers in the United States now have a science-based chemical decontamination decision tool and updated guidance on how best to decontaminate a massive number of people after chemical exposure. This guidance, called Primary Response Incident Scene Management (PRISM), incorporates new scientific evidence on emergency self-decontamination, hair decontamination, interactions of chemicals with hair, and effects of a combined decontamination strategy referred to as the “triple protocol.”
DARPA has selected five teams of researchers to support PREventing EMerging Pathogenic Threats (PREEMPT), a 3.5-year program to reinforce traditional medical preparedness by containing viral infectious diseases in animal reservoirs and insect vectors before they can threaten humans.
The National Disaster Medical System's (NDMS) mission is to save lives and protect Americans when disaster strikes. The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services are constantly training and identifying gaps within the preparedness and response framework to better mobilize when the inevitable ultimately occurs. NDMS has identified three pillars to expand the service’s capabilities and provide a robust response anytime, anywhere.
The Homeland Security Operational Analysis Center (HSOAC), operated for the Department of Homeland Security by the RAND Corporation, released a new report on how to build an effective and practical national approach to terrorism prevention. The report, commissioned by the Department of Homeland Security, examines past terrorism prevention efforts and makes recommendations for future programs.
When the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) was signed into law in 2011, one of the most challenging parts of Congress’ mandate was to transform the nation’s food safety system as it related to produce safety and implement a system of preventive controls that aimed to avert problems.
The purpose of the whole-of-government approach is to establish a unified effort between government agencies to maximize all available resources in a collaborative effort. Issues that drive efforts to share resources include: the use of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) weapons; cyber warfare; emerging infectious diseases that could lead to a pandemic; and the growing occurrence of catastrophic natural disasters and human-caused incidents, such as wildfires.
More than 220 participants from 13 Houston-area public safety agencies and 20 industry partners tested first responder technology integration in a December exercise at the Port of Houston. Led by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T), the experiment integrated next generation first responder technology and safety agencies’ existing technology to assess their interoperability using guidance from the Next Generation First Responder Integration Handbook.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) recently completed the integration of more than 9,700 real-world software test cases from the Static Tools Analysis Modernization Project (STAMP) into the Software Assurance Marketplace (SWAMP). The test cases, known as BugInjector cases, improve software by enabling developers to evaluate their products against realistic test cases.
