National Centre for Biosecurity

Biosecurity News - Issue 35

27 November 2009

Program News
Call for Proposals, New Reports and Journal, Conferences
Special Coverage: World AIDS Day 2009
Special Coverage: H1N1 Influenza Pandemic 2009
News Articles

Emerging and Re-Emerging Infectious Diseases

Biological Weapons
Biosecurity Policy and Ethics
Global Health Governance and Disease Control

Program News

Final reminder: the deadline for abstracts for the 2010 Biosecurity Symposium has been extended to 30 November 2009.

Keynote speakers include:

Professor Ray Zilinskas, Director, Chemical and Biological Weapons Program, James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies
Professor Harvey Rubin, Director, Institute for Strategic Threat Analysis and Reduction, University of Pennsylvania
Associate Professor Stefan Elbe, Head of Department of International Relations, University of Sussex

The Symposium will be held at the Australian National University on 1 – 2 February 2010. The National Centre for Biosecurity invites proposals for presentations addressing the theme Global Health Security in one or more of the following areas:

Responding to infectious disease crises in Australia and the Asia-Pacific
The epidemiology of public health and animal health emergencies
The development and use of biological weapons by state and non-state actors
Ethical dilemmas and security risks of research on pathogenic micro-organisms
International law and domestic regulation
Relevance and applications of new technologies to biosecurity challenges
Ethical, social and cultural dimensions of biosecurity

Abstracts (200 words maximum) should be emailed to Jon Herington, Executive Officer at the National Centre for Biosecurity, ANU. Registration information will be issued shortly. Enquiries may be directed to Jon Herington (Jonathan.Herington@anu.edu.au) or Alexis Pillsbury (a.pillsbury@econ.usyd.edu.au).

Kind regards,

Alexis

(Back to Top)

Call for Proposals, New Reports and Journals, Conferences

Geneva’s Brocher Foundation has issued a Call for Proposals for visiting researchers in 2011. The Foundation awards residencies of one to six months for researchers conducting projects on the ethical, legal and social implications for humankind of recent medical research and new technologies, including access to medicines, biobanks, biosecurity and dual use dilemma, clinical trials and research on human subjects, genetic testing and screening, health care reform, nanotechnology, neglected disease, pandemic planning, reproduction & technology, stem cells, transplantation. In 2011 the Brocher Centre will host up to ten researchers at any one time. The deadline is 18 January 2010. More information

- - - - -

The Policy Studies Organization (PSO) and Berkeley Electronic Press have launched a new peer-reviewed journal, World Medical and Health Policy which aims “to fill a unique niche at the intersection of politics, policy, research, medicine and global public health”. More information

- - - - -

Previous Announcements

Global Biosecurity 2010: safeguarding agriculture and the environment in Brisbane, Australia. Abstracts: 31 July 2009. Conference: 28 February – 3 March 2010. More information
The International Society for Infectious Diseases is organising the 14th International Congress on Infectious Diseases (ICID) in Miami, Florida, USA, on 9 – 12 March 2010. The deadline for abstracts is 1 November 2009. More information
The Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) International Symposium and Workshop is taking place from 12 – 14 April 2010 in Melbourne, Australia. The theme for the Symposium and Workshop is Integrating Science and Management and the deadline for abstracts is 9 November 2009. More information
US Department of State’s Biosecurity Engagement Program provides funding for travel to biosecurity-related conferences. More information

(Back to Top)

Special Coverage - World AIDS Day 2009

‘UNAIDS outlook 2010’
UNAIDS
November 2009

‘AIDS called leading killer of women’
Associated Press
10 November 2009
(WHO report, ‘Women and health: today's evidence tomorrow's agenda’, November 2009)

‘Africa needs more than condoms’ (opinion)
The Dallas Morning News
13 November 2009

‘The politics of receptivity and resistance: how Brazil, India, China, and Russia strategically use the international health community in response to HIV/AIDS: a theory’
Global Health Governance
16 November 2009

‘Uncomfortable knowledge: PEPFAR, HIV risk reduction and safer sex’
Global Health Governance
16 November 2009

‘The needle nexus’
The New York Times Magazine
17 November 2009

‘Homophobia and AIDS funding can't coexist’
The Los Angeles Times
20 November 2009

‘AIDS: study in rural Uganda finds benefits in treating AIDS patients at home’
The New York Times
23 November 2009
(Research referred to: ‘Rates of virological failure in patients treated in a home-based versus a facility-based HIV-care model in Jinja, southeast Uganda: a cluster-randomised equivalence trial’, The Lancet, 24 November 2009)

‘Kenya seeks to test one million for HIV/Aids’
BBC
23 November 2009

‘Truth is the first casualty’
The Guardian
23 November 2009

‘Some HIV prevention efforts working, major challenges remain’
Science
24 November 2009

Special Coverage - H1N1 Influenza Pandemic 2009

‘Vaccine system remains antiquated’
The Washington Post
24 November 2009

‘The emotional epidemiology of H1N1 influenza vaccination’
NEJM
25 November 2009

‘Ukraine's phantom flu’
Foreign Policy
25 November 2009

Commentary

‘Playing chicken with a nightmare flu’
The Washington Post
15 November 2009
and
‘What bird flu can teach us about swine flu’ (Blogged book review of The Fatal Strain: On the Trail of Avian Flu and the Coming Pandemic)
The Tyee
12 November 2009

‘The great flu cover-up’
Foreign Policy
17 November 2009

(Back to Top)