(CBS/AP) Scientists are worried that the government’s unprecedented action to ask two top scientific journals to withhold details of upcoming bird flu studies might impede scientific progress.
The scientists fear a chill may be descending on their field, particularly related to key studies on how viruses that normally infect birds and pigs evolve to infect people. [...]

[Newswise]  New results from a Baylor University study show that different behaviors and strategies lead some families to cope better and emerge stronger after a weather-related event.
Dr. Sara Alexander, an applied social anthropologist at Baylor who conducts much of her research in Central America, studied different households in several coastal communities in Belize. While climate [...]

[WSJ] The U.S. and Russia will fight international efforts this week to set a deadline to destroy the last known stocks of smallpox, saying the deadly virus is needed for research to combat bioterrorism.
Members of the World Health Organization meet on Wednesday to begin debating the future of what is left of what was one [...]

[AP] China’s plans to vaccinate 100 million children and come a step closer to eradicating measles has set off a popular outcry that highlights widening public distrust of the authoritarian government after repeated health scandals.

Since the Health Ministry announced the World Health Organization-backed measles vaccination plan last week, authorities have been flooded with queries and [...]

[reliefweb] A new position paper by three human rights organizations, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-IL), Al-Mezan and Adalah, reviews Israel’s exit policy at the Erez Crossing regarding Gaza patients seeking medical treatment unavailable in Gaza. The paper argues that there is a consistent Israeli policy of distinguishing between life-threatening cases and cases that affect quality [...]

(FirstWord) World Health Organization Director General Margaret Chan on Tuesday responded to a report by the BMJ that investigated potential conflicts of interest within the agency and pharmaceutical companies, noting that “at no time, not for one second, did commercial interests enter my decision-making.”
In her letter to the editors, Chan said “potential conflicts of interest [...]

[Economist] MORE than a week after the earth convulsed beneath it, Haiti has still to plumb the depths of suffering and want. The numbers are still only more-or-less informed guesses, but their magnitude is grim: perhaps 200,000 killed, 250,000 more injured and some 3m in desperate need of help. The generosity of the world’s response [...]

[WSJ] The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urged health officials around the country Thursday to ensure swine-flu vaccine is getting to high-risk groups, after criticism erupted over distribution to some Wall Street firms. Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and Citigroup Inc. are among several large New York City employers that [...]

[medscape] H1N1 influenza has turned flu death statistics upside down, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed today.
In a normal flu season, 90% of deaths are in elderly people. But since September, 88% of deaths have been in people under age 65 — with almost a quarter of the deaths in young [...]

[healthfreedomalliance] Florida health officials are drawing up guidelines that recommend barring patients with incurable cancer, end-stage multiple sclerosis and other conditions from being admitted to hospitals if the state is overwhelmed by flu cases.
The plan, which would guide Florida hospitals on how to ration scarce medical care during a severe flu outbreak, also calls for [...]