Laura H. Kahn | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Biosecurity lessons from the Bruce Ivins case

Laura H. Kahn — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 09:12:33 -0700

We'll never know if Bruce Ivins, a former U.S. government microbiologist, perpetrated the 2001 anthrax letter killings, but the circumstantial evidence is pretty convincing. The DNA of the anthrax strain used in the killings matched the anthrax strain in his laboratory. Searches of his home in Frederick, Maryland, turned up "hundreds" of letters similar to those used in the terrorist attacks.

Food-borne illness: Attack of the killer tomatoes

Laura H. Kahn — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 07:55:17 -0700

Imagine sitting down at a restaurant and enjoying a delicious meal that includes fresh tomatoes and jalapeno peppers. Then, 12 to 72 hours later, stomach cramps, diarrhea, and a fever develop that can last up to a week--possibly, from those tomatoes and/or jalapeno peppers.

How evil can prevail in state-sanctioned biowarfare research

Laura H. Kahn — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 15:08:00 -0700

Some people consider physician Wouter Basson South Africa's Josef Mengele. During the 1998 Truth and Reconciliation hearings on Project Coast, South Africa's apartheid-era chemical and biowarfare programs, Schalk Janse van Rensburg, a veterinarian, stated that Basson, the program's head, wanted to devise a way to kill individuals that would appear undetectable to a forensics laboratory.

The furor over genetically modified foods

Laura H. Kahn — Tue, 13 May 2008 23:00:00 -0700

The United Nations estimates that world population will top 9 billion people by 2050. Combined with the anticipated consequences of global warming such as drought, this could lead to devastating food shortages.

In pursuit of international biosecurity oversight

Laura H. Kahn — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 10:39:00 -0700

Without a doubt, the implementation of bioresearch oversight must be an international effort. The United States has tried to take the lead in this area by mandating its National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity to foster international collaboration when reviewing dual-use bioresearch.

The potential dangers in medical isotope production

Laura H. Kahn — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 22:00:00 -0700

The medical isotope metastable technetium 99 emits gamma rays that physicians heavily rely upon to examine how organs such as hearts, lungs, and kidneys function. Technetium 99 is so beneficial to the medical community that it's used in approximately 80-85 percent of the world's diagnostic imaging procedures (cardiac perfusion scans and bone scans among them) and 12 million procedures in the United States alone. The size of the global nuclear imaging and therapeutics market is estimated at $3.7 billion per year.

Stethoscopes belong in museums

Laura H. Kahn — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 22:00:00 -0800

A common criticism of today's high cost of medicine is that physicians rely too often on advanced technologies such as CT scans and MRI machines to make diagnoses. Much of the overuse is blamed on perverse insurance-industry incentives that pay for these costly services.

Public health lessons from virtual game worlds

Laura H. Kahn — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 22:00:00 -0800

It's challenging to model disease spread during epidemics. Simple mathematical models such as the "general epidemic" model make assumptions about constant population size, homogeneous mixing, and constant recovery rates, but can only go so far in predicting an outbreak's severity (See "Mathematical Modeling of Epidemics").

The growing number of immunocompromised

Laura H. Kahn — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 22:00:00 -0800

It's estimated that about 10 million people in the United States (3.6 percent of the population) are immunocompromised. But that's likely an underestimate because it only includes those with HIV/AIDS (diagnosed and undiagnosed), organ transplant recipients, and cancer patients; there's a sizable population that takes immunosuppressive drugs for other disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis and inflammatory bowel disease.

The scourge of antibiotic-resistant bacteria

Laura H. Kahn — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 22:00:00 -0800

Ever since Alexander Fleming accidentally discovered penicillin in 1928, antibiotics have kept simple cuts, scratches, and abrasions from becoming severely infected and prevented diseases such as pneumonia, scarlet fever, and tuberculosis from becoming a death sentence. However, antibiotics contain a serious downside: Their overuse and misuse has contributed to an increase in antibiotic-resistant bacteria such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), vancomycin-resistant enterococcus (VRE), and extreme drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-Tb).

Why evolution should be taught in public schools

Laura H. Kahn — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 22:00:00 -0800

Understanding evolution is critical to confronting the twenty-first century's microbiological challenges. We need to educate the next generation of scientists to give them the tools to develop novel treatments against antibiotic resistant bacteria, emerging viruses, and other deadly microbes. They need to understand how these microbes develop and change, which requires an understanding of evolution.

The sewer: Guardian against disease

Laura H. Kahn — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 22:00:00 -0700

After recently crossing the Atlantic Ocean to spend a year abroad in Paris, I decided to visit the one museum that commemorates a human achievement that trumps Notre Dame, the Louvre, and Eiffel Tower combined in terms of its impact on quality of life--sewage systems. Paris is one of the few cities that celebrates its sewer with a museum. Hidden and generally taken for granted, underground sewers allow large megacities to grow and flourish.

Children: The bioterrorists we love

Laura H. Kahn — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 22:00:00 -0700

Given their aversion to cleanliness and a dislike for hygiene, kids play a major role in spreading disease such as influenza.

The spread of mosquito-borne diseases

Laura H. Kahn — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 22:00:00 -0700

There are approximately 2,500 mosquito species in the world, but a mere fraction of them feed on human blood. Of this fraction, only the females are vampires, as they require blood to nourish their eggs. When she's ready to lay these eggs, which usually number in the hundreds, the female typically does so on a small, still body of water. In some mosquito species, she creates little rafts for the eggs. They float until they hatch as tiny larvae a few days later. Like butterflies, they eventually turn into pupae, which ultimately metamorphose into the insects we know.

The end of vaccines?

Laura H. Kahn — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 22:00:00 -0700

Ever since Edward Jenner first scratched cowpox pus into the arm of an eight-year-old boy in an attempt to render him immune to smallpox in May 1796, there has been debate and controversy over the procedure. Vaccination, which Jenner derived from the Latin word "vaca" meaning "cow," was preceded by the practice of "variolation" in which dried pus from an individual recovering from smallpox was scratched into the arm of someone naïve to the disease--usually a child. "Variolus" means "pus-like material."

Pathogens on a plane

Laura H. Kahn — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 22:00:00 -0700

A hollow tube 30,000 feet in the air filled with people sneezing, coughing, and talking while breathing recirculated air provides the perfect environment for disease transmission.

The exodus of general medical physicians

Laura H. Kahn — Thu, 31 May 2007 22:00:00 -0700

One of the greatest challenges facing health care is figuring out how to assess the worth of thoughts. It is far easier to put a monetary value on a specific task such as a colonoscopy or cardiac catheterization than on the nebulous efforts of thinking and talking. This difference is reflected in how insurance companies reimburse physicians' services, as they typically pay physicians far more money to do surgeries than for spending time with patients and thinking about how to best diagnose, treat, and manage medical care.

Bring back the Office of Technology Assessment

Laura H. Kahn — Sun, 20 May 2007 22:00:00 -0700

During an April 2007 speech at a Princeton University colloquium titled, "From Passion to Politics: What Moves People to Take Action," New York State Gov. Eliot Spitzer admitted that the world changes more by technology than by politics. He added that emotions can obscure facts and that political discourse requires an agreed-upon set of facts before policy can be rationally discussed. Unfortunately, politicizing scientific facts has never been more prevalent.

How the pet food scare affects global health

Laura H. Kahn — Sun, 06 May 2007 22:00:00 -0700

When a company decides to sell food on the international market (pet or otherwise), it better understand that everybody’s health is at stake.

Mother Nature’s bioterrorism

Laura H. Kahn — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 22:00:00 -0700

Bioterrorists, in this case Mother Nature, couldn't have picked a better target against agriculture: honeybees. Cornell University's Roger Morse and Nicholas Calderone estimate that the value honeybees contribute to U.S. agriculture through pollination grew from $9.3 billion in 1989 to $14.6 billion in 2000. (See "The Value of Honeybees as Pollinators of U.S.