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Published by the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security
Sanjana Ravi, MPH, Editor
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Effective communication is vital to ensuring people's safety during all types of public health emergencies -- from Ebola and Zika to hurricanes and wildfires. As the communication landscape continues to evolve, practitioners tasked with crafting and disseminating public health messages must keep pace.
The latest science offers valuable direction on where to focus those efforts. It's the theme of the May/June 2018 issue of Health Security, "Communication and Health Security: Improving Public Health Communication in Response to Large-Scale Health Threats," which features 5 articles and a commentary on communication in emergencies with implications for public health.
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Public Health & Healthcare Preparedness
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EVENT
Realizing a Polio-Free World: Sustaining US Support for Global Polio Eradication. The CSIS Global Health Policy Center will host an international conference that will highlight the role the US is playing in global polio eradication and how that role will evolve as eradication is achieved. Senator Mitch McConnell, Senate Majority Leader, and Dr. Robert Redfield, CDC Director, will deliver the opening and closing keynote addresses, respectively. Irene Koek (USAID), W. William Schluter (CDC), and John Vertefeuille (CDC) will also participate in panel discussions. The event will take place on Tuesday, July 10, 2018, 9 AM-noon, CSIS headquarters.
(Center for Strategic & International Studies, 7/18)
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LEGISLATION
Bipartisan Bill Proposes New "Pull" Incentives for Priority Antibiotics. The bill, called the REVAMP Act of 2018, was introduced by Rep John Shimkus, R-Ind., and Rep Tony Cardenas, D-Calif. According to a summary of the proposed bill, the legislation would award 12 extra months of market exclusivity for drugs designated as priority antimicrobial products. A committee of representatives from the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Health and Human Services BARDA, and physicians would develop a list of critical-need antimicrobials, focusing on the ones with unmet medical needs and multi-drug resistance.
(CIDRAP, 6/29/18)
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NEWS
White House Wants to Cut this Public Health Service Corps by Nearly 40 Percent. The proposal is part of a plan announced last week by the Office of Management and Budget to overhaul the federal government. It would cut the size of the US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps from its current 6,500 officers to "no more than 4,000 officers." Administration officials, who have said the officers are "more expensive" than equivalent civilians, want "a leaner and more efficient organization" better prepared to respond to public health emergencies.
(Washington Post, 6/27/18)
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PRESS RELEASE
HHS Enlists AktiVax to Develop Improved Auto-Injector for Nerve Agent Antidotes. One of the drugs stockpiled by the US government to save lives from chemical nerve agents needs a new auto-injector so the drug can be used quickly and safely without specialized training if an attack occurs in the United States. The US Department of Health and Human Services will work with AktiVax, Inc., of Boulder, Colorado, on developing a new device to easily administer a drug that reverses damage inflicted by organophospates, a class of chemicals that include nerve agents such as Sarin and VX.
(ASPR, 6/25/18)
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NEWS
HHS Creates Task Force to Reunify Migrant Families. The task force was established by the assistant secretary for preparedness and response - the arm of the agency that responds to public health disasters, and an indication that the challenge of reunifying thousands of families is likely beyond the capabilities of the refugee office.
(Politico, 6/22/18)
See also:
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Homeland Security & Disaster Preparedness
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FUNDING OPPORTUNITY
Disaster Resilience Research Grants Program. The Disaster Resilience Research Grants Program seeks applications from eligible applicants to conduct research aimed at advancing the principles of resilience in building design and building codes and standards. Research proposals must support the overall effort of developing science-based building codes by evaluating potential technologies and architectural design criteria to improve disaster resilience in the built environment.
(Grants.gov, 6/28/18)
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NEWS
It's (Mostly) Not FEMA's Fault. Often FEMA's work often leaves room for criticism, but the agency's public-relations problems are often really the product of failures by other parts of government-at the state, local, and federal level-that are then left to be cleaned up by FEMA, Administrator Brock Long argued Monday at the Aspen Ideas Festival, hosted by the Aspen Institute and
The Atlantic.
(The Atlantic, 6/26/18)
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NEWS
Congress Wants to Know Why FEMA Buyouts Take So Long. The Promoting Flood Risk Mitigation Act (H.R. 5846) seeks to determine why flood-prone homeowners must wait years for relocation assistance. Sponsored by Representatives Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), Mark Sanford (R-SC), Sean Duffy (R-WI), and Peter DeFazio (D-OR), the bill directs the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to review FEMA's current buyout efforts and to recommend ways that such assistance could be provided more quickly in the future.
(National Resources Defense Council, 6/26/18)
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Science & Technology Policy
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NEWS
US Lawmakers Want NIH and CDC Foundations to Say More About Donors. A key congressional spending panel has fired a shot across the bow of two federally chartered medical foundations, warning that the way they disclose information about donors may not pass muster. It's the latest controversy involving the traditionally low-profile foundations, which over the past quarter-century have funneled nearly $2 billion to the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for research, clinical trials, training, and educational programs.
(Science, 6/29/18)
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NEWS
The DNA Cops Who Make Sure the World's Deadliest Viruses Aren't Rebuilt. In June 2017, the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), a technology-research agency within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, launched a program that it hopes will help keep cutting-edge biological technology away from bad actors. In order to understand which genetic combinations might be harmful before they're ever made in a laboratory, the IARPA-led program brought in Ginkgo Bioworks, which will develop algorithms that can predict which genetic sequences, even unknown ones, could potentially cause harm.
(Bloomberg, 6/27/18)
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NEWS
DARPA Wants to Boost Your Body's Defenses -- By "Tuning" Your Genes. What if your genes could be harnessed to provide even better protection? A new program created by DARPA aims to do just that. The program will explore new ways to better protect people against biological and chemical threats by temporarily "tuning" gene expression -- in other words, turning genes "on" or "off" -- to strengthen the body's defense against health threats.
(Live Science, 6/27/18)
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