The FAZD Center’s 2009 Annual Meeting is set for June 30-July 1 at the center’s headquarters in Texas A&M University’s Research Park.
The annual meeting attracts researchers, graduate students and stakeholders from across the United States, including Puerto Rico. This year’s attendance is expected to top last year’s mark of 75 participants.
You may be the next starvation victim!
Accessed Wikipedia June 27, 2009
Picture scheduled to be deleted from the Internet
For Educational Purposes Only
Over-regulation of farms with programs such as the National Animal Identification System known as NAIS, micromanaging of agriculture, and “food safety” bills are creating a famine by design and definition. You are the target, ‘x’ marks the spot. Famine is a painful lack of food and much, much more. Depending on the version you are reading there are 100 references to famine in the Scriptures.
Scripturally the Numbers Add Up to a Grievous FAMINE
The term famine in Scripture is Ra’av which comes from the Hebrew root ra’ev, to be hungry and has a gematria of 272 or (200+70+2). Whenever you see the word ‘ra’ it isn’t going to be pretty.
Playing with pathogens in the San Francisco & Berkley backyard. When does a “bug” go live? Only your Public-Private Partnership (PPP) knows for sure…..
Research Project: Development of Methodology for Application to Foreign Animal Disease Diagnostics, Surveillance, Detection, Control and Eradication Project Number: 1940-32000-052-07
Project Type: Nonfunded Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Jul 01, 2008
End Date: Jun 30, 2010
Objective:
The Foot-and-Mouth Disease (FMD) lab located at the University of California, Davis is currently compiling extensive global disease surviellance data and is developing a global web-based disease surviellance system, which has resulted in the FMD BioPortal, a publically-available site. The objective of this collaboration is to expand the UC Davis FMD BioPortal and to provide epidemiological information to ARS, PIADC to aid in current FMD research.
Approach:
1. ARS, PIADC will provide sequencing data and analysis of field isolates of viruses made available through UC Davis. This data will be incorporated into the BioPortal. 2. UC Davis will provide epidemiological expertise to ARS, PIADC to further basic and applied research.
Research Project: Swine Viral Diseases Pathogenesis and Immunology
Accessed June 24, 2009
Location: Virus and Prion Diseases of Livestock
Title: Characterization of an Influenza A Virus Isolated from Pigs During an Outbreak of Respiratory Disease in Swine and People at a County Fair in the United States
Authors
Vincent, Amy
Swenson, S – USDA APHIS NVSL
Lager, Kelly
Gauger, Phillip
Loiacono, C – USDA APHIS NVSL
Zhang, Yan – ADDL, REYNOLDSBURG, OH
Submitted to: Veterinary Microbiology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: January 2, 2009
Publication Date: May 28, 2009
Citation: Vincent, A.L., Swenson, S.L., Lager, K.M., Gauger, P.C., Loiacono, C., Zhang, Y. 2009. Characterization of an Influenza A Virus Isolated from Pigs During an Outbreak of Respiratory Disease in Swine and People at a County Fair in the United States. Veterinary Microbiology. 137(1-2):51-59.
Interpretive Summary: Swine influenza virus (SIV) is one of the primary causes of respiratory disease in growing pigs and can lead to major economic losses. There is a potential for people exposed to SIV to become infected, although this event is far less common than the spread of human influenza virus from person to person. In this paper, we studied a virus from pigs that also infected 2 people during a county fair in 2007.
Here it is in black and white, SF 424 A & B of the NAIS Cooperative Agreements strike at your farm to implement ‘green’ environmental
Research Project: Development of Models and Conservation Practices for Water Quality Management and Resource Assessments
Location: Grassland Soil and Water Research Laboratory, Temple, Texas
Title: On-farm agro-economic effects of fertilizing cropland with poultry litter
Author
Harmel, Daren
Submitted to: Natural Resources Research Update (NRRU)
Publication Type: Research Technical Update
Publication Acceptance Date: June 3, 2009
Publication Date: June 3, 2009
Reprint URL: http://ars.usda.gov/Research/docs.htm?docid=15371
Citation: Harmel, R.D. 2009. On-farm agro-economic effects of fertilizing cropland with poultry litter. Natural Resources Research Update (NRRU). Update #241547)
Technical Abstract: As animal feeding operations increase in size, public and regulatory pressure is being exerted on the animal industry to develop and implement appropriate uses for the wastes produced.
And the shell game continues…..Ag can say NAIS funding is terminated when all that is happening is the shell game to secure funding from another source, in this case, the hot trend of Emergency Management.
Emergency Management Program Specialist 3
Please do NOT apply through the State e-Recruiting system. Follow application instructions on the job announcement. Closes today, June 23, 2009
It’s fair season. What are the regulations?
Desperately Needed: Free F E D E R A L Trained GPS Operator’s! These Citizen Scientist’s will learn proper GPS use and monitoring
Accessed June 23, 2009
For Educational Purposes Only
FORT COLLINS – Researchers from Colorado State University are looking for members of the public to participate in a citizen science experiment, July 11-12 at CSU. As part of the experiment, volunteers will participate in a free workshop and online training where they will learn citizen scientist skills such as invasive species and plant identification, proper GPS use and monitoring protocols. Following the training, the new citizen scientists will test their skills against professionals in the field.
In this National Science Foundation-funded research experiment, CSU scientists from the university’s Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory are studying the effectiveness of different training approaches – in-person and hands-on, online training, and online multimedia presentations.
Firm wins HHS contract for new flu vaccine technology
Accessed June 23, 2009
For Educational Purpose Only
Notice that the government forced this company into Chapter 7 Bankruptcy, and then awarded them the contract. You scratch my back, I will scratch yours. Watch the Public-Private- Partnership (PPP) ball, bounce, bounce, bounce.
Robert Roos * News Editor
Jun 23, 2009 (CIDRAP News) – The US government has granted Protein Sciences Corp. (PSC) of Meriden, Conn., a $35 million contract to develop its technique for making influenza vaccines by growing flu virus proteins in insect cells, an approach said to be faster than traditional methods.
“The technology has advanced in recent years to the point that we believe it could help meet a surge in demand for US-based vaccine for seasonal and pandemic flu,” Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a press release today.
PSC’s approach involves extracting a gene from a flu virus and inserting it into a baculovirus, which infects insects but not people. The recombinant baculoviruses multiply quickly in insect cells, producing many copies of the flu gene, and the cells are purified and used to make a vaccine, HHS said.
The method may make it possible to produce vaccine candidates, vaccine for clinical trials, and commercial-scale amounts of vaccine faster than with the traditional method of growing flu viruses in chicken eggs, the agency said. It said the insect cells can be frozen and stored indefinitely, contributing to faster large-scale production.
If the technology is licensed by the Food and Drug Administration, the company will be required to establish a domestic manufacturing capability. The contract calls for the company to be prepared to make a finished vaccine within 12 weeks after a pandemic onset and to make 50 million doses within 6 months after pandemic onset, according to HHS.
The contract could be extended up to 5 years at a total cost of about $147 million, HHS officials said.
PSC has said it is using its baculovirus and insect-cell technology to make a vaccine for the novel H1N1 flu virus. On Jun 15 the firm announced it had begun manufacturing the vaccine, called PanBlok, and estimated it would be able to make 100,000 doses per week.
But the vaccine, like any other, will require extensive animal and human testing and regulatory approval before it can be marketed.
The HHS contract award came a day after a report that creditors of PSC had filed a petition to force the company into bankruptcy in an effort to collect on their claims.
Bloomberg News reported that creditors filed an involuntary Chapter 7 bankruptcy petition against the company yesterday in US Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del. The petition listed claims totaling $11.7 million, the story said.
Most of the debt-$11.5 million-is owed to Emergent BioSolutions Inc., Bloomberg reported. Emergent, which makes the only anthrax vaccine licensed in the United States, had agreed to buy most of PSC’s assets last year. On May 1 of this year, PSC announced it had reached a deal with Emergent that set terms for repaying a loan, terminated the 2008 asset purchase agreement, and resolved outstanding litigation.
Accessed June 23, 2009 World Bank June 22, 2009 GDF Report
For Educational Purposes Only
Although the spread of A H1N1 appears to have eased, its spread is likely to pick up as the flu season begins in the southern hemisphere and again when it returns in the northern hemisphere. Even if it does not mutate into a more deadly form, a second wave of the flu in low-income countries’ could have serious consequences-given poor countries limited capacity to monitor and treat an outbreak and the higher incidence of chronic disease within their populations (the re-existence of chronic health conditions and delays before medical intervention appear to be among the factors that have contributed to deaths where they have occurred). More worrisome is the possibility that H1N1 could mutate into or combine with a more aggressive form of the flu-such as H5N1 (avian influenza). As a flu for which much of the world’s population has limited pre-existing immunity (WHO 2009), A H1N1 could infect as much as 35 percent of the world’s population (WHO 2006)-spreading throughout the world in as few as 180 days during flu season.
As compared with a normal flu season, where some 0.2-1.5 million die (WHO 2003), deaths from even a mild new flu might include an additional 1.4 million people worldwide. A more virulent form, such as the 1918-19 flu, which was more deadly for healthy adults than a normal flu, could have much more serious consequences, killing as many as 1 in 40 infected individuals (Barry 2005), or some 71 million. Some authors suggest that as many as 180 million to 260 million could die in a worst-case scenario (Osterholm 2005). Simulations of the potential economic and human costs of a global pandemic undertaken for the 2006 Global Development Finance report in the context of avian influenza (Burns, van der Mensbrugghe, and Timmer 2006, 2008) suggest that the costs of a global influenza pandemic could range from 0.7 to 4.8 percent of global GDP depending on the severity of the outbreak. The lower estimate is based on the Hong Kong flu of 1968-69, while the upper bound was benchmarked on the 1918-19 Spanish flu. In the case of a serious flu, 70 percent of the overall economic cost would come from absenteeism and efforts to avoid infection. Generally speaking, developing countries would be hardest hit, because higher population densities, relatively weak health care systems, and poverty accentuate the economic impacts in some countries. At the time of this writing (June 1, 2009), the outbreak of H1N1 flu has not run its course, although there are encouraging signs that it is neither as deadly nor as easily spread as might have been first thought. Initial estimates suggest that its clinical severity is similar to that of the Hong Kong flu of 1968-69 and that while its infectiousness (rate of spread) is higher than normal flu it is in the lower range of previous influenza pandemics (Fraser and others 2009). Younger populations and individuals with chronic disease appear to be most vulnerable, in part because as much as 33 percent of people 60 and older appear to have some immunity to it (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2009).
To date, the World Health Organization reports some 12,954 laboratory confirmed cases of the flu in
46 different countries, and 92 deaths. More than 90 percent of the cases recorded so far are in North America, with all but 12 deaths having been in Mexico-which accounts for about one-third of all cases.
It is not yet known what explains the much lower mortality rates outside of Mexico. Possible explanations include: a much higher incidence of disease than reported in Mexico and therefore a lower mortality rate, the timing of the outbreak toward the end of the flu season in the Northern hemisphere, and some aggravating and as yet unknown cofactor. So far, the economic costs of the epidemic have been concentrated in Mexico and in the transportation sectors. Air travel to and from Mexico is down by 80 percent, and hotels in popular resorts report vacancy rates as high as 80 percent. Overall, tourism revenues are down an estimated 43 percent, increasing Mexico’s external financing gap because tourism is an important source of foreign currency. Following an initial closure of restaurants, theaters, and sports stadiums, the Mexican authorities ordered all businesses to shut down for five days in an effort to stem the spread of the disease. Because this last measure fell over a long weekend, its economic effect was much smaller than it would have been had it been declared during the course of a full business week. Should recent levels of disruption in the commerce, restaurant,hotel, and transportation businesses in the Mexico City region (representing 30 percent of the country’s GDP) persist, they could reduce second-quarter GDP by as much as 2.2 percent.
The risk of an A(H1N1) flu pandemic remains. Fortunately this flu, which has already had a sharp negative output in Mexico, is less virulent than initially feared. Moreover, its rate of spread has diminished as both Northern and Southern hemispheres have exited their respective flu seasons. Nevertheless, when flu season returns H1N1 is likely to re-emerge. Should it do so in a more deadly form, the costs associated with mortality, illness, and absenteeism, and efforts to avoid infection could shave off more than 1 percent of GDP in countries affected. In the event of a pandemic, economies that rely heavily on tourism, would be severely affected.
Finally, the steps taken to contain the crisis raise the risk of macroeconomic instability in the longer term.