In The News

A new form of tuberculosis so resistant to antibiotics that doctors label it as “incurable” has emerged in South Africa – and could also be present in China, Russia and India. “The recipe for spreading the disease is the same throughout the world: inappropriate use of antibiotics,” writes physician Lawrence Altman for “The New York Times.” Bacteria become resistant to antibiotics when the drugs...

Biodiversity is probably the best protection against any biohazard that could hit the globe. Governments invest millions in technology to detect biohazards, but cannot expect to detect every possible problem with a gadget, argues Laura Kahn in “The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.” Animals and humans may be separate species, but diseases evolve and adapt, and often emerge in select animal...

Pakistan’s remote northwestern frontier, one of the few remaining hotspots of polio in the world, has been a major focus of efforts to eradicate the disease. Now, however, health workers in Pakistan face a new obstacle: political fallout from the US-led war on terror. Local tribal and religious leaders have convinced thousands to refuse polio vaccinations in the belief that the vaccine is an...