Via ProMED-mail: the New Zealand Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry reports on a case of atypical scrapie. MAFBNZ Principal International Adviser Dr Stuart MacDiarmid says global knowledge about atypical scrapie/Nor 98 is evolving. The widely...

Via ProMED-mail: last month, the New York Times reported on the spread of CWD among elk via fecal-oral transmission, due to preclinical shedding of prions. Dr. Aiken said prions tended to bind to clay in soil and to persist indefinitely. When deer...

Via ProMED-mail: temperatures are still high in Canada, where the Globe and Mail reports that two and a half provinces have rebelled against seasonal flu shots in reaction to as-yet-unpublished research showing that a seasonal flu shot makes people...

Radley Balko at Reason Online reports on growing doubts about "shaken baby syndrome": The phrase shaken baby syndrome entered the pop culture lexicon in 1997, when British au pair Louise Woodward was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the death...

Via Purple Pawn: The LA Times reported late last month that Mattel had lobbied itself out of third-party lead testing of its products. "It's really ironic that the company that was a principal source of the problem" is now getting favorable treatment...