The Department of Health and Human Services will spend $90 million over the next five years for a drug that can help stop two bacteria which security officials believe could make a deadly bioterror weapon.
HHS officials have already released $19.8 million for the purchase of Caravance, a drug that is aimed as a countermeasure to melioidosis and glanders diseases.
According to a press release from HHS, both glanders and melioidosis are considered suitable for biological weapons. Untreated infections from the diseases have a mortality rate of 90%. The bacteria have also developed some resistance to current antibiotics meaning even if you are treated for an infection there is still a 40% mortality rate.
Glanders is a respiratory disease transmitted either airborne or when the victim comes in contact with contaminated animals. Melioidosis, which is often confused for other conditions like pneumonia, is also transmitted through air or contact.
Heroin has ended the life of an Oscar winning actor.
Philip Seymour Hoffman, 46, was found dead in a New York apartment Sunday morning. NYPD officials said that Hoffman’s body was found with a needle still sticking in his arm.
A police source told Fox News that they are investigating to see if Hoffman was the victim of a series of spiked heroin that has been killing addicts throughout the northeast. Police officials had issued warnings last week of the heroin that was laced with the powerful painkiller fentanyl.
The Maryland state medical examiner said Thursday that the tainted heroin could cause a user to lose consciousness in less than 20 seconds.
Hoffman had a history of substance abuse and had attended rehab multiple times.
Police say they found the body after checking on him when he failed to pick up his three children for visitation.
A group of San Francisco activists say they are planning to distribute free clean crack pipes to any addict that wants one.
The group claims that by providing the clean pipes, they are essentially providing the same service that the city is providing to drug addicts that inject via needles.
The city of San Francisco gives out approximately 2.7 million clean needles each year to addicts in an effort to lower the rates of blood transferred diseases like HIV and Hepatitis-C.
Laura Thomas of the HIV Prevention and Planning Council has made a formal recommendation to the city’s health department to have the city implement the plan. She said that the program would allow addicts to feel respected and likely make more of them come in for treatment for their diseases.
San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee said that he is not supportive of the proposal because he believes there are many other ways to control HIV without giving out free drug paraphernalia.
Some advocates say they will give out crack pipes even without the government approval, in violation of state and federal laws.
Kermit Gosnell, the Philadelphia abortionist convicted of first-degree murder for killing babies born alive in his “house of horrors” in West Philadelphia, has been sentenced to an additional 30 years in prison for illegally distributing drugs.
Gosnell pleaded guilty to prescribing and dispensing narcotics for almost two years. He wrote prescriptions for hundreds of thousands of prescription drugs including 600,000 pills that contained the addictive painkiller oxycodone. The customers paid cash and showed Gosnell no medical need for their drugs.
Gosnell and his staff sold the drugs to people under multiple names and even took tips from the people buying the drugs.
According to the investigation, on the night that a Virginia woman was dying from an abortion that Gosnell had botched, he wrote 18 different prescriptions for painkillers and sold them at his clinic.
Gosnell’s attorney did not return calls to CNN for comment.
A drug that causes skin to rot away has been found in the United States.
Krokodil, which first began making the rounds in Russia a decade ago, has reportedly been found in Arizona. Continue reading →
“Sadness, depression, fear of sterility, guilt,” drug abuse and suicide are just some of the effects suffered by women who have abortions in Mexico City, according to the country’s most eminent newspaper, El Universal. The newspaper ran an article openly acknowledging the psychological trauma associated with abortion on January 21. Continue reading →
A 17-year-old started foaming at the mouth, slamming his head on the floor and convulsing at a McDonald’s. Two hours later, he was dead. His 18-year-old friend has been charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.
In another part of the same town the night before, an 18-year-old was found dead, face down on a sidewalk.
Both had been killed by an overdose of a drug with a street name of “smiles.” Continue reading →
The synthetic drug called “bath salts” is allegedly responsible for separate incidents over the weekend in New York.
Utica police were called to a bar Saturday night when a woman caused an incident. Police reported that the woman lunged at officers and tried to bite them on the face. She kept repeating that she wanted to “kill someone and eat them.” Continue reading →
Miami police are dealing with another violent incident related to bath salts as a death related to the synthetic drug is reported in New York.
Police say surveillance video shows Shane Schyler undressing in the middle of a children’s park and threatening a three year old girl. The girl’s mother rushed the child out of the area as people called 911. When confronted by police, the man was sitting in a fountain claiming he was trying to cool off.
The park is located in the back yard of the North Miami Beach Police Department. A search of the man found bath salts similar to the ones used by the attacker in a cannibalism incident two weeks ago. Continue reading →
A warning has been issued by Miami area police departments about violent homeless men after one threatened to eat two officers.
The man was taken into custody in North Miami Beach after entering a restaurant and yelling at the staff and patrons. Once in the police car, he repeatedly slammed his head against the barrier between the front and back seat screaming he was going to eat the officers. Continue reading →