Free Republic

<p>BOSTON — The revelation last week that a laboratory slip-up led three Boston University scientists to become infected with tularemia, a flulike disease sometimes referred to as "rabbit fever," has fueled criticism of a plan to build a state-of-the-art research lab to study some of the world's most lethal germs in Boston's South End.</p>

One of the Centers for Disease Control's top five biological terrorism agents, the tularemia bacteria, has been detected in air monitors in San Jose but public health officials do not believe it is the result of any type of terrorist attack. The Francisella tularensis bacteria was found in an air-monitoring station in San Jose on Sunday morning. However, a subsequent test this morning at the same station found no evidence of the bacteria and no other stations in the area showed evidence of it, according to the Santa Clara County Public Health Department. "It is likely that the positive test...

Biowarfare : Another “Sverdlosk Incident” in Russia ? I’ve been looking at two recent (and ongoing) outbreaks of Tularemia in Russia: (Source: ProMed : Archives # 20050824.2503; # 20050822.2467; # 20050718.2066 ) 1. 96 people –66 from Dzerzhinsk region; 30 from Nizhniy Novogorod. 2. 56 people – all from the Ryazan area , which borders on Nizhniy Novogorod and Vladimir. What makes it notable is that Tularemia is a fairly rare disease: the Ryazan area had only 4 known cases in 2004. (No historic stats were furnished on the Nizhniy Novgoros area or Dzerzhinsk , but the number of cases...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Small amounts of a bacteria that causes "rabbit fever" were found on Washington's National Mall last weekend as thousands of protesters marched against the Iraq War, U.S. health authorities said on Saturday. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said several government environmental air monitors in the Mall area detected low levels of Francisella tularensis bacteria that cause Tularemia, commonly known as rabbit fever, on September 24-25.

According to a broadcast report, a 17-month-old Delaware girl has died – apparently from a tick bite. Health officials have told WBOC TV in Salisbury, MD, that the toddler caught Rabbit Fever. She was bitten by a tick and had a fever of 105 degrees before she died. There's no word about where the child was from. Authorities say people can catch the illness from an infected tick or by handling an infected carcass. It is not passed from person to person. There are about 200 Rabbit Fever cases nationwide each year.