The 1918 influenza pandemic was the most devastating single disease outbreak in modern history, and examining the virus that caused it may help prepare for, and possibly prevent, future pandemics. The effort to find preserved samples of the 1918 influenza virus has been a pursuit of both historical and medical importance. When the complete sequence of the 1918 virus was published in 2005, it represented a watershed event for influenza researchers worldwide. In an article in the journal...

It's a job Delta was doing poorly in 2005, contributing to a revenue gap that was causing the Atlanta airline to pull in only about 84 cents for every dollar of its rivals' revenues. I would go out to visit the industries to learn about what they were doing to help prevent the injuries or the problems we were trying to regulate. There's a regulation from the White House that says that any large regulation that a government agency puts forward has to have what's called a regulatory impact...

In the last two rounds, we were considered lucky as it did not destroy our chicken industry, while none of the patients in contact with the dead birds contracted the deadly virus. If these steps fail to prevent the avian influenza virus from infecting the flock, eradication of the virus from the affected flock will have to be the next step. Only some chickens have had to be destroyed so far, while human patients have all been negative. There is no reason for us to fail to eradicate the...

Angry pineapple farmers, who have suffered big losses, blame the department of agriculture for allowing the suppliers to import the contaminated fertiliser from China, and say officials should have checked that the heavy metals did not exceed the maximum allowed limit. High levels of the toxic heavy metal cadmium have been found in South African pineapples after farmers unwittingly used fertiliser contaminated with this trace element. Angry pineapple farmers, who have suffered big losses,...

So representatives of industry, academia and government have been looking for another way. Under industry and government rules, flocks infected with the strongest strains are put to death as quickly as possible. Farmers Pride, the largest local company, promotes "humane" treatment of its Bell & Evans brand chickens, but owner Scott Sechler once had to gas more than 100,000 to stop flu. The industry prefers the term "depopulate," but no euphemism softens the raw reality of putting down...