In "Biological War," Annie Jacobsen imagines society collapsing from a man-made plague--part of a wave of such prophecies. But what do we miss when we try to predict the future? In the fall of 1989, a select group of Soviet scientists was summoned to Obolensk, a secluded municipality on Moscow's periphery, and gathered at what appeared to be an insane asylum to discuss a pioneering technique for mass murder. If someone had been observing the institutional activity from space--a distinctly non-theoretical possibility--they might have seen a shuffle of patients roaming the grounds or playing volleyball in their pajamas. These were actors, hired to play the disturbed as a cover story for something even more disturbing. The eight-story glass building at the center of the complex, which had putatively been devoted to vaccine manufacturing, was in fact a highly classified defense facility. Its remit was called, or "biological preparations"--what one participant later described as "the most ambitious Soviet arms program since the development of the hydrogen bomb." The most recent experiments there had at last demonstrated the viability of a weapon that could wipe out entire enemy populations without leaving a scratch on their infrastructure. It was a pathogen genetically engineered to spread within hours, to kill within days, and to resist all existing treatment.

The FDA Says It Didn't Apologize to Supplier Linked to Diarrhea Outbreak, Actually The agency stressed that the July 17 voluntary recall from Taylor Farms still stands. The supplier has been linked to the ongoing cyclospora outbreak. In the middle of a diarrhea shitstorm, the Food and Drug Administration and lettuce supplier Taylor Farms appear to be facing off in a passive aggressive battle of technicalities. On July 17, the California-based company issued a voluntary recall on iceberg lettuce sourced from Central Mexico. The recall came after people across at least five states were sickened with cyclosporiasis, a parasitic infection that causes explosive diarrhea.

US fast-food chain Taco Bell is removing lettuce from its menu in some states after investigations found it could be linked to an outbreak of explosive diarrhoea caused by a parasite. The decision was taken out of an abundance of caution following discussions with health officials, Taco Bell told the BBC. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) says 1,644 people in five states that reported exposure to Taco Bell have been infected by cyclosporiasis, a parasitic infection that spreads through contaminated food or water. Do not eat food items with shredded iceberg lettuce from Mexico served at Taco Bell locations in Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and West Virginia, the FDA said. No deaths have been reported but 94 people have been hospitalised due to cyclosporiasis infections, which were first detected on 13 May, the FDA added.

High street pharmacies across England are now offering a free meningitis B vaccine for many young people. It comes after concerns over the UK's largest and fastest growing outbreak that happened in Kent earlier this year. So who needs the vaccine and what's in it? What's the vaccine and is it safe? The vaccine offers protection against a dangerous strain of meningitits called meningitis B (MenB) that caused the outbreak in Kent. The vaccine does not contain any live bacteria and cannot cause meningitis.

Some features are more clinically useful than others. Smartwatches and other wearables have moved far beyond just tracking your steps and heart rate. Many of today's versions can monitor everything from sleep and skin temperature to respiratory rate, blood oxygen, heart rate variability and even alert you to possible signs of sleep apnea . If you took Big Tech's marketing at face value, you might conclude that your smartwatch is on the verge of becoming a real-life Star Trek Tricorder. But how reliable are wearables for spotting early signs of illnesses or other medical conditions?

'I was given a choice - keep my legs or keep my life' - the sepsis patient who lived Farmer Marshall Wylie thought nothing of it when he cut his arm, sorting wood in August 2023. And he thought even less of it when he felt ill over the next 48 hours. But the following week, he said he clinically died due to sepsis, and eventually his legs had to be amputated. Farmers are at particular risk of developing sepsis due to incidents on the farm, but can also be reluctant to seek healthcare. Warning: This article contains some graphic images of hands and feet with sepsis.

Here's what you need to know, from why the cruise ship outbreak won't spark the next pandemic to how hantavirus spreads. Now that more than 100 passengers aboard a hantavirus -stricken luxury cruise ship have been evacuated, with 18 Americans in biocontainment units in Nebraska and Georgia, health officials around the world are working to monitor more than two dozen individuals who left the cruise and anyone with whom they might have come in close contact. So far, all of the 11 reported hantavirus cases are among passengers or crew on the ship, the World Health Organization's director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a press conference in Madrid on Tuesday. That includes three deaths resulting from the virus. Typically, hantaviruses are spread when contaminated rodent droppings and urine are stirred up in the air and breathed in.

From claims of an Israeli false flag to efforts to sell ivermectin, influencers and grifters are using lessons learned from Covid-19 to push their baseless conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theorists, wellness influencers, and grifters have already started promoting wild claims about the hantavirus outbreak that began aboard the MV, a cruise ship on the Atlantic. Some conspiracy theorists compared the outbreak to the Covid-19 pandemic, claiming it was another effort to control the global population, while others pushed a false narrative that the Covid-19 vaccine caused hantavirus. Many others promoted ivermectin as a treatment, using the incident as a way to sell emergency medical kits featuring the antiparasitic drug typically used as a horse dewormer. In more recent days, many of these same people spreading conspiracy theories have promoted the baseless and antisemitic claims that the entire incident is a false flag orchestrated by Israel.

Biohacker Bryan Johnson recently bragged about his girlfriend's "top 1%" vagina as the at-home vaginal microbiome test industry is thriving. Farrah was fed up with her vagina . For the past two years, the 29-year-old dancer from Ohio had been dealing with severe pelvic pain and vaginal odor. "It was like 8/10, horrible core pain," she says. When she visited doctors, she told them what she thought the culprit was: an allergic reaction to soy oil in a vat of water she'd swam in during a pirate-themed dinner theater performance. But they didn't believe her.

Since 2023, Moderna and Korea University have been developing a new mRNA vaccine for hantavirus. The work has been promising so far, but a finished product isn't likely coming any time soon. US-based pharmaceutical company Moderna confirmed that it has been working on the development of hantavirus vaccines in collaboration with the Vaccine Innovation Center of Korea University College of Medicine (VIC-K). This comes after an outbreak of hantavirus occurred on a Dutch cruise ship that sailed from Argentina and disembarked its passengers and crew in the Canary Islands on May 10. At least three people aboard the MV died, and several cases were reported as serious.