Fragments From Floyd

CIDRAP >> CDC updating disease-control rules affecting travelers. Nov 22, 2005 (CIDRAP News) – Federal health officials today proposed rule changes to make it easier for public health authorities to keep travelers from bringing infectious diseases into the United States or spreading them between states.

The changes would require airlines and ship operators to report passengers who have certain signs of illness and to keep lists of passengers for at least 60 days after arrival, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced. The proposed rules also expand the definition of ill travelers to include those with influenza-like illness, and they provide more specific legal protections for people placed in quarantine.

The Department of Health and Human Services has authority to use isolation and quarantine to keep people with any of nine infectious diseases out of the country. Pandemic influenza was added to the list of diseases this year; the others are cholera, diphtheria, tuberculosis, plague, SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome), smallpox, yellow fever, and viral hemorrhagic fevers."

Mandatory Animal Identification Plan Every chicken, every puppy, every gerbil gets a number--even eventually an embedded radio-frequency ID? And only a matter of time, I'm thinking, until their owners have one, too. Wanna bet? In the name of better s'curity. Lyrics by Sting.