The U.S. Agriculture Department is considering a mandatory national livestock identification program, rather than a voluntary one, that would track cattle infected with mad cow disease, Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman said Wednesday. Consumer groups say the USDA must require all farmers to participate in a national ID program if it is to work.
Meanwhile, Mexico said it has no intention of relaxing its U.S. beef ban until all the herd mates of the infected Washington cow are found. Mexico is the second largest buyer of U.S. beef.
NO SUICIDE LINK: Antidepressants such as Prozac and Paxil do not raise the risk of suicide in children and teenagers, a group of pharmacologists said Wednesday in a preliminary report released amid a review by U.S. regulators.
Health officials in the United States and Britain are probing a possible link between antidepressants and suicide.
HOSTAGE CRISIS CONTINUES: Negotiations to free two corrections officers held hostage in a prison tower for four days in Buckeye, Ariz., were briefly disrupted Wednesday when one of the inmate captors set off a gas canister that landed in a prison yard.
No one was injured, and prison officials did not retaliate, said Cam Hunter, a spokeswoman for the Arizona Department of Corrections. Negotiations soon resumed.
AIR SECURITY: Top airline executives will meet Thursday in Washington to discuss one of the more contentious privacy issues to arise since the Sept. 11 attacks: how to gather information on passengers to ensure dangerous people don’t get on planes.
AIDS RESEARCH: A prominent vaccine specialist who set up his own company to try to stop AIDS says he has opted for a non-profit approach to fighting the disease.
Dr. Donald Francis, who announced he was leaving Brisbane, Calif.-based VaxGen on Tuesday along with two other top officers, is the second prominent corporate AIDS researcher to leave the private sector for the non-profit world this month.
———-
Compiled from RedEye news services and edited by Lara Weber (lweber@tribune.com) and alBerto Trevino (atrevino@tribune.com)
