Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Public Health Security: The Risks and Benefits of Securitising Health
with a growing concern about bioterrorism since September 11, 2001, security has
become the lens through which policy makers in the west increasingly view public
influenza would be a public security threat as much as it would be a public health
one. the security dimension of infectious disease could be severe: from the direct
effect of human incapacitation to domestic instability (SarS caused the worst crisis
for china's leadership since tiananmen Square) and cross-border tensions (Garrett
2005a; osterholm 2005; Price-Smith 2008). Security will especially be at stake
where avian influenza combines with overpopulation, environmental degradation,
and resource scarcity to induce mass exoduses over state borders from poor to
wealthy countries (Price-Smith 2008). States will be tempted to close their borders
or impose quarantines in an attempt to protect their own citizens even though, short
of disrupting trade, travel, and productivity, these measures rarely work (Garrett
2005a). Disease pathogens do not respect the territorial boundaries of sovereign
states, thus rendering isolationism a futile and counterproductive public health
strategy in an era of global epidemics (aginam 2004).
Many critics fear that this approach may divert essential resources and attention
from the more critical diseases plaguing the world's poor ('Meeting report' 2004).
but these two dimensions of international disease control are mutually reinforcing:
investing in the global health security infrastructure through capacity building would
advance the same goals as a health-based framework focussed on primary health
care, just as bolstering emergency preparedness to respond to infectious diseases
would equip individuals for any eventuality—even that of bioterrorism (Fidler
2004b; Heymann and Drager 2004).
Environmental Security: Ecological Disequilibrium and Human Health
Global ecological disequilibrium is directly tied to the threat of emerging infectious
diseases. the virulence of existing pathogens has increased, thanks to the rapid
destruction of the biosphere, soaring population densities and mass migrations, and
ozone depletion, not to mention 'green' agricultural revolutions that turn rainforests
into ranches and farms into mass production factories, and introduce antibiotics that
seep into livestock feeds. these developments have not only increased the virulence
of existing pathogens, but have also released entirely new infectious vectors (Price-
Smith 1998, 2008; otte
et al. 2004). Most critically, global climate change is
expanding the breeding ground for viruses at the same time as it is weakening many
countries' ability to cope with natural disasters, food and water shortages, and public
health threats. evidence of intensifying climate change is thus particularly troubling
in terms of humanity's ability to prevent and fend off or adapt to a global epidemic.
Protecting the natural environment can no longer be postponed. and it must be
done with the full force of the law. but mainstreaming environmental considerations
