Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Prologue
- Foreword, by Ronald K. Noble, Interpol Secretary General
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- PART I THE BIOVIOLENCE CONDITION AND HOW IT CAME TO BE
- PART II THE GLOBAL STRATEGY FOR PREVENTING BIOVIOLENCE
- 4 Strategic Foundations
- 5 Complication: What Law Enforcers Should Stop
- 6 Improving Resistance through Science
- 7 Public Health Preparedness
- 8 International Nonproliferation
- 9 The Challenge of Global Governance
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
7 - Public Health Preparedness
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 July 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Prologue
- Foreword, by Ronald K. Noble, Interpol Secretary General
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- PART I THE BIOVIOLENCE CONDITION AND HOW IT CAME TO BE
- PART II THE GLOBAL STRATEGY FOR PREVENTING BIOVIOLENCE
- 4 Strategic Foundations
- 5 Complication: What Law Enforcers Should Stop
- 6 Improving Resistance through Science
- 7 Public Health Preparedness
- 8 International Nonproliferation
- 9 The Challenge of Global Governance
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Public health preparedness can reduce vulnerability to some types of bioviolence. It would be the height of folly to not be as prepared as possible. Of course, better that an attack not happen at all, but it would be reckless to rely exclusively on complication and resistance measures. Mitigating harm to potential victims is mandatory. If all else fails, we should be able to contain bioviolence's consequences.
Preparedness measures include pre-attack efforts to reduce vulnerability by distributing vaccines and hardening potential attack sites. A perpetrator is unlikely to inflict a disease against an effectively immunized population or try to spread it in a guarded site. Also, preparedness measures include rapid detection and post-attack commitment of public health resources to treat victims. An intentionally perpetrated disease will less catastrophically ruffle a community whose medical professionals can promptly apply counter-measures. Finally, preparedness measures include establishing quarantines to limit the spread of contagion.
Preparedness measures have indisputable virtues, yet serious questions abound. Can they be sufficiently effective to reduce the need for the complication measures (discussed in Chapter 5)? How should vaccines be fairly stockpiled and distributed worldwide? Which targets should be hardened? Which persons should be vaccinated, perhaps without their consent? How can quarantines operate without trampling civil liberties?
This chapter propounds a note of skepticism. Reliance on preparedness measures raises unhappy choices, and to ignore their implications by offering a false palliative for security is disingenuous.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- BioviolencePreventing Biological Terror and Crime, pp. 160 - 191Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007