|
Homeland Security Program
|
|
Featured Reports & Articles
A recent paper in the journal Biosecurity and Bioterrorism by Lynn Klotz, a member of the Federation of American Scientists’ Working Group on Biological Weapons, compared the risks of pandemic flu, acute infectious disease outbreaks, and bioterrorism according to their relative numbers of expected fatalities per year, taking into account their estimated magnitudes and annual probabilities of occurrence. Klotz concluded that “policymakers are not responding rationally to the threat of bioweapons attacks,” and that they are spending far too much on bioterrorism as compared to naturally occurring disease. In a commentary to this article, however, Homeland Security Program Senior Fellow Gerald Epstein responds that a more appropriate conclusion from Klotz’s analysis is that this public health-based “likelihood-adjusted fatalities” model fails to capture key aspects of the threat posed by a deliberate, witting, and hostile adversary. In “Security is More than Public Health: Commentary on “Casting a Wider Net for Countermeasure R&D Funding Decisions,” Epstein argues that much of the motivation for investing in countering bioterrorism results from that fact that it is not simply a public health problem.
Governance for Biological Threat Reduction: Workshop Report
New Delhi, India
On January 8, 2008, David Heyman and Gerald Epstein, co-directors of the Biological Threat Reduction project, held a workshop in New Delhi, India conjunction with the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies. The purpose of the workshop was to bring together representatives from a diverse set of professional communities such as disaster management, law enforcement, scientific research, and public health, all of which play some role in managing the risks posed by naturally occurring or deliberate biological threats. Non-governmental organizations, local think-tanks, and current and former Indian government officials were represented at this workshop, attended by nearly forty participants.
Synthetic Genomics: Options for Governance
White Papers of the CSIS Commission on Scientific Communication and National Security
The CSIS Commission on Scientific Communication and National Security, co-chaired by former Secretary of Defense Harold Brown and CalTech President and Nobel Laureate David Baltimore, consisted of 27 distinguished members of the scientific and national security communities. These White Papers examined the balance between research institutions' need for open participation and communication and the post 9/11 desire for national security limitations. In the first paper (June 2005), the Commission reaffirmed longstanding Presidential policy that although denying or limiting access to applications of military or dual-use technology may be important to US national security, the appropriate way to do so is via traditional security classification. "Openness in research is so important to our own security - and to other key national objectives," concludes the Commission, "that it warrants the risk that our adversaries may benefit from scientific openness as well." In the second paper (October 2005), the Commission reiterates the importance of engagement with foreign scientists and engineers: "In a world of globalized science and technology, security comes from windows, not walls."
Model Operational Guidelines for Disease Exposure Control
What would we do if a potentially lethal contagious disease was infecting Americans and we had no vaccines or medicine to stop it from spreading? The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Homeland Security Program has released a draft report to address this problem by detailing recommendations for protecting the American public against natural and manmade contagious disease outbreaks when medical countermeasures are unavailable.
CONGRESSIONAL TESTIMONY
Program Director and Senior Fellow David Heyman testified on October 27 before the Committee of Homeland Security, Subcommittee on Management, Integration and Oversight, House of Representatives. He discussed the role of the new DHS Chief Medical Officer in improving the national response to catastrophic health emergencies.
|
Contact Information
|
Research Assistant, Homeland Security Program |
Ethan Wais
Send E-mail
|
|
|
|
