| Revision as of 07:04, 23 March 2002 edit213.253.40.49 (talk) appeal for cites← Previous edit | Revision as of 07:55, 23 March 2002 edit undo24.150.61.63 (talk) guarantees of bodily health for persons or animalsNext edit → | ||
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| '''Biosecurity''' refers to any guarantee that |
'''Biosecurity''' refers to any guarantee that animals (including humans) or ecologies sustaining them | ||
| maintain their bodily health, habitable shelter and participation in productive enterprise (especially agriculture) | |||
| even under active threats, e.g. ] or ] disease. | |||
| Guarantees of bodily health for persons or animals are political controversial. | |||
| :''In what way does this differ from Biosafety? Who makes this distiction? Who uses this term in this way? Cites please.'' | |||
| There are a wide range of such guarantees and they are part of every political or economic system, military doctrine, insurance scheme, or other means of human organization for survival. Definition of '''biosecurity''' will always be subject to some controversy inherited from these other disciplines, so a broad but loose definition including threat anticipation, structural reforms, preventions, emergency responses, harms reduction, compensation, and forensic means of assigning cause or liability is probably required to be complete. | |||
| The difference between passive ] guarantees and the scope of] is likewise controversial - and hotly debated in the professions. As with ], many definitions of ] persist in each of several professions that believe that their own ] and ] are sufficient to contain the risk they are tasked to contain (medical, agricultural, etc.). | |||
| ⚫ | |||
| emphasizes "long-term consequences of the development and use of ]" and | |||
| need for "an honest broker to create avenues and forums to unlock the impasses." | |||
| Many differing concepts of '''biosecurity''' are evolving in many different professions. | |||
| So far the field has focused on attempts to establish common standards of uniform risk | |||
| referencing the ] and existing standards of human ]. | |||
| This is quite difficult given the wide variety of contrasting definitions, | |||
| which seem to depend on national culture, ecological vulnerability, degree of military confrontation with the outside world, plus the professional standards. Consensus holds that biosecurity is a government responsibility, but beyond that, mandates of various government agencies vary drastically, | |||
| and include "the development of guidelines on equitable and fair access and benefit-sharing of | |||
| ], the ethical implications of ], | |||
| ] of ], | |||
| including rule making under the ] and other regimes" | |||
| and "operationalizing the ]". | |||
| "to protect New Zealand’s unique biodiversity and facilitate exports by managing risks to plant and animal health and animal welfare" as one of several agencies in the "managing exotic pests (or recent incursions)". Critics, including the, argue that these measures are insufficient to protect even against normal crop risks. | |||
| to protect food "animal health" via "cleansing and disinfecting", "personal protective equipment", "carcass disposal", "nutrient management" and monitoring of "reportable diseases". Medical emergency response measures, especially in the military, emphasize the same concerns - but re: humans. | |||
| defines '''biosecurity''' largely in terms of "countering terrorism" - and does not seem to address the issue of unintentional man-made threats at all. | |||
| Professional self-regulation, national sovereignty, and notions of human freedom and dignity, all seem to be threatened by any comprehensive approach. It seems extremely unlikely that a single set of guarantees can be said to represent '''biosecurity''' - just as no such set of guarantees clearly characterizes ] or even ]. "Security is a feeling" - anonymous comment on computer security. | |||
| Historically, as with other public safety, fairness, and closure concerns, a nation-state attempted to assure '''biosecurity''' by ] and reactive ] measures. More recently and sustainably, by adhering to ] rules for ], e.g. the ]. These are claimed to minimize the exposure of the human body and the natural ecology to alien organisms via trade or warfare. | |||
| Throughout the 20th century, such measures were deemed to be sufficient to guarantee public health. However, several anthrax attacks on U.S. media and government outlets in late 2001, and many concurrent hoaxes in the U.S. and Canada (literally thousands per weak throughout October and November 2001), and the exposure of serious weaknesses in the NAFTA region's border controls, culminating in the destruction of the ] in Manhattan on ], combined to convince many professionals that serious structural reforms, national and/or ecoregional border controls, and a single co-ordinated system of ] was required for that region. | |||
| "has expanded steadily in recent decades on news of hijackings, hostage crises, bombings, office shootings, kidnappings and employee lawsuits." | |||
| "People are very concerned about their security needs and think they're in a war-like environment," said Ira Lipman, founder and president of Guardsmark Inc., a Memphis-based company that provides security services in the Washington region. "People are going to spend the money because they don't want the problem. . . . People are not going to have this kind of loss of life." | |||
| It seems extremely unlikely that corporations will bear such costs and concerns for long without lobbying to share them with trade partners more uniformly. Some anticipate that this must lead to a much more rigorous rules to cover safe trade, legal immigration, and joint defense matters, building on ], ], ], and an improved ]. | |||
| Others point to the ]'s military alliance ], open internal borders and common trade regulation and ] money supply system, and claim that it is already a rudimentary ]. | |||
| Military alliances, treaties, trade rules, and national emergency response systems will continue to evolve as part of the normal duty of nation-states. | |||
| ⚫ | However, public vigilance and awareness of threats seems also to be required, as there is no evidence that the threats are decreasing in any way. Most defense and medical agencies acknowledge that it is growing with the ever-larger number of individuals with knowledge of ]. | ||
| Unfortunately for the citizen, it seems that this is a permanent feature of modern life, and that "biosecure borders" simply cannot exist between nations as they are currently constituted. Nor can internal threats be easily tracked even with such measures as ], especially if borne by flows of air, water, or genes via the natural internal processes of an ]. | |||
| Unlike ] precautions, ] tends to be active; | Unlike ] precautions, ] tends to be active; | ||
| Countermeasures include monitoring statistics for patterns which suggest emerging epidemics; ensuring sufficient stockpiles of the appropriate vaccines or other medicines required to contain an outbreak; public health education and alertness; widespread use of sophisticated pathogen detectors. | Countermeasures include monitoring statistics for patterns which suggest emerging epidemics; ensuring sufficient stockpiles of the appropriate vaccines or other medicines required to contain an outbreak; public health education and alertness; widespread use of sophisticated pathogen detectors. These expenses may be minimized by political measures such as ] which forces political borders to conform to natural ecologies. | ||
| Other preventative measures are unlikely to be effective or acceptable to the general population in peacetime. There could be general vaccination against biowarfare agents, but the public is unlikely to accept potentially harmful vaccines for such agents, which tend to be extinct or very rare in the wild. States do not currently routinely vaccinate against likely biowarfare agents. | Other preventative measures are unlikely to be effective or acceptable to the general population in peacetime. There could be general vaccination against biowarfare agents, but the public is unlikely to accept potentially harmful vaccines for such agents, which tend to be extinct or very rare in the wild. States do not currently routinely vaccinate against likely biowarfare agents. | ||
| Gathering intelligence could theoretically prevent most attacks. However, in the case of an agent like smallpox, an attack could consist of a single individual with no apparent symptoms simply entering the country and walking around in population centers. | Gathering intelligence could theoretically prevent most attacks. However, in the case of an agent like smallpox, an attack could consist of a single individual with no apparent symptoms simply entering the country and walking around in population centers. | ||
| Currently, three dominant strategies via for public funding and attention in North America, where this issue has become a matter of grave public concern: | |||
| *] measures assuming the most threats are local and short-lived. | |||
| *] measures heightening the scrutiny on people or goods at borders, and making pessimistic assumptions as per ]. | |||
| *] measures ensuring early warning and universal insurance by guaranteeing that the most vulnerable populations are regularly monitored. | |||
| These seem to reflect a military, ecology, and social justice mind-set respectively, rather than representing an empirical analysis of the threats. As the field evolves, it seems inevitable that domestic politics, military standoffs, global cooperation and trading bloc politics will set the constraints by which any given '''biosecurity''' measure is considered in any given country. Advocates of strong global cooperation, such as the ], lack the political influence required to force any single approach. | |||
| '''Biosecurity''' will continue to be characterized by controversy down to its definition. The ], ], and other forces seeking to reduce the general level of confrontation between humans and conflicts between human needs and those of natural ] are likely to continue to politicize and critique measures they deem ineffective, or definitions that they perceive as preserving professional or state elites. | |||
Revision as of 07:55, 23 March 2002
Biosecurity refers to any guarantee that animals (including humans) or ecologies sustaining them maintain their bodily health, habitable shelter and participation in productive enterprise (especially agriculture) even under active threats, e.g. biological warfare or epidemic disease.
Guarantees of bodily health for persons or animals are political controversial. There are a wide range of such guarantees and they are part of every political or economic system, military doctrine, insurance scheme, or other means of human organization for survival. Definition of biosecurity will always be subject to some controversy inherited from these other disciplines, so a broad but loose definition including threat anticipation, structural reforms, preventions, emergency responses, harms reduction, compensation, and forensic means of assigning cause or liability is probably required to be complete.
The difference between passive biosafety guarantees and the scope ofbiosecurity is likewise controversial - and hotly debated in the professions. As with biosafety, many definitions of biosecurity persist in each of several professions that believe that their own professional ethics and professional standards are sufficient to contain the risk they are tasked to contain (medical, agricultural, etc.). UNU/IAS Research into Biosecurity & Biosafety emphasizes "long-term consequences of the development and use of biotechnology" and need for "an honest broker to create avenues and forums to unlock the impasses."
Many differing concepts of biosecurity are evolving in many different professions. So far the field has focused on attempts to establish common standards of uniform risk referencing the biodiversity debate and existing standards of human health security.
This is quite difficult given the wide variety of contrasting definitions, which seem to depend on national culture, ecological vulnerability, degree of military confrontation with the outside world, plus the professional standards. Consensus holds that biosecurity is a government responsibility, but beyond that, mandates of various government agencies vary drastically, and include "the development of guidelines on equitable and fair access and benefit-sharing of genetic resources, the ethical implications of biotechnology, international governance of biotechnology and biosafety, including rule making under the World Trade Organization and other regimes" and "operationalizing the precautionary principle".
NZ agriculture and forestry "to protect New Zealand’s unique biodiversity and facilitate exports by managing risks to plant and animal health and animal welfare" as one of several agencies in theBiocouncil "managing exotic pests (or recent incursions)". Critics, including theNZ Greens, argue that these measures are insufficient to protect even against normal crop risks.
USDA and pork producers to protect food "animal health" via "cleansing and disinfecting", "personal protective equipment", "carcass disposal", "nutrient management" and monitoring of "reportable diseases". Medical emergency response measures, especially in the military, emphasize the same concerns - but re: humans.
US scientific societies defines biosecurity largely in terms of "countering terrorism" - and does not seem to address the issue of unintentional man-made threats at all.
Professional self-regulation, national sovereignty, and notions of human freedom and dignity, all seem to be threatened by any comprehensive approach. It seems extremely unlikely that a single set of guarantees can be said to represent biosecurity - just as no such set of guarantees clearly characterizes national security or even human security. "Security is a feeling" - anonymous comment on computer security.
Historically, as with other public safety, fairness, and closure concerns, a nation-state attempted to assure biosecurity by tax, trade, and tariff and reactive biodefense measures. More recently and sustainably, by adhering to safe trade rules for biosafety, e.g. the Biosafety Protocol. These are claimed to minimize the exposure of the human body and the natural ecology to alien organisms via trade or warfare.
Throughout the 20th century, such measures were deemed to be sufficient to guarantee public health. However, several anthrax attacks on U.S. media and government outlets in late 2001, and many concurrent hoaxes in the U.S. and Canada (literally thousands per weak throughout October and November 2001), and the exposure of serious weaknesses in the NAFTA region's border controls, culminating in the destruction of the World Trade Center in Manhattan on September 11, 2001, combined to convince many professionals that serious structural reforms, national and/or ecoregional border controls, and a single co-ordinated system of biohazard response was required for that region.
US Corporate investment in all forms of physical security "has expanded steadily in recent decades on news of hijackings, hostage crises, bombings, office shootings, kidnappings and employee lawsuits."
"People are very concerned about their security needs and think they're in a war-like environment," said Ira Lipman, founder and president of Guardsmark Inc., a Memphis-based company that provides security services in the Washington region. "People are going to spend the money because they don't want the problem. . . . People are not going to have this kind of loss of life."
It seems extremely unlikely that corporations will bear such costs and concerns for long without lobbying to share them with trade partners more uniformly. Some anticipate that this must lead to a much more rigorous rules to cover safe trade, legal immigration, and joint defense matters, building on NORAD, NAFTA, OAS, and an improved biosafety protocol.
Others point to the European Union's military alliance NATO, open internal borders and common trade regulation and Euro money supply system, and claim that it is already a rudimentary biosecurity protocol.
Military alliances, treaties, trade rules, and national emergency response systems will continue to evolve as part of the normal duty of nation-states. However, public vigilance and awareness of threats seems also to be required, as there is no evidence that the threats are decreasing in any way. Most defense and medical agencies acknowledge that it is growing with the ever-larger number of individuals with knowledge of biological warfare.
Unfortunately for the citizen, it seems that this is a permanent feature of modern life, and that "biosecure borders" simply cannot exist between nations as they are currently constituted. Nor can internal threats be easily tracked even with such measures as biometrics, especially if borne by flows of air, water, or genes via the natural internal processes of an ecoregion.
Unlike biosafety precautions, biosecurity procotol tends to be active; Countermeasures include monitoring statistics for patterns which suggest emerging epidemics; ensuring sufficient stockpiles of the appropriate vaccines or other medicines required to contain an outbreak; public health education and alertness; widespread use of sophisticated pathogen detectors. These expenses may be minimized by political measures such as Ecoregional Democracy which forces political borders to conform to natural ecologies.
Other preventative measures are unlikely to be effective or acceptable to the general population in peacetime. There could be general vaccination against biowarfare agents, but the public is unlikely to accept potentially harmful vaccines for such agents, which tend to be extinct or very rare in the wild. States do not currently routinely vaccinate against likely biowarfare agents.
Gathering intelligence could theoretically prevent most attacks. However, in the case of an agent like smallpox, an attack could consist of a single individual with no apparent symptoms simply entering the country and walking around in population centers.
Currently, three dominant strategies via for public funding and attention in North America, where this issue has become a matter of grave public concern:
- biodefense measures assuming the most threats are local and short-lived.
- biosafety measures heightening the scrutiny on people or goods at borders, and making pessimistic assumptions as per Precautionary Principle.
- health security measures ensuring early warning and universal insurance by guaranteeing that the most vulnerable populations are regularly monitored.
These seem to reflect a military, ecology, and social justice mind-set respectively, rather than representing an empirical analysis of the threats. As the field evolves, it seems inevitable that domestic politics, military standoffs, global cooperation and trading bloc politics will set the constraints by which any given biosecurity measure is considered in any given country. Advocates of strong global cooperation, such as the Green Parties, lack the political influence required to force any single approach.
Biosecurity will continue to be characterized by controversy down to its definition. The peace movement, ecology movement, and other forces seeking to reduce the general level of confrontation between humans and conflicts between human needs and those of natural ecoregions are likely to continue to politicize and critique measures they deem ineffective, or definitions that they perceive as preserving professional or state elites.