Prevention Beyond
Borders:
The Threat of Disease and the Need for a Global Government
By Chuck Woolery
"As new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times." --Thomas Jefferson |
The primary function of government is protecting the lives of its citizens.
Wise governments also ensure their citizens' freedoms. The most immediate and
severe threat to both of these government functions is the growing and inevitable
threat of infectious diseases. Human death, disability, poverty or loss of freedoms
on a global scale from natural or engineered pathogens still hold great promise
for catastrophic impact on the course of human progress and history. Humanity
has the means to prevent or avoid most of this carnage but most people continue
to live in dangerous denial.
There has been progress in humanity's war on infectious diseases, but they remain
the single greatest source of human death and suffering in the world today.
Some estimates suggest that over a hundred million people died as a result of
war and over 180 million people in genocides over the last 100 years. Infectious
diseases killed about four times more innocent people than war and genocide
combined during that same century. The majority of those who died were children.
A new plague tomorrow could kill well over a hundred million people in a matter
of months. Most virus experts agree that a new strain of killer flu, as lethal
as the 1918 strain that killed over 40 million people in 18 months, is long
overdue. An intentional or accidental release of smallpox or a new weaponized
strain of smallpox or some other infectious pathogen could kill hundreds of
millions of people and disrupt civilization. AIDS, West Nile virus, and SARS
are only our most recent wake up calls. The loss of antibiotic effectiveness,
the continued evolution of natural pathogens and the accidental or intentional
abuse of biotech experiments with other pathogens, combined with rapid global
transportation, trade, injustice and poverty give little reason to be optimistic
about humanity's future.
Less than 30 years ago, the US Surgeon General told Congress that infectious
diseases had been conquered, but by 1992 pathogens had moved from being the
fifth largest killer of Americans to third place -- a doubling of infectious
disease-caused deaths -- with HIV/AIDS responsible for half of that increase.
Since then, five uncontested reports authored by the Centers for Disease Control,
the Department of Defense, the National Security Council, the National Academy
of Sciences Institute of Medicine and even the US National Intelligence Council
have stressed that new and re-emerging infectious diseases are a significant
and growing threat to our nation's security and prosperity. Can the US federal
government or our advanced technology protect us? No.
Our advanced technologies can help, but in many cases they actually make us
more susceptible to infectious disease. Widespread abuse of antibiotics, invasive
medical procedures, toxic environments and mass production/distribution food
systems only exacerbate our disease risks. Our advanced military technology
makes traditional war against the US suicidal for any conventional force. This
spurs the development of biological weapons of mass destruction that are infinitely
more affordable, difficult to defend against and almost impossible to detect.
The dual use nature of biotechnology has effectively killed any hopes of disarming
those who committed to doing us harm. One of the greatest manhunts in human
history has yet to find the individual or the lab that brought the most powerful
nation's capital to a standstill with a few anthrax-tainted envelopes. Even
a military invasion and occupation of Iraq has yet to yield any conclusive evidence
of large amounts of Saddam's biological weapons. And we know he had them, at
least right before the first Gulf War -- because the US gave him over 40 shipments
of actual disease cultures.
Many people still believe that national borders provide protection against disease,
but pathogens are not impeded by human ideas. Perhaps the most lethal human
concept is that of "national sovereignty" -- the institutionalized belief that
nations are independent from other nations. In reality, if even one nation in
the world lacks effective disease control, then all nations and all people are
at risk in this era of rapid mass transportation. And history has recently demonstrated
that just the belief that a nation might have biological or other weapons of
mass destruction can spark a war.
If just one group of individuals is sufficiently alienated from the rest of
humanity, virtually nothing can stop them from developing or purchasing a biological
weapon that can make life miserable for the rest of humanity. A global government
truly of the people, by the people and for the people can establish a lasting
world civilization where human rights and freedoms are universally enforced.
We cannot eliminate the capacity to make biological weapons, but we can do something
about the desire to use them.
When thinking about constructing a functional government system, most scholars
will point to the creation of our own nation's constitution and the three basic
structures of government: an elected body to represent the people and make laws,
a judicial system to enforce the laws, and an executive branch to administer
the laws. They often overlook the vital need for a bill of rights to give the
government legitimacy and thus more permanence. Access to basic health services
should be one of the inalienable human rights guaranteed by any constitutional
government. The basis of U.S.-style democracy is the right to "life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness". Without health, this is meaningless.
Effective local disease control and prevention efforts will require effective
global disease control and prevention efforts. This isn't a new idea. Some of
the first efforts at global cooperation were disease control efforts. One of
the first problems that brought various nations together for mutual action was
the failure of disease quarantines by individual nations during the mid-1800s.
The Pan American Health Organization was one of the first international institutions.
It was created nearly 50 years before the UN and it was done primarily to further
US national security interests.
Consistent and enforceable global standards for effective global surveillance,
response and prevention must become humanity's highest priority. This can only
be accomplished with a consistently enforceable global bill of human rights
and distribution of power at every level of government, including global government,
to minimize abuses. Current international institutions lack both the resources
and the enforcement mechanisms to effectively prevent or respond to outbreaks.
We need universal, enforceable health standards and laws.
Infectious diseases have always been humanity's greatest enemy and protection
from them should be one of governments' highest priorities. As early as 1866,
experts argued that quarantine was no longer effective given the growth of international
trade and travel. The vulnerability of states today is similar to that of nineteenth-century
European states. In 1916, L. S. Woolf wrote, "the conflict fought by the theory
of national independence, isolation, and national interests against the facts
of international life and international interests has nowhere shown itself more
persistently and clearly than in the struggle of human beings against the scourges
of cholera, plague, and other epidemic diseases." This remains true today.
Pathogens have shaped the fate of nations. They continue to mutate and grow
more dangerous with most aspects of unregulated globalization, from low wages
to unequal rights for women, from international crime to the response or lack
of response to armed conflict. Pathogens are changing. Can we?
Chuck Woolery is Advocacy Director for the Global
Plan Initiative. He served as the World Federalist Association's Issues Director
for two years and its Grassroots Director for almost two more years. Chuck lives
in Rockville, Maryland with his wife, children, pets and native plant garden
and is doing something he swore he would never do again -- writing a book. Its
tentative title is The Trilemma: Maximizing Freedom and Security in an Interdependent
World.
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