Global Health and Foreign Policy

Feldbaum, Harley; Lee, Kelley; Michaud, Joshua

However, the benefits of linking global health to national security have not come without criticism or costs. McInnes and Lee argue that the national security agenda on health has been narrowly framed and ''dominated by the concerns of foreign and security policy, not of global public health'' (33, p. 22) , while Feldbaum et al. caution that the ''global and humanitarian objectives of the health field do not fit readily into the state-centered perspective of national security'' (127, p. 196 ). The costs of framing international cooperation on epidemic diseases in security terms are also becoming apparent. ''Developing countries are increasingly suspicious of global health initiatives justified on the grounds of 'global health security' '' (128, p. 372) because ''the harvest of outbreak intelligence overseas is essentially geared to benefit wealthy nations'' (87, p. 19) . Controversy over sharing of H5N1 influenza A viral samples (86, 129) and within negotiations over the IHRs (87) are examples of developing countries' resistance to the concept of global health security.