Global Health and Foreign Policy

Feldbaum, Harley; Lee, Kelley; Michaud, Joshua

Acute outbreaks of infectious diseases and the threat of bioterrorism have dominated recent national security discussions of global health, suggesting that global health issues gain political priority when they threaten state interests (33, 123) . The SARS and H1N1 influenza A epidemics, the threat of H5N1 influenza A, and, to a lesser extent, the spread of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis have threatened the citizens and economic interests of powerful countries and have been accepted as national security threats (124) . Similarly, increasing knowledge about the extent of existing biological weapons programs (125) , the rise of nonstate terrorist actors, and the global dissemination of advances in biology (126) have driven many wealthy states to address bioterrorism as a serious threat to national security. The benefits of designating a global health issue a threat to national security include high levels of both political attention and funding (34) .