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Encyclopedia > Biosecurity

A biosecurity guarantee attempts to ensure that ecologies sustaining either people or animals are maintained. This may include natural habitats as well as shelter and productive enterprise (especially agriculture) and deals with threats such as biological warfare or epidemics. This is related to the more passive concept of biosafety. Biological warfare, also known as germ warfare, is the use of any organism (bacteria, virus or other disease-causing organism) or toxin found in nature, as a weapon of war. ... In epidemiology, an epidemic (from Greek epi- upon + demos people) is a disease that appears as new cases in a given human population, during a given period, at a rate that substantially exceeds what is expected, based on recent experience (the number of new cases in the population during a... Biosafety: prevention of large-scale loss of biological integrity, focusing both on ecology and human health. ...


Political guarantees of health for persons or animals are necessarily controversial. Such guarantees can form part of almost any organisational means of survival, including of political and economic systems, military doctrine and insurance schemes. Challenges include the proliferation of biological threats, the difficulty of tracking contamination (especially if carried by the natural internal processes of an ecoregion), and numerous political barriers. An ecoregion is a relatively large area of land or water that contains a geographically distinct assemblage of natural communities. ...

Contents


Community Impact Assessment Protocols

Differing concepts of biosecurity are evolving in many professions. So far the field has focused on attempts to establish uniform standards of risk referencing - see the biodiversity debate and health security. Nevertheless, many professional groups believe that their internal professional ethics and professional standards are sufficient to contain all relevant risks (which may be medical, agricultural and so on). Rainforests are the most biodiverse ecosystems on earth Biodiversity or biological diversity is the diversity of life. ... This page is a candidate to be moved to Wiktionary. ...


This fact emphasises the difficulty in agreeing common standards - definitions and requirements depend on, among other things, national, ecological, military, diplomatic and professional concerns. Consensus holds that biosecurity is a government responsibility, but beyond that, mandates of various government agencies 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 The structure of insulin Biotechnology is a technology based on biology, especially when used in agriculture, food science, and medicine. ... The structure of insulin Biotechnology is a technology based on biology, especially when used in agriculture, food science, and medicine. ... Biosafety: prevention of large-scale loss of biological integrity, focusing both on ecology and human health. ... WTO Logo The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an international, multilateral organization, which sets the rules for the global trading system and resolves disputes between its member states, all of whom are signatories to its about 30 agreements. ...


A sampling of current (2002) national and professional mandates include commitments of

  • 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 the Biocouncil "managing exotic pests (or recent incursions)". Critics, including the NZ 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 with respect to humans.
  • US scientific societies to redefine biosecurity largely in terms of "countering terrorism", and not in terms of addressing unintentional man-made threats.

Clearly, no single set of guarantees can be said to represent biosecurity - just as no such set of guarantees clearly characterizes national security or any other form of security. Security measures taken to protect the Houses of Parliament in London, England. ...


Historically, as with other public safety, fairness, and closure concerns, a nation-state attempted to assure biosecurity by tax, trade, tariff and active biodefense measures. More recently there has been a trend towards more sustainable measures such as safe trade rules for biosafety, an example of which is the Biosafety Protocol. A tax (also known as a dutyor Zakat in islamic economics) is a charge or other levy imposed on an individual or a legal entity by a state or a functional equivalent of a state (e. ... A fruit stand at a market. ... A tariff is a tax on imported goods. ... Biodefense refers to short term, local, usually military measures to restore biosecurity to a given group of persons in a given area — in the civilian terminology, it is a very robust biohazard response. ... Safe trade is a concept advocated by Greenpeace, some indigenous peoples (particularly those who feel threatened by the imposition of a monoculture) and by some elements of the anti-globalization movement. ... Biosafety: prevention of large-scale loss of biological integrity, focusing both on ecology and human health. ... The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety is an international agreement on biosafety, as a supplement to the Convention on Biological Diversity. ...


These are claimed to minimize the exposure of people and natural ecologies to alien organisms via trade or warfare.


Post 9/11 Ecochallenges

The destruction of the World Trade Center in Manhattan on September 11, 2001 by terrorists, and subsequent wave of anthrax attacks on U.S. media and government outlets (both real and hoax), led to increased attention on the risk of bioterror attacks in the United States. Proposals for serious structural reforms, national and/or regional border controls, and a single co-ordinated system of biohazard response abounded. The World Trade Center in New York City (sometimes informally referred to as the WTC or the Twin Towers) was a complex of seven buildings mostly designed by Japanese-American architect Minoru Yamasaki and developed by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. ... The World Trade Center on fire The September 11, 2001 attacks were a series of coordinated terrorist attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001. ...


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. Ira Lipman, founder and president of Guardsmark Inc said: People are very concerned about their security needs and think they're in a war-like environment. 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. Guardsmark is a major provider of security services in North America, Puerto Rico and the United Kingdom. ...


Some anticipate that this will lead to a much more rigorous biosecurity standards, building on NORAD, NAFTA, OAS, and an improved biosafety protocol as corporations attempt to shift costs to government. Such measures may well prove necessary in the light of the ever-larger number of individuals and organisations with the ability to construct weapons of biological warfare. NORAD is short for: North American Aerospace Defense Command Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... Nafta or NAFTA may refer to: an acronym for the North American Free Trade Agreement an acronym for the New Zealand Australia Free Trade Agreement the town/Tokyo of Nafta, Tunisia This is a disambiguation page: a list of articles associated with the same title. ... The Organization of American States (OAS; OEA in the other three official languages) is an international organization, headquartered in Washington, D.C., USA. Its members are the 35 independent nations of the Americas. ... The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety is an international agreement on biosafety, as a supplement to the Convention on Biological Diversity. ... Biological warfare, also known as germ warfare, is the use of any organism (bacteria, virus or other disease-causing organism) or toxin found in nature, as a weapon of war. ...


Unlike biosafety precautions, biosecurity 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. Biosafety: prevention of large-scale loss of biological integrity, focusing both on ecology and human health. ...


Some seek to minimize risk or expenses by political measures such as unified Homeland Defense or by extending agricultural isolation zones into Bioregional democracies - forcing political borders to conform to natural ecologies - but this may be at odds with traditional national and cultural borders. Bioregional democracy (or the Bioregional State) is a set of Electoral Reforms designed to force the political process in a democracy to better represent body and environment concerns, e. ...


So far, such measures have met with little success.


Some say active preventive measures are unlikely to be acceptable to the general population in peacetime. There could be general vaccination against biological warfare agents, but the public is unlikely to accept potentially harmful vaccines for such agents. States do not currently routinely vaccinate against likely biowarfare agents - partly because the risk associated with most vaccinations is greater than the perceived risk from biological warfare. Biological warfare, also known as germ warfare, is the use of any organism (bacteria, virus or other disease-causing organism) or toxin found in nature, as a weapon of war. ... Biological warfare, also known as germ warfare, is the use of any organism (bacteria, virus or other disease-causing organism) or toxin found in nature, as a weapon of war. ...


Others point out that a vaccination program, even if imperfect, could reduce the risk of biological warfare by making the agent addressed less attractive as a weapon, and that in many cases government policy denies the public the choice of being vacccinated.


Future Thought Leadership

Currently in North America, three complementary strategies exist:

  • 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.

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." Biodefense refers to short term, local, usually military measures to restore biosecurity to a given group of persons in a given area — in the civilian terminology, it is a very robust biohazard response. ... Biosafety: prevention of large-scale loss of biological integrity, focusing both on ecology and human health. ... The precautionary principle, a phrase first used in English circa 1988, is the idea that if the consequences of an action are unknown, but are judged to have some potential for major or irreversible negative consequences, then it is better to avoid that action. ... The structure of insulin Biotechnology is a technology based on biology, especially when used in agriculture, food science, and medicine. ...


Conferences

MOP3 (Third Meeting of the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety) 13 - 17 March / Curitiba - Brazil Curitiba seen from above Curitiba is the capital city of the Brazilian state of Paraná. In 2005 it had a population of approximately 1,757,904 people. ...


See also


  Results from FactBites:
 
Biosecurity protocol - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (254 words)
Biosecurity protocol refers to several politically-controversial attempts to unify global biosecurity measures and responses, in a similar manner to a biosafety protocol.
Although some propose a "Biosecurity Protocol" to extend the Biosafety Protocol to organisms considered weapons (already controlled by UN arms proliferation treaties), others argue this is an inappropriate response to military threats, and argue for a broad biodefense instead.
As of 2002, the latter view was prevalent in military and scientific circles, the former in NGOs, some UN agencies, and Green Parties.
  More results at FactBites »

 

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