Text: The United States federal government should expand surveillance conducted by the United States Army Medical Research Unit Kenya by increasing the number of staff, collecting respiratory specimens from age-matched healthy controls, using multitasking diagnostic equipment, expanding the information systems for sample handling, performing tracheal cultures of birds, and conducting surveillance in school, military, and bird populations
Text: The United States federal government should expand surveillance conducted by the United States Army Medical Research Unit Kenya
Contention 1 is Regional Instability
Recent corruption and economic reforms in Kenya have created stability and economic growth driven primarily by the tourism sector
US Bureau of African Affairs, 10/07/07 (State Department Documents and Publications, SECTION: STATE DEPARTMENT PRESS RELEASE, http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2962.htm)
POLITICAL CONDITIONS Since independence, … Africa Growth and Opportunity Act
And Kenya makes substantial investments in neighboring countries that fosters sustainable development for the entire region – Deterioration of the economy creates domino effect that destroys regional stability
USAID, 2k
[“USAID/Kenya: Integrated Strategic Plan, 2001-2005,” http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs /PDABU260.pdf]
KENYA AND THE REGION Linchpin for regional trade and economic development … rapid growth on a sustainable basis.
A bird flu outbreak is inevitable in Kenya and the rest of East Africa due to its locations along migratory bird paths – Effective surveillance is key to prevent it from destroying the tourism industry which is crucial to the regions economy
Wairagala Wakabi, 4/18/06 (AllAfrica news correspondent, East Africa: Bird Flu: the Full Scale of the Threat, http://allafrica.com/stories/200604180119.html)
THOUGH THE VIRUS THAT CAUSES bird flu … They would also cause much negative environmental impact.
Economic hardship in Kenya creates regional instability
Milan Vesely, 2001 (Writer for African Business, http://www.allbusiness.com/government/943960-1.html)
The question haunting Uganda, Rwanda and … of a stone into an east African millpond.
And we realize that things are already bad in East Africa, but the positive influence of Kenya and the proposed Africom provide some semblance of stability – Multiple flashpoints in Sudan, Somalia and Ethiopia means that instability could spark a major regional war and more genocide
Peter Brookes, 4/27/07 (Senior Fellow, National Security Affairs and Chung Ju-Yung Fellow for Policy Studies, Asian Studies Center at the Heritage Institute, “Horn Hotbed”, http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed042707b.cfm)
Since the early 1990s, … especially in places such as the volatile Horn of Africa.
And Conflicts in East Africa escalate into global conflagration – Great powers intervene to protext shipping lanes
Caroline B. Glick, 12/12/07 (the senior Middle East fellow at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C., The Center for Security Policy is a non-profit, non-partisan national security organization that specializes in identifying policies, actions, and resource needs that are vital to American security and then ensures that such issues are the subject of both focused, principled examination and effective action by recognized policy experts, appropriate officials, opinion leaders, and the general public, “Condi's African holiday”, http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/home.aspx?sid=56&categoryid=56&subcategoryid=90&newsid=11568)
The Horn of Africa is a dangerous and strategically vital place. Small wars, … it will renew its attacks in the south.
Contention Two is Bioweapons
They pose the greatest risk of extinction – Nuclear weapons are easier to control
Ochs ’02 (Richard Ochs, ANALYST FOR THE CHEMICAL WEAPONS WORKING GROUP, July 9 2002 -- “BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS MUST BE ABOLISHED IMMEDIATELY” -- http://www.freefromterror.net/other_articles/abolish.html)
Of all the weapons of mass destruction,…Human extinction is now possible.
Qualified authors prove that despite Technical difficulties and past failures, intense efforts by terrorists make a Bioterrorist Attack inevitable – There is motive, expertise and supply
Clare Lopez, 2005 (Clare Lopez is/was:
1. Operations officer with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), serving domestically and abroad for 20 years in a variety of assignments, acquiring extensive expertise in counterintelligence, counternarcotics, and counterproliferation issues with a career regional focus on the former Soviet Union, Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans.
2. Produced Technical Threat Assessments for U.S. Embassies at the Department of State, Bureau of Diplomatic Security, where she worked as a Senior Intelligence Analyst for Chugach Systems Integration
3. A strategic policy and intelligence expert with a focus on Middle East, homeland security, national defense, and counterterrorism issues at the intelligence summit
4. Executive Director of the Iran Policy Committee, a Washington, DC think tank, from 2005-2006
5. Senior Scientific Researcher at the Battelle Memorial Institute; a Senior Intelligence Analyst, Subject Matter Expert, and Program Manager at HawkEye Systems, LLC.;
“Defending the Homeland Against Bioweapons in the Hands of Terrorists”, Journal of Counterterrorism & Homeland Security International)
There are considerable technical difficulties …BW attack carries with it the threat of very high potential lethality.
The US is uniquely vulnerable to bio-weapon threat dude to poor training of military medical personnel
Defeo, 06 (Joseph, Captain of the United States Navy, "Joint Medical Readiness: Are We Ready to Answer the WMD Threat?" March 15
http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADA449697 p. 7)
Having the right people … in any of the current training programs.
Training through real-world experience is crucial to creating a strong public health infrastructure that is capable of minimizing the casualties from a bioterrorist attack – Global surveillance programs provide an opportunity for this training
Smolinski et al. 03 – Director of the Global Health and Security Initiative at Nuclear Threat Initiative [Marks. Smolinski (Former Senior Program Officer at the Institute of Medicine of the National Academics of Science and Epidemic Intelligence Officer for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), Margaret A. Hamburg (Vice President for Biological Programs at Nuclear Threat Initiative), & Joshua Lederberg (Directs the Laboratory of Molecular Genetics and Informatics at The Rockefeller University) Editors, Board on Global Health at the institute of the National Academics, Microbial threats to Health: Emergence, Detection, and Response, 3-18-2003, http://www.nap.edu/catalog/10636.html]
As described earlier, surveillance of and … the workforce to provide both on-the-ground epidemiologic expertise and laboratory capability.
<<>>
The real-world information and skills … upper-level management positions.
The Kenya program provides unique real-world experience that can be acquired no where else
Matt Coles, 2005 (CDC Foundation Program Officer, “Perspectives: On-the-Job Training for Disease Detectives in Kenya”, http://www.cdcfoundation.org/frontline/2005/kenya_disease_detectives.aspx)
As a health volunteer in the Peace Corps, … who share this passion.
Minimizing the death toll is crucial – large casualties ensures a US response that escalates to nuclear war.
Conley ’03 (Lt Col Harry W. is chief of the Systems Analysis Branch, Directorate of Requirements, Headquarters Air Combat Command (ACC), Langley AFB, Virginia. Air & Space Power Journal - Spring 2003 -- http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj03/spr03/conley.html)
The number of American casualties suffered due … whatever promises had been made.”48
Contention Four is Solvency
The DOD just increased funding for the US Army Medical Research Unit in Kenya – No other country or organization has the experience of the staff working there and Kenya is key because it lies along the migratory bird paths into Africa
Institute of Medicine, 9/25/2007 (The Institute provides a vital service by working outside the framework of government to ensure scientifically informed analysis and independent guidance. The Institute provides unbiased, evidence-based, and authoritative information and advice concerning health and science policy to policy-makers, professionals, leaders in every sector of society, and the public at large. Our work is conducted by committees of volunteer scientists--leading national and international experts--who serve without compensation. Committees are carefully composed to assure the requisite expertise and to avoid bias or conflict of interest. Every report produced by our committees undergoes extensive review and evaluation by a group of external experts who are anonymous to the committee, and whose names are revealed only once the study is published. “Review of the DOD-GEIS influenza programs: Strengthening global surveillance and response”, The National Academies Press)
In 1969 the U.S. Army Medical Research Unit Kenya (USAMRU-K), a special foreign activity … manage the storage and tracking of influenza (as well as all other) specimens.
Recent funding increases are insufficient to pay for new programs at the US Army Medical Research Unit in Kenya and force a decrease in operational effectiveness – More staff, Expansion of age-matched surveillance for school and military populations, tracheal cultures in Bird populations, and new multitasking diagnostic equipment are key to solving
Institute of Medicine, 9/25/2007 (The Institute provides a vital service by working outside the framework of government to ensure scientifically informed analysis and independent guidance. The Institute provides unbiased, evidence-based, and authoritative information and advice concerning health and science policy to policy-makers, professionals, leaders in every sector of society, and the public at large. Our work is conducted by committees of volunteer scientists--leading national and international experts--who serve without compensation. Committees are carefully composed to assure the requisite expertise and to avoid bias or conflict of interest. Every report produced by our committees undergoes extensive review and evaluation by a group of external experts who are anonymous to the committee, and whose names are revealed only once the study is published. “Review of the DOD-GEIS influenza programs: Strengthening global surveillance and response”, The National Academies Press)
MANAGEMENT AND PLANNING In developing avian influenza/pandemic influenza …equipment for respiratory diseases.
The US is key – It has unique expertise, the perception of its leadership in Disease Surveillance ensures information sharing, and deploying public health officials trains them to respond to a bioterror attack on the US
CISET 1996 (An interagency Government working group on emerging infectious diseases was formed in December 1994 under the auspices of the National Science and Technology Council's Committee on International Science, Engineering, and Technology (CISET). Led by CDC, the Department of State, USAID, Food and Drug Administration, NIH, and the Department of Defense, the working group makes the following recommendations for action by the U.S. Government., “Global Microbial Threats in the 1990s,” http://clinton1.nara.gov/White_House/EOP/OSTP/CISET/html/exsum.html)
The modern world is a very small place; … to combat infectious diseases.
The alternative creates an all-consuming Colonialistic West and an Angelic South that reentrenches ethnocentrism and create impossible expectations for the South to meet
Pascal Bruckner, 1986 (Counts among the best-known French "nouveaux philosophes”, Académie Française Prix 2000 and Medici Prize 1995, The Tears of The White Man: Compassion as Contempt)
An ethnologist praying for the extermination of the … is to give in to a loathsome from of blackmail.
Disease Securitization mobilizes political action to solve disease and bioterrorism
Enemark 05 (Dr. Christian Enemark is a Visiting Fellow of the John Curtin School of Medical Research at ANU where he serves as Deputy Director of the National Centre for Biosecurity.'INFECTIOUS DISEASES AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY', The Nonproliferation Review, 12:1, 107 – 125. March 1st – via Taylor & Francis, which is usually obtainable through google scholar)
In pursuing international cooperation, a threshold issue is how to … as a weapon of war or terror.5
<<>>
Global networks assisted in …would far exceed that of SARS.
The DOD is critical – It has unique experience and unmatched existing infrastructure
Institute of Medicine, 2001 (The Institute provides a vital service by working outside the framework of government to ensure scientifically informed analysis and independent guidance. The Institute provides unbiased, evidence-based, and authoritative information and advice concerning health and science policy to policy-makers, professionals, leaders in every sector of society, and the public at large. Our work is conducted by committees of volunteer scientists--leading national and international experts--who serve without compensation. Committees are carefully composed to assure the requisite expertise and to avoid bias or conflict of interest. Every report produced by our committees undergoes extensive review and evaluation by a group of external experts who are anonymous to the committee, and whose names are revealed only once the study is published. “Perspectives on the Department of Defense Global Emerging Infections Surveillance and Response System: A Program Review”, The National Academies Press, http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10203&page=29)
Emerging infectious disease surveillance … and global interests alike.
Share with your friends: |