Import volumes and biosecurity interventions shape the arrival rate of fungal pathogens.

Global trade and the movement of people accelerate biological invasions by spreading species worldwide. Biosecurity measures seek to allow trade and passenger movements while preventing incursions that could lead to the establishment of unwanted pests, pathogens, and weeds. However, few data exist to evaluate whether changes in trade volumes, passenger arrivals, and biosecurity measures have altered rates of establishment of nonnative species over time. This is particularly true for pathogens, which pose significant risks to animal and plant health and are consequently a major focus of biosecurity efforts but are difficult to detect. Here, we use a database of all known plant pathogen associations recorded in New Zealand to estimate the rate at which new fungal pathogens arrived and established on 131 economically important plant species over the last 133 years. We show that the annual arrival rate of new fungal pathogens increased from 1880 to about 1980 in parallel with increasing import trade volume but subsequently stabilised despite continued rapid growth in import trade and recent rapid increases in international passenger arrivals. Nevertheless, while pathogen arrival rates for crop and pasture species have declined in recent decades, arrival rates have increased for forestry and fruit tree species. These contrasting trends between production sectors reflect differences in biosecurity effort and suggest that targeted biosecurity can slow pathogen arrival and establishment despite increasing trade and international movement of people.

Failing to protect humanitarian workers: lessons from Britain and Voluntary Aid Detachments in the Second World War.

This paper draws on official records of international and British organizations, newspaper reports, and volunteer memoirs to study the failure to protect humanitarian workers in the Second World War. The Second World War saw a significant expansion in the use of air warfare and flying missiles and these technological advances posed a grave threat to civilians and humanitarian workers. In this context, the International Committee of the Red Cross advocated unsuccessfully to restrict air warfare and create safe hospital zones. The British Government grappled with the tension between military and humanitarian objectives in setting its bombardment policy. Ultimately, humanitarian principles were neglected in pursuit of strategic aims, which endangered civilians and left humanitarian workers particularly vulnerable. British Voluntary Aid Detachment nurses experienced more than six-fold greater fatality rates than civil defence workers and the general population. The lessons from failures to protect humanitarian workers in the face of evolutions in warfare remain profoundly relevant.

[Health-care services in the GDR during the 1980s: A status report based on the files of the state security agency]. / Das DDR-Gesundheitswesen in den 1980er Jahren: Ein Zustandsbild anhand von Akten der Staatssicherheit.

BACKGROUND: The situation of the health-care services in the GDR during the 1980s has been reconstructed on the basis of the in part not previously released files of the Ministry for State Security (Stasi files). METHOD: A research application was submitted to the responsible German Agency to examine the Stasi files on district physicians in the GDR. 78 extensive files were made available and evaluated according to the topics drugs and other medicinal aids, medical techniques, building status, procurement of foreign currencies, hygiene, Chernobyl, appeals and shortage of physicians. RESULTS: The Stasi files reveal a dismal picture for the status of health-care services in the GDR during the 1980s. The authorities responsible for public health and the Ministry for State Security were well informed about the existing problems. Towards the end of the GDR the Ministry of Sate Security admitted internally that research and technology were lagging about 10 years behind that in Western countries. CONCLUSION: The discrepancy between the official reports and inofficial opinions was considerable. The Ministry of State Security worked mainly passively in an ideological fantasy world in which all such discrepencies had to be denied.

From biodefence to biosecurity: the Obama administration's strategy for countering biological threats.

The Seventh Review Conference of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), the first international treaty to outlaw an entire class of weapons, was held in Geneva in December 2011. On 7 December, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton became the highest-ranking US government official to address a BWC meeting. Secretary Clinton told the assembled delegation that 'we view the risk of bioweapons attack as both a serious national security challenge and a foreign policy priority'. At the same time, she warned that a large-scale disease outbreak 'could cripple an already fragile global economy'. Secretary Clinton's speech reflected a new understanding that the range of biological threats to international security has expanded from state-sponsored biological warfare programmes to include biological terrorism, dual-use research and naturally occurring infectious diseases such as pandemics. Recognizing these changes, President Barack Obama released a new national strategy for countering biological threats in 2009. This strategy represents a shift in thinking away from the George W. Bush administration's focus on biodefence, which emphasized preparing for and responding to biological weapon attacks, to the concept of biosecurity, which includes measures to prevent, prepare for and respond to naturally occurring and man-made biological threats. The Obama administration's biosecurity strategy seeks to reduce the global risk of naturally occurring and deliberate disease outbreaks through prevention, international cooperation, and maximizing synergies between health and security. The biosecurity strategy is closely aligned with the Obama administration's broader approach to foreign policy, which emphasizes the pragmatic use of smart power, multilateralism and engagement to further the national interest. This article describes the Obama administration's biosecurity strategy; highlights elements of continuity and change from the policies of the Bush administration; discusses how it fits into Obama's broader foreign policy agenda; and analyses critical issues that will have to be addressed in order to implement the strategy successfully.

Geography and global health.

In the wake of the report of the World Health Organisation's Commission on the Social Determinants of Health, Closing the gap in a generation (Marmot 2008), this invited commentary considers the scope for geographical research on global health. We reflect on current work and note future possibilities, particularly those that take a critical perspective on the interplay of globalisation, security and health.

Playful biometrics: controversial technology through the lens of play.

This article considers the role of play in the context of technological emergence and expansion, particularly as it relates to recently emerging surveillance technologies. As a case study, I consider the trajectory of automated face recognition­a biometric technology of numerous applications, from its more controversial manifestations under the rubric of national security to a clearly emerging orientation toward play. This shift toward "playful" biometrics­or from a technology traditionally coded as "hard" to one now increasingly coded as "soft"­is critical insofar as it renders problematic the traditional modes of critique that have, up until this point, challenged the expansion of biometric systems into increasingly ubiquitous realms of everyday life. In response to this dynamic, I propose theorizing the expansion of face recognition specifically in relation to "play," a step that allows us to broaden the critical space around newly emerging playful biometrics, as well as playful surveillance more generally. In addition, play may also have relevance for theorizing other forms of controversial technology, particularly given its potential role in processes of obfuscation, normalization, and marginalization.

'Good in all respects': appearance and dress at Staffordshire County Lunatic Asylum, 1818-54.

Dress was integral to the ideals and practice of Staffordshire County Lunatic Asylum, an institution catering for all social classes. Lunatics' appearance was used to gauge the standard of care inside the asylum and beyond. Clothing was essential for moral treatment and physical health. It helped to denote social and institutional class: clothes were integral to paupers' admission; rich patients spent time and money dressing; for disturbed inmates and those who destroyed asylum attire, the consequence could be'secure dress', which was fundamental to therapeutics. Later, when an ethos of non-restraint was introduced, the superintendent used patients' appearance to propagate an image of his enlightened care.

The evolution, etiology and eventualities of the global health security regime.

BACKGROUND: Attention to global health security governance is more important now than ever before. Scientists predict that a possible influenza pandemic could affect 1.5 billion people, cause up to 150 million deaths and leave US$3 trillion in economic damages. A public health emergency in one country is now only hours away from affecting many others. METHODS: Using regime analysis from political science, the principles, norms, rules and decision-making procedures by which states govern health security are examined in the historical context of their punctuated evolution. This methodology illuminates the catalytic agents of change, distributional consequences and possible future orders that can help to better inform progress in this area. FINDINGS: Four periods of global health security governance are identified. The first is characterized by unilateral quarantine regulations (1377-1851), the second by multiple sanitary conferences (1851-92), the third by several international sanitary conventions and international health organizations (1892-1946) and the fourth by the hegemonic leadership of the World Health Organization (1946-????). This final regime, like others before it, is challenged by globalization (e.g. limitations of the new International Health Regulations), changing diplomacy (e.g. proliferation of global health security organizations), new tools (e.g. global health law, human rights and health diplomacy) and shock-activated vulnerabilities (e.g. bioterrorism and avian/swine influenza). This understanding, in turn, allows us to appreciate the impact of this evolving regime on class, race and gender, as well as to consider four possible future configurations of power, including greater authority for the World Health Organization, a concert of powers, developing countries and civil society organizations. CONCLUSIONS: This regime analysis allows us to understand the evolution, etiology and eventualities of the global health security regime, which is essential for national and international health policymakers, practitioners and academics to know where and how to act effectively in preparation for tomorrow's challenges.

The cross politics of Ecuador's penal state.

This essay examines inmate "crucifixion protests" in Ecuador's largest prison during 2003-04. It shows how the preventively incarcerated-of whom there are thousands-managed to effectively denounce their extralegal confinement by embodying the violence of the Christian crucifixion story. This form of protest, I argue, simultaneously clarified and obscured the multiple layers of sovereign power that pressed down on urban crime suspects, who found themselves persecuted and forsaken both outside and within the space of the prison. Police enacting zero-tolerance policies in urban neighborhoods are thus a key part of the penal state, as are the politically threatened family members of the indicted, the sensationalized local media, distrustful neighbors, prison guards, and incarcerated mafia. The essay shows how the politico-theological performance of self-crucifixion responded to these internested forms of sovereign violence, and were briefly effective. The inmates' cross intervention hence provides a window into the way sovereignty works in the Ecuadorean penal state, drawing out how incarceration trends and new urban security measures interlink, and produce an array of victims.

Farming the Desert: agriculture in the World War II-era Japanese-American relocation centers.

In 1942 over 110,000 Japanese Americans were evacuated from the West Coast to ten inland, barbed wire-enclosed relocation centers in the name of national security. Agriculture was a key component of the eight arid to semi-arid centers located in the western United States. Each center's agricultural program included produce for human consumption, feed crops, and livestock. Some centers also grew seed, ornamental, and war crops. Evacuees raised and consumed five types of livestock and sixty-one produce varieties, including many traditional foods. Seasonal surpluses were preserved, shipped to other centers, or sold on the open market. Short growing seasons, poor soils, initially undeveloped lands, pests, equipment shortages, and labor issues hampered operations. However, imprisoned evacuee farmers proved that diverse agricultural programs could succeed in the harsh settings primarily because of labor-intensive farming methods, ingenuity, and the large markets provided by the centers. These agricultural programs played major roles in feeding, providing meaningful employment, and preparing evacuees for life outside the centers, and readied lands for post-war "homesteaders."

Homeland security planning: what victory gardens and Fidel Castro can teach us in preparing for food crises in the United States.

Two historical examples provide important insight into how federal government policies can integrate regional and local food systems to achieve food security during a time of acute crisis. During World War II, American home gardeners, through the federal government's Victory Garden program, supplied 40 percent of the nation's fresh produce, while simultaneously maintaining pre-war commodity production policies favoring large agricultural interests. The recent food crisis in Cuba, precipitated by the collapse of Soviet-bloc trade in the early 1990s, is another historical example that could inform U.S. policymakers on how to achieve food self-sufficiency through reemphasis on small farmers using sustainable practices supplemented with urban gardening. This article aims to ignite government action to strengthen and integrate regional and local food systems into federal food security planning so that citizens can be best prepared for a food emergency. The article first examines laws, regulations and policies put in place during World War II that employed regional and local food networks to satisfy a significant amount of civilian food supply needs. The article also looks at more recent Cuban efforts to achieve forced food self-reliance when, after the end of the Cold War, Soviet subsidies and preferential trading of energy and food supplies ceased almost overnight.