I haven’t had a chance to read this yet, but thought it was interesting: An Investor’s Guide to Avian Flu Found it on the UPMC Center for Biosecurity site in a page they have for a 2005 conference on avian flu and the private sector.
COLLABORATORY: VITAL SYSTEMS SECURITY
The Vital Systems Security collaboration examines how, today, security is being constituted as an object of knowledge, intervention, and political reflection. It proposes that the security of vital systems such as energy, transportation, communication and health is one norm in relationship to which security is being reproblematized. A central goal of the collaboration is to examine these issues through collective, conceptually driven inquiry that addresses rapidly developing contemporary problems.
Interesting that their recommended reading list has the usual suspects like Webster, Osterholm, and Garrett on it, but nothing on antivirals. As is well known, corporations have stockpiled quite a bit of tamiflu for themselves. The question is how will they use it. As prophylaxis or treatment? And who will decide when people should take it. And how many courses will be necessary? The pharmaceutical solution works only if there is an infrastructure that supports it. This month another hospital in NYC closed its doors…