Abstract

BEDOLLA, Alexis. U.S. Biosecurity and the Emergence of Global Epidemiological Surveillance: Analyzing the Genealogy of a Problem. Norteamérica [online]. 2023, vol.18, n.1, pp.67-93.  Epub Jan 12, 2024. ISSN 2448-7228.  https://doi.org/10.22201/cisan.24487228e.2023.1.566.

The global surveillance systems for infectious diseases adapted to identify unexpected biological threats are not the result of “natural” scientific evolution. Quite to the contrary: they can be explained as the result of techno-scientific discourses that incorporate specific perspectives or interests. This article’s objective, then, is to demonstrate how U.S. national security policy had a crucial influence on the development of the epidemiological knowledge incorporated into the WHO’s practices and regulations in the mid-1990s. Using extensive documentary and archival work, the author specifically seeks to show the influence of U.S. concerns about the proliferation of biological weapons and bioterrorist attacks on the formation of the concept “emerging infectious diseases” as well as on the development of new systems of epidemiological surveillance. He concludes that the U.S. biosecurity discourse has played a decisive role in the development of contemporary epidemiological knowledge and practices and argues that this discussion is useful for showing the limits of those innovations by determining what and whom its implementation seeks to protect.

Keywords : biosecurity; emerging infectious diseases; United States; epidemiological surveillance; World Health Organization.

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