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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

David Ozonoff, MD, MPH, Professor of Environmental Health, Chair Emeritus, Department of Environmental Health, Boston University School of Public Health, 715 Albany Street, T2E, Boston, MA 02118, 617 638 4620, dozonoff@bu.edu

We will discuss the ways that the biodefense research agenda has combined with the current stress on the public health system to produce the counterproductive consequence of making us less safe rather than more safe. Specifically, we show how the scientific context within which enterprises like academic high containment facilities for working on special agents distorts public health priorities, affects the organizational structure of public health and its accustomed style and culture, makes available to those intent on causing harm new tools not otherwise available to them, threatens to produce a culture of secrecy in what was an open and creative community, introduces the possibility of academics violating the community standards of public health by furthering techniques designed to sicken and kill rather than heal or prevent disease, creates new safety risks, and threatens to destabilize biological weapons conventions.

Learning Objectives: At the end of this session participants will

• Describe enterprises like academic high containment facilities for working on special agents; and
• Recognize the counterproductive public health consequences of the biodefense research agenda.

Keywords: Bioterrorism,

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation