Health News
2005-07-23
Study: AIDS is a
bigger global threat than terrorism
A study released
this week by the Council on Foreign Relations says that
the global AIDS epidemic is a greater threat to
A study released
this week by the Council on Foreign Relations says that
the global AIDS epidemic is a greater threat to
international security than terrorism, with countries
hit hard by the disease likely to experience severe
social, economic, and political unrest that could
easily spill outside their borders, the Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette reports.
"The mutual
vulnerability of weak and strong has never been
clearer,” wrote Laurie Garrett, a senior fellow
at the council and a Pulitzer Prize-winning health
writer. “The security of the most affluent state can
be held hostage to the ability of the poorest state to
contain an emerging disease.” In an interview
with the Post-Gazette, Garrett called AIDS “an
enormous stressor that is aggravating laundry lists of
underlying tensions in developing, devolving, and
failed states.”
National security
advisors in Washington disagreed with the report’s
findings. James Robbins of the National Defense University
called AIDS a health issue, not a security threat.
“Just because a disease kills lots of people
doesn’t make it a security threat,” he told
the Post-Gazette, noting that two of the countries
hardest hit by AIDS in Africa—South Africa and
Botswana—are among the continent’s most
stable countries.
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