1831 



Finally, there is the vastly complex problem of how to accommodate 

 the national interest to the growing demands of interdependence: 



Excellence in technology serves to establish a new measure of a nation's leader- 

 ship within the community of nations. At the same time, it affords a means by 

 which all nations can progress toward their own internal goals of reducing human 

 hardship and enlarging human opportunity. How are these two effects of tech- 

 nology to be reconciled? What policies and what compromises are suggested for 

 the United States, to optimize the benefits and minimize the adverse effects of 

 technology within the United States and globally? "» 



It is difficult to escajie the conclusion that part of the answer must 

 lie in new institutional approaches providing for more thorough 

 policy analysis, technological assessment, and long-range planning 

 efforts at both national government (including legislative branch) 

 and international organization levels. 



ISSUE two: the politics of global health 



Public health is among the least controversial and most acceptable 

 of activities in which modern nations cooperatively engage. Even in 

 the earliest stages in the development of international programs to 

 control the spread of infectious disease, national interests tended to 

 be subordinated to the general good of all peoples. A tradition of 

 interdependence, established early, has been reinforced by modern 

 technologies of intercontinental travel and communications. Although 

 it is still not uncommon for the more backward nations to assert their 

 independence by concealing e\'idences of diseases like cholera for 

 reasons of national pride or trade advantage, most nations today 

 promptly share experiences with disease control methods and diagnos- 

 tic technologies. Global health is a universally accepted goal, and 

 bits of national sovereignty are yielded up to advance it. 



"As our consciousness of the world as a 'global village' intensifies," 

 wrote Congressman Clement J. Zablocki in the Foreword to the 

 study,^"" "we are increasingly aware of the dangers and opportunities 

 involved when traditional values of time and space are no longer 

 relevant. The field of global health exemplifies both dangers and 

 opportunities." To this note the author of the study. Dr. Freeman H. 

 Quimby, added in his Introduction : "The degree of freedom enjoyed 

 by Americans from epidemic disease is the result of many steps taken 

 by physicians and statesmen [in all parts of the world] over many 

 decades, toward improving global health conditions." He continued: 



Nothing is more international than disease. It recognizes no political boundaries 

 and few natural ones. It moves freely across national frontiers and spreads as 

 conditions permit from one area to another. The picture usually drawn is that of 

 great pestilences moving from backward regions to the more modern countries. 

 But disease can also go the other way, as shown in numerous accounts of aboriginal 

 populations' becoming infected by the customary diseases of the missionary, 

 trader, explorer, and traveler. If one extends the problem to include the diseases 

 of plants and animals, there is little doubt today that pathogenic organisms them- 

 selves are either already globally distributed or can rather rapidly become so. 

 However, large numbers of these organisms, and the diseases which they cause, 

 remain largely .sequestered in regions where unsanitary conditions and certain 

 insect vectors prevail. These conditions are the reasons for the generally endemic 



"9 Ibid., p. 680. 



5«i Quimby, The Politics of Global Health, vol. H, pp. 681-763. 



