191370 From HIV to Bioterrorism: Surveillance Battles at the End of the 20th Century

Tuesday, October 28, 2008: 5:30 PM

Ronald Bayer , Columbia University, New York, NY
In 1981 the CDC reported the first cases of AIDS in gay men in the US. Despite initial uncertainties, a consensus over the need for AIDS case reporting soon emerged. This agreement would quickly erode when some health officials began to press for HIV reporting. Battles erupted in state after state. Most remarkable about them was that it was the subjects of surveillance themselves who sought to st limits on surveillance, standing in marked contrast to the history of disease reporting for the first three quarters of the century. It was precisely this kind of public engagement that would define debate over federal surveillance efforts in the wake of September 11th and the anthrax attacks. At the dawn of the 21st century, then, health and other public officials must recognize the democratization of the politics of surveillance.

Learning Objectives:
To recognize the role of politics in the practice of public health and identify the interplay with science. To apply a historical framework to the analysis of contemporary policy regarding the control of infectious diseases.

Keywords: Public Health, Surveillance

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: Professor and Co-Director of the Center for the History and Ethics of Public Health. He has been involved in the study of the ethics of public health, exploring the issues surrounding the HIV epidemic for almost two decades, tuberculosis policy, and tobacco. He is co-author, with Amy Fairchild and James Colgrove, of Searching Eyes: Privacy, the State, and Disease Surveillance in America.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

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