| Course: 17.60s | Date: July 19-21, 2004 | Tuition: $2,000* |
The risk of terrorist attacks with biological weapons poses new challenges for governmental agencies that have the responsibility to respond to these threats. For bioterrorist attacks have multiple dimensions. The release of a biological agent may create a public heath emergency. At the same time it is a criminal act whose perpetrators need to be apprehended. And the terrorists involved may or may not be part of an international network. Thus public health, law enforcement and national security agencies all need to rethink their priorities, and learn how to collaborate as well.
Implementing these new priorities will require considerable organizational learning and change. But agencies have deeply imbedded professional norms and organizational culture, and they are resistant to change even in times of crisis. Each agency responds with its own routines, and its own distinctive view of "the threat," which impedes effective collaboration.
The 2001 anthrax letter attacks provide many cases of unresolved organizational issues. The Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) brought its own organizational style to investigating the outbreaks. It focused on the pathways of exposure, establishing an index case, and other public health procedures. The FBI though, faced with the same incident, saw a crime scene that needed to be secured, evidence that needed collection by its procedures, and perpetrators who needed to be identified. But the Bureau agents lacked the relevant scientific background. The military had studied anthrax for decades, but much of its information remains cloaked in secrecy and unavailable to other agencies. Thus, while the need for collaboration is great, the potential for differing organizational styles to produce conflict is high.
How then do we get existing agencies to actually change their priorities concerning bioweapons? How do we get them to understand and make use of alternative approaches brought by other agencies? How do we get them to provide accurate information to the public?
Among the specific course topics that will be included are:
Impediments to Organizational Change: professional norms, organizational
routines and culture
Is reorganization an effective response to these issues? Is the Department of
Homeland Security part of the solution or part of the problem?
Case Study: the Soviet anthrax outbreak
In 1979 a Soviet biological weapons plant accidentally released a significant
amount of anthrax into the open air, killing over 50 civilians. In the 1990s
a team of Western scientists was finally allowed to do a retrospective study
of this release. What can we learn from this incident about the lethality and
persistence of atmospheric anthrax; its incubations periods and human thresholds?
Case Study: the US postal anthrax outbreaks
The 2001 anthrax letters caught all the federal and state agencies off guard.
What are the lessons for anthrax detection and treatment; for interagency cooperation;
and especially for clear, consistent risk communication to the public?
Rethinking the Public Health Approach
A classical CDC investigation includes defining the scope of the epidemic;
looking for environmental sources; and establishing treatment regimens. How
should these activities change when both the virulence of the biological agent
and its spread may have been intentional?
Case Study: the smallpox immunization program
How can we estimate the risks of an outbreak? How do we model the potential
spread? What should be the risk threshold for policymakers evaluating immunizations?
Who should bear the medical and financial burdens of the anticipated side effects?
Does one public health program divert resources from other priorities?
Expanding the Law Enforcement Approach
The standard FBI and other law enforcement approaches stress careful examination
of the crime scene and a search for the perpetrators of the crime. However law
officers were not trained in the identification of biological agents, nor in
the capabilities needed to make or spread bioagents. How do we expand law enforcement
routines to respond to bioterrorism? How do we organize law enforcement and
scientific capabilities to work in harness?
The Military Approach to Biological Weapons
How did the military foresee the benefits and costs of battlefield use? Why
were the programs so secretive? Why did the major powers never make use of biological
weapons? Why the Iraqis did develop them? What is the potential for transfers
of expertise and materials to terrorist groups?
Case Study: swine flu--lessons for mass immunization
In 1976, the CDC mounted a national immunization campaign against a projected
new influenza virus that was feared to be unusually virulent. However, the virus
never arrived. Instead 25 people died from unexpected side effects from the
vaccine itself. What can we learn from this program about decision making with
fragmentary evidence; about probing medical assumptions; and about accurate
public communication?
About the Program Faculty:
All of the faculty have been extensively involved with research and policymaking on public heath and national security issues.
Jeanne Guillemin is Senior Advisor at the Security Studies Program, at MIT, and Professor of Sociology at Boston College. She is the author of Anthrax: The Investigation of a Deadly Outbreak, which examined the Soviet release. She is now completing a book on biological weapons and national security. Her current research, supported by the MacArthur Foundation, is on the anthrax postal attacks of September-October 2001.
Kendall Hoyt is a Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Kennedy School at Harvard. Currently she is researching innovations in public health surveillance; and the governance of biological R&D to limit the abuses of biotechnology. She has previously studied the military's support of vaccine development.
Gregory Koblentz is a Fellow at the Olin Institute at Harvard, where he studies the international security implications of biological weapons. Previously, he was a Research Specialist with the Executive Session on Domestic Preparedness (ESDP) at the Kennedy School. ESDP has published his discussion papers on the federal domestic preparedness program and bioterrorism preparedness efforts. He is also the co-author of Tracking Nuclear Proliferation (1998).
Anthony Robbins is Chair of the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at Tufts Medical School. Previously he was state health director in Vermont, and in Colorado; and Director of the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health. One of his main public health interests is vaccine research and development, and immunization policy.
Harvey M. Sapolsky is Professor of Public Policy and Organization and Director of the Security Studies Program at MIT. He is the author or editor of many books concerning change in military and public health agencies, including Science and the Navy, The American Blood Supply, and The Polaris System Development.
Sanford L. Weiner is a Research Associate at the Center for International Studies at MIT. He has written about organizational change and innovation in both military and public health agencies, including the CDC's response to emerging diseases. He is now studying mechanisms to enhance cooperation among agencies responsible for bioterrorism.
*A limited number of 1/2-tuition scholarships are available to full-time teaching staff (rank of instructor or higher) of other US educational institutions. Written requests for such scholarships should accompany applications for admission.
To apply on-line, go to the MIT Professional
Institute