Archive for the 'preparedness' Category

Order Ativan

By: Carlo Caduff
Posted in avian flu, biopolitics, preparedness, swine flu on December 31st, 2009

The novel H1N1 virus has been elected the "virus of the year." According to the journal Science Order ativan, , the pandemic was a "near miss." As the authors of the short piece argue, the "H1N1 virus was less virulent than feared, but the next pandemic could be worse." Prepare for the next pandemic is the message.

What kind of work is the trope of the Next Pandemic doing, ativan online kaufen. Comprare ativan sconto, Might it not be worth investigating the current pandemic first, before we jump to the next, ordering ativan online legally. Ordering ativan pills, Before we orient ourselves towards the near future, it might be necessary to first inhabit the recent past in some meaningful way, köpa rabatterade ativan. Köpa ativan online, What, in fact, Um ativan online, Ativan en ligne afin, has just happened. Apparently, it is easier for experts to take responsibility for the future than for the past, order ativan.

Just to remind ourselves:

1, kjøpe ativan online. Cheap ativan online legally, Most experts predicted the emergence of an H5 virus. It was an H1 virus, cheap ativan. Ativan discount, 2. Order ativan, Most experts predicted that the pandemic would start off in South-East Asia. It turned out to be closer to home, ativan pedido en línea. Ordering ativan overnight delivery, 3. Most experts predicted that it would be a devastating event, billiga ativan apotek. Acheter ativan, WHO now calls it a "moderate" pandemic.

4, ordering ativan no prescription. Ativan no prescription, Most experts predicted serious consequences for critical infrastructure.

Good luck with the next predictions, kjøpe billig ativan. Ordering ativan online without prescription, Trust your expert. Buy ativan without prescription. Order ativan. Buy cheap ativan online. Kjøp Discount ativan. Order ativan online.

Similar posts: Buy cheap ativan online. Order clomid no prescription. Buy clomid online cheap. Order clomid online cheap. Buy ativan c.o.d.. Order acomplia no prescription.
Trackbacks from: Order ativan. Order ativan. Order ativan. Order ativan. Order ativan. Order ativan.

Buy Ativan Online Cheap

By: Carlo Caduff
Posted in avian flu, biopolitics, bioscience, catastrophe models, conferences and talks, early warning systems, emergency response, preparedness, risk, security frameworks, swine flu, vital systems on December 15th, 2009

Buy ativan online cheap, CALL FOR PAPERS

Behemoth - A peer-reviewed journal published by the Akademie Verlag, Berlin

Special Issue: Epidemic Orders

In the past few years, epidemic events, both actual and virtual, have made a spectacular comeback. Comprar ativan, Emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases such as avian and swine flu have generated great anxiety the world over, resulting in a pervasive sense of vulnerability, ativan over the counter, Price of ativan, insecurity, and uncertainty, order ativan online. Virginia VA Va. , A powerful spirit of urgency, based on a genuine concern for human health and well-being, ordering ativan without prescription, Order ativan, overdetermined by a variety of scientific, political, Arizona AZ Ariz. , Om ativan online, and economic interests, engendered a real flurry of action, Michigan MI Mich. . Pharmacy ativan, In the epic battle against germs, the biopolitical state mobilized material and symbolic resources at an unprecedented scale, Vermont VT Vt. . Maine ME Me. , In the shadow of the emerging infectious disease threat, significant shifts in public health, order ativan no prescription, Cheapest ativan in the world, medical care, and scientific research have occurred, Tennessee TN Tenn. . The aim of this special issue of Behemoth is to offer an initial set of diagnostic accounts, buy ativan online cheap. Køb billige ativan, What are the domains in which fundamental shifts have occurred over the past few years. Who are the actors involved and what are the underlying logics animating these shifts in public health, Kansas KS Kans. , Ativan prescription, medical care, and scientific research, where to buy cheap ativan. Arkansas AR Ark. , The key aim of this issue is to draw analytic attention to recent reconfigurations and to identify the kind of epidemic orders that are taking shape today at the heart of the biopolitical state.

Please send abstracts for this special issue of Behemoth to the editor Carlo Caduff (carlocaduff@access.uzh.ch) and to Kathrin Franke (behemoth@rz.uni-leipzig.de), order ativan cod. Acheter ativan discount, Deadline for submission of abstracts: 30 January 2010. Deadline for submission of articles: 30 June 2010, cheap ativan online. Ativan pharmacy.

Similar posts: Order cheap clomid online. Order acomplia online cheap. Clomid over the counter. Order cheap ativan online. Buy ativan without prescription. Buy clomid without prescription.
Trackbacks from: Buy ativan online cheap. Buy ativan online cheap. Buy ativan online cheap. Buy ativan online cheap. Buy ativan online cheap. Buy ativan online cheap.

Buy Ativan Without Prescription

By: Stephen Collier
Posted in preparedness, swine flu on August 25th, 2009

Buy ativan without prescription, The President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology has released its assessment of the coming swine flu resurgence and the US Government's preparedness efforts. Press release here and full report here, buy ativan overnight delivery. Ativan online kopen, Hopefully some of our resident second order observers of pandemic preparedness can do some parsing for us... Buy ativan online. Buy ativan pills. Order ativan no rx. Pennsylvania PA Penn. . Washington WA Wash. . Kaufen ativan. Wisconsin WI Wis. . Iowa IA . Ativan pills. Comprar en línea ativan. Mississippi MS Miss. . Ativan online. Ordering ativan overnight delivery. Um ativan online. Buy ativan online. παραγγείλετε online ativan. αγοράζουν online ativan. Farmacia ativan baratos. Ativan prescription. Connecticut CT Conn. . Cheap ativan online cheap. Ativan online kaufen. Købe ativan.

Similar posts: Buy klonopin without prescription. Order clomid. Buy cheap klonopin online. Buy acomplia without prescription. Buy acomplia c.o.d.. Buy acomplia.
Trackbacks from: Buy ativan without prescription. Buy ativan without prescription. Buy ativan without prescription. Buy ativan without prescription. Buy ativan without prescription. Buy ativan without prescription.

Order Klonopin No Prescription

By: Christopher Kelty
Posted in early warning systems, preparedness, swine flu on April 29th, 2009

XKCD on Swine Flu

The register also has a lovely article Order klonopin no prescription, lamenting the lack of really good panic. αγοράσετε klonopin. New Jersey NJ N.J. . Order klonopin no rx. Colorado CO Colo. . Buy klonopin c.o.d.. Koop korting klonopin. Where to buy cheap klonopin. αγοράζουν φτηνά klonopin. Texas TX Tex. . Oregon OR Ore. . Köpa klonopin online. Klonopin sale. Kjøpe klonopin online. District of Columbia DC D.C. . Ordering klonopin online without prescription. Cheap klonopin online cheap. For klonopin online. Bestill klonopin online. Klonopin ordine on-line. Ordering klonopin without prescription. Acheter klonopin bon marché. Online klonopin. Order klonopin. Cheap klonopin online without prescription. Buy klonopin no rx.

Similar posts: Buy cheap acomplia online. Buy acomplia online cheap. Buy klonopin. Buy clomid c.o.d.. Order clomid without prescription. Buy clomid.
Trackbacks from: Order klonopin no prescription. Order klonopin no prescription. Order klonopin no prescription. Order klonopin no prescription. Order klonopin no prescription. Order klonopin no prescription.

Order Clomid

By: Onur Ozgode
Posted in electricity, information technology, infrastructure, preparedness on April 28th, 2009

I thought this piece in the Times Order clomid, (on the vulnerability of the nation's vital infrastructure systems, such as the electric grid, telecommunication networks, air control system, or the banking systems (e.g. payments and settlements systems), Oklahoma OK Okla. , against cyber attacks organized by anonymous hackers) would be a "pleasant" distraction from those of you who are busy following the epidemic.

As you might have noticed, there has been a rising concern on how vulnerable the nation is to such cyber-attacks given the increasing dependency on computerized infrastructures nearly in all domains of collective life and who should have jurisdiction over the intelligence gathering and security activities over these infrastructures, cheap clomid tablets. As another Times piece from December 2008 indicates, Acheter clomid, these efforts seem to be originating from a series of break-ins into the government computer systems. (You might be interested in checking a report written by Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington policy group, Florida FL Fla. , under the title of "Securing Cyberspace in the 44th Presidency".) Finally, Idaho ID , "thousands of daily attacks on federal and private computer systems in the United States — many from China and Russia, some malicious and some testing chinks in the patchwork of American firewalls," including a recent attack on the air transportation network, Kjøp Discount clomid, apparently "have prompted the Obama administration to review American strategy" by bringing this report back to the forefront of national security discussions on the internet as a source of vulnerability for the vital systems of the nation.

The article treats the issue mostly as one that is pertinent to sovereign security and, consequently, draws national security discussions on whether such attacks can be deterred or not, order clomid. Cheap clomid no prescription, And if they cannot be deterred to what extent a policy of pre-emption, much discussed during the Bush presidency as a national security alternative, is more appropriate, ordering clomid without prescription. Interestingly enough, αγοράσετε clomid, the article points out much of the discussion resembles the debates over how to program national security against nuclear war in the 1950s and the 60s--a theme that we have visited in the OEP episode. However, or rather to be more precise just because of the reason preparedness had slowly mutated into an autonomous logic of security in the 60s thanks to the irreducible uncertainty of knowing exactly to whom a nuclear missile had belong (with the introduction of submarines) or merely an accidental launch, clomid online, it seems to be the case that intelligence and national security community does not have much faith in deterrence. Rhode Island RI R.I. , As it turns out, as an event a cyber-attack is pretty much an threat without enemy in the VSS language, since the origin of an attack is often impossible to know, Wyoming WY Wyo. . Order clomid, And furthermore as far as pre-emption through destruction of the rival's computer systems before an expected attack is concerned the asymmetrical dependence of the US to digital systems, according to experts, seems to assure the certain defeat of the US in such a cyber-war.

Therefore, Order clomid, the recent efforts of the Obama administration to reform the cyber security policy seems to be an acknowledgement that the problem one faces does not fit so well neither into the domain of sovereign security (as neither a matter of deterrence nor pre-emption) nor to the mode of prevention as a broader approach to security. A senior military officer who has been deeply engaged in the debate for several years, according to the Times, warns of the limitations of a cyber-security approach based on the logic of prevention: “The fortress model [based on building firewalls, cheap clomid pills, better virus detectors, Illinois IL Ill. , and further restrictions to access to government computers] simply will not work for cyber. Someone will always get in.” Despite these limitations, as the above mentioned report implies (it argues that this issue cannot be left to DHS's jurisdiction for critical infrastructure security), buy generic clomid, in what mode security will conducted seems to be a still open issue. Where to buy clomid, Hence, it would be interesting to speculate on how preparedness and VSS might look like in the case of the internet and digital systems...

The irony of the situation in my mind is the fact that internet as a vital communication infrastructure today was invented by the MIT based electrical engineers who were developing a theory of survivable telecommunications and electric networks in the 1960s in the first place as a response to the vulnerabilities a potential nuclear war had posed, generic clomid. Just as a caveat, those experts were the same ones who were at OEP in 1967 designing the plans of a natural gas pipeline through tools of network modeling that was also conceived as a "survivable network" in the face of a nuclear attack or internal and unexpected network failures, order clomid. Thus, Um clomid online, I think what we are seeing is a typical example of the historical process in which vital system security emerges first as a response to specific set of primary problems of the social, such as possible network failures, and then a secondary set of problems and vulnerabilities emerge as different systems become interdependent upon each other, ordering clomid pills.

Before finishing, Köpa clomid, I also thought it was an interesting piece of data in the light of our conversation on the financial crisis as to what extent the financial system has more and more come to be seen as a vital system not only for the well-being and resilience of the "real" economy, but also a system worthy of national security: Mike McConnell, the former director of national intelligence, acheter clomid discount, apparently had briefed Bush as early as May 2007 on the threat that  if a single large American bank were successfully attacked “it would have an order-of-magnitude greater impact on the global economy” than the Sept. Bestill clomid online, 11, 2001 as “the ability to threaten the U.S. money supply is the equivalent of today’s nuclear weapon.” According to McConnell, order clomid cod, the events that took place in the face of the near-collapse of Bear Stearns (and we can add Lehman) invite hackers to sabotage payments and settlements system of the Fed and computer systems of individual banks. In a study began last summer right before the Bear Stearns epsiode in which markets froze on their own accord, Cheap generic clomid, they have seemed to simulate a scenario in which the system that clears the market trades freezes.

Given the new set of financial system reforms will create payments and settlements systems for exotic instruments such as derivatives, such a study on the possible secondary vulnerabilities of such systems that are offered as solutions to systemic crisis and risk management gains further importance. Obviously McConnell and his intelligence community is not the only ones doing this work; a group of economists in the Fed, systems analysts circulating between different central banks and a group of scientists calling their discipline complexity science at the National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis Lab of DHS are also engaged in similar simulations of the financial system with the help of network analysis.

Similar posts: Buy ativan c.o.d.. Order acomplia no prescription. Buy ativan. Buy klonopin no prescription. Buy cheap clomid online. Buy acomplia cod.
Trackbacks from: Order clomid. Order clomid. Order clomid. Order clomid. Order clomid. Order clomid.

Convergence of Bioenergy, Economic Vulnerability & Synthetic Genomics

By: Onur Ozgode
Posted in biopolitics, floods and hurricanes, preparedness on July 4th, 2008
Here is an interesting piece from NY Times on some familiar issues we have been dealing with in the OEP research. 
The record storms and floods that swept through the Midwest last month struck at the heart of America’s corn region, drowning fields and dashing hopes of a bumper crop. They also brought into sharp relief a new economic hazard. As America grows more reliant on corn for its fuel supply, it is becoming vulnerable to the many hazards that can damage crops, ranging from droughts to plagues to storms.
Apparently the price of ethanol went up by 19 percent in a month after the floods. The article goes on to construct a scenario that can take place once the share of biofuel in the overall supply of gasoline goes up to 20 percent:
Experts fear that a future crop failure could take so much fuel out of the market that it would send prices soaring at the pump. Eventually, the cost of filling Americans’ gas tanks could be influenced as much by hail in Iowa as by the bombing of an oil pipeline in Nigeria.
Just as in the case of OEP once again a catastrophic event (storm and flood) in a medium inherently governed by stochastic processes (the weather) problematized as a potential threat to the stability of the economy as a vulnerable system (eventually leads to the question of resilience again as we saw in the case of war mobilization and inflation problem by the early 70s under Nixon). As the article argues, introduction of biofuel leads to a new level of vulnerability:
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita interrupted a quarter of the nation’s oil production and closed dozens of refineries for weeks. Lines formed for the first time since the 1970s as gasoline spiked above $3 a gallon, a record at the time. The nation’s increasing dependence on crops for motor fuel adds another level of vulnerability from the weather.
I thought what is particularly interesting in this case is the opening up of a blockage as we pass a threshold with the emergence of biofuel. To my knowledge this is a very new development as corn, a conventional and critical source of food for populations is becoming a source of energy as the seemingly stable barrier between these two categories of vital domains are being linked for the first time as we demolished the barrier separating these two domains. Now we face with a new interface that is in need of being governed as one can even see in the concerns that IMF and World Bank have expressed their worries about this new phenomenon recently.  It seems like at a technical level the first 3 generations of biofuels, there is nothing new about the process of transforming biomass into biofuel. It is a simple process of production of ethanol. However, what is interesting is that a company called Synthetic Genomics is is genetically engineering microorganisms to produce fuel directly from carbon dioxide on an industrial scale, which might be a possible solution to the problem of vulnerability mentioned above. I believe the founder of the company might be a familiar figure to those who are working on synthetic biology: Craig Venter, a member of the effort to map the human genome and the founder of The Institute for Genomic Research. An interesting convergence of VSS and Synthetic Biology and Nanotechnology blogs...

Governing the Future: The Paradigm of Prudence in Political Technologies of Risk Management

By: Carlo Caduff
Posted in insurance, preparedness, risk, security frameworks, vital systems on June 24th, 2008
Here is a new and interesting article that engages some of the VSS work: Increasingly, governmental responses to incalculable, but high-consequence, threats to life and security are framed by what has been described as the `precautionary principle' (Ewald), `preparedness' (Collier, Lakoff & Rabinow) or `pre-emption' (Derrida). This article redescribes features common to these characterizations as the paradigm of prudence and examines how this approach to risk management is playing out in the context of fears that feature within the Australian political imaginary. We explore how the approach to the future entailed in the paradigm enframes `life' and stifles democratic participation and innovation in ways of living. Three case studies (in biosecurity, bioecology and biomedicine) demonstrate not only how the paradigm pervades the government of everyday life, but also how it is challenged by human `agents', material `life' and the dynamic relations between these two. By formulating what this involves, we point to a concept of the political more conducive to democratic pluralism, diversity of life and innovative culture.

Schools and Pandemic Preparedness

By: Stephen Collier
Posted in avian flu, early warning systems, emergency response, enactment, preparedness on March 16th, 2008
DemfromCT -- a blogger on DailyKos -- has another interesting post on school closure and pandemic preparedness. It is about many things, among more information on exercises that show that in the US school closure may not be in time to help much, and an interesting comparison with a recent minor outbreak in Hong Kong, where, apparently, parents held students home from school in a "precautionary" fashion before a decision was taken to close schools. Also interesting is the mention of the role that blogs and the internet more generally would play in a pandemic.

The 2007 Trust for America’s Health Report and the Measurement of Public Health Preparedness

By: Dale A. Rose
Posted in preparedness on December 27th, 2007
Trust for America's Health has released its 2007 edition of "Ready Or Not?", a yearly treasure trove of information on the state of public health preparedness in the US. The report provides a thorough assessment of the wide array of activities, issues and trends that intersect to help form this constantly changing field. It is a gem and should be required reading for anyone with a professional interest in the field. TFAH's modus operandi for assessing preparedness has remained largely the same for the last several years: In light of its related observations that (a) the government does not provide routine assessments of preparedness to the public, and (b) the extent of objective, universally agreed upon measures of public health preparedness is questionable, the study authors present 10 indicators which are proposed as proxies for what they consider to be its most salient (and valid) dimensions. Although the authors concede that the measures are not always ideal, I believe that in at least one instance the selected indicator is positively puzzling. The dimension is community resilience; the indicator is whether a state has 14 or more Medical Reserve Corps volunteers per 100,000 population. If you are asking: "What does the MRC have to do with community resilience?" - then you are asking a valid question... and that presupposes that you know the answer to the valid prior question "What actually is the MRC?" The quick and dirty answer to the latter question, found here, is that the MRC is a service organization sponsored by the federal government (specifically, the Office of the Surgeon General) to bring together community volunteers who can provide organized medical and health-related services and expertise routinely and in times of crisis to meet local community needs. The MRC fits within the rubric of the Citizen Corps and other national volunteer/service institutions. The answer to the former is a bit trickier. As a service organization recruiting local practitioners and experts, the MRC arguably reflects local communities' abilities to harness latent, residual, or reserve "talent" which can be mobilized to deploy as and where needed within that community, say during a sudden crisis. Yet to my mind a tenuous inference exists in equating the existence of a certain number of practitioners who have registered or volunteered to be available in a disaster with a community's resilience. There are, for example, numerous methodological pitfalls, which likely outweigh the benefit of this measure. I will highlight three of them. First, there is the issue of selection bias - that is, the notion that certain states, and indeed certain communities within those states, are more (or less) likely to have medical practitioners and other experts volunteer for the MRC owing to a number of factors, ranging from community civic/civil orientations or involvement to economic opportunities and allowances, and more. In other words, some states have populations that are more likely to know about and volunteer with the MRC than others. Second and third, I am unaware of any literature vetting or in fact proposing that one measure of a community's resilience should revolve around some proportion of its formally organized medical volunteers, not to mention the fact that the population from which to construct this rate is to be found in a relatively obscure federally-sponsored program. Related to all this is the threshold number itself: 14. By TFAH's own indication, the number reflects the 25th percentile of states' proportion of MRC volunteers per 100,000. This means, in essence, that what constitutes acceptable community resilience is itself unhinged from any normative metric; there is no prescriptive claim as to what an acceptable number should be (based in science or philosophy or religion or palm-reading, etc.) other than the descriptive claim that what is acceptable hinges on what is currently in evidence. So where does that leave us? Maybe a clue to this can be found in the concept of resilience, which in recent years has come to be described, give or take, as a community's (or some other unit's) ability to absorb loss, maintain its "structural" or social organizational integrity, and continue to function. It is particularly salient as a concept for VSS insofar as an emphasis has been placed in relatively recent years on critical infrastructures as key nodes which can facilitate resilience. For example, as things like redundancy and durability and sustainability are built into critical systems, the argument goes, they will be able to absorb the shock of an extreme or otherwise overwhelming event (of whatever duration) and permit effective response and recovery, if not in a seemless manner then at least with nominal acceptable effectiveness. So, with all this said, the question arises yet again. What does the MRC have to do with community resilience? Until I see some stronger proofs, my sense is: not much.

Vaccine Development Imbued With Politics!

By: Dale A. Rose
Posted in bioscience, preparedness on December 3rd, 2007
I shouldn't be so snarky because the story is actually really interesting. Check out this link from yesterday's LA Times, which details the behind-the-scenes politicking which proved the coup de grace for one of the nation's first next-generation vaccines against a category A agent: VaxGen's rPA102 anthrax vaccine. Deft lobbying and savvy rhetoric by Emergent BioSolutions, Inc., proved insurmountable for the South San Francisco company, which not only failed to produce the nation's first BioShield-related vaccine, but was kicked in the teeth for trying. Amongst all the great reasons for not wanting to see anthrax ever appear amongst human populations in epidemic proportions is the discomfiting imagery of the six shot series of vaccinations that will still be needed in the event of such a threat. Emergent BioSolutions, manufacturer of said scary but mostly-kind-of effective vaccine, effectively argued that VaxGen's (substantially less onerous) product was of questionable worth, developed by novices. Ouch. I thought BioShield's point was to get novices in the game, because BigPharma was avoiding orphan vaccines like the plague. Ha! The plague! Oh yeah, and look at this cool picture. VaxGen's rPA102 vaccine vial