ABSTRACT
This chapter proceeds in three parts. First, it examines the outlines of the National Strategy for Biosurveillance (NSB) as explains in its July 2012 release report. Second, it considers how the explicit meshing of health and security will work under this system. Finally, it concludes by discussing the prospects for the NSB and the likelihood that it will play a significant role in American health policy efforts. The inauguration of a biosurveillance strategy by a sovereign state raises a host of interesting issues and questions about the relationship between national and international disease surveillance strategies, the intersection of health and security, collaborations with existing surveillance systems, and the financial implications of creating and sustaining such a system. The United States to be on track with its minimum core surveillance capacities as required by the International Health Regulations, but it goes far beyond that by explicitly connecting biosurveillance to issues of national and international security and bioterrorism.
