Includes bibliographical references (pages 189-207) and index.

Health security : the medicalization of security in the twenty-first century -- Microbes take to the sky : pandemic threats and national security -- Poisoning populations : biosecurity and the weaponization of disease -- A global pharmacy for the poor? Endemics and other human insecurities -- The lifestyle timebombs : panics about cigarettes, fat and alcohol -- Bodies as battlefields : medicalization and the future of health security.

Every era, it is said, has its defining malady. What will be ours? Will it be a new human pandemic caused by an animal-borne infectious disease, such as swine flu? Will it be a lethal microbe like anthrax deliberately released by terrorists bent on causing mass civilian casualties? Or will it be one of our new 'lifestyle' diseases -- the epidemics of smoking, obesity and excessive alcohol consumption that threaten to engulf modern societies? Perhaps our era will even be remembered for its tragic neglect of certain health issues -- endemic diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS that continue to ravage millions in developing countries. In this book Stefan Elbe shows that in the new millennium international politics is no longer characterized by its preoccupation with a single disease, but precisely by its need to confront urgently what is now an epidemic of epidemics. Over the past decade a whole host of diverse global health issues have raised the highest levels of political concern, provoking governments and international institutions to tackle such health threats through the prism of security- be it national security, biosecurity or human security. This convergence between health issues and security concerns has also produced the new notion of health security, which has already begun to shape the way international health policy is formulated--Publisher description.