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night_shade
Threadhead
Reged: 08/26/03
Posts: 907
Loc: The State of Hockey
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Article published Tuesday, May 11, 2004
Somebody's watching
HIGH-TECH electronic surveillance programs involving medical practitioners are among the hottest weapons in the war on terrorism. Some wonder if they'll work or if they're worth the money.
Americans are used to being watched. Cameras are in so many places, nonchalance greets their intrusion. But new applications, some already in use, promise more personal looks.
The federal government now checks databases that include over-the-counter drug sales, as well as complaints that bring people to emergency rooms, and they're eyeing people's doctor and hospital records.
The stated, laudable aim of its surveillance, actual and contemplated, is to catch early signs of a bioterror attack.
Consider all the data the FBI and CIA gathered before 9/11, and how no one put it together. When operating budgets rest on the quicksand of politics, who will analyze this data long term, especially if early runs produce nothing of significance?
A huge added problem with the dream of a high-tech "public health information network" into which clinics, hospitals, doctors' offices, pharmacies, labs, public agencies, and responders feed facts about all Americans, is its erosion of privacy.
But keep in mind that not only is the task of assembling vast databases monumental, so are the costs.
BioSense, a program of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to look at OTC drug sales and hospital emergency room complaints, began working last year.
It joins BioWatch, a network of air sensors in 31 cities that sniff for toxic substances, and another CDC program to electronically track outbreaks of disease or other illnesses. If the proposed 2005 federal budget is passed as it is, which is hardly likely, $130 million will go to BioSense, and BioWatch funds will be doubled.
Illinois, ahead of many other states, has launched a $10 million electronic program to analyze health trends using ambulance dispatchers, ER complaints, and symptoms people reveal to doctors in office visits.
If something of note crops up, then what? Around the nation money-strapped public health agencies would likely be hard-pressed to respond. More promising in the high-tech medical field are hand-held devices in development for use to test for specific viruses or bacteria.
Whether they thwart bioterrorism, medical personnel see promise in their ability to identify diseases that kill more people than terrorism does. Tuberculosis, for example, is second to malaria as a killer worldwide.
It would be ironic if unintended uses proved the greatest benefit.
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Any excuse will do, huh?
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Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity.
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bargsbeer69
Journeyman
Reged: 03/22/04
Posts: 80
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Night Shade
Thats an interesting article ,you Have there.
I agree that this system could be very beneficial
i will also say that most likely it will probably get more
unintended uses.we'll see
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yawkaw3
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 03/22/03
Posts: 1193
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Interesting article, n_s.
When reading it, I was waiting for a sentence to explain to me how this is going to have any effect on terrorism. After I finished the article, I'm still left wondering.
If there are signs of, for example, an anthrax problem- why can't hospital personnel just use the telephone and place a 35 cent call to a hotline at the CDC and tell them about it? Someone there could make a note of it, and that's that.
If they absolutely need to do this "high-tech," they could just set up a password-protected website for hospital staff to login to, enter in the stats each week of whatever string of diseases that are signs of a bioterror attack, and then the CDC will analyze this. It could all be done with free/GPL software and be setup/maintained by the IT staff at the CDC.
Isn't that much cheaper than this system? It sounds to me like whoever proposed this and won the contract knew someone in government with the ability to approve it, and capitalized on that. I just don't see how this is neccessary when there are much cheaper, simpler alternatives.
Why hundreds of millions need to be spent on this across the country is beyond me.
-yawkaw
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kimbuka
Enthusiast
Reged: 12/14/03
Posts: 216
Loc: Midwest
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Quote:
When reading it, I was waiting for a sentence to explain to me how this is going to have any effect on terrorism. After I finished the article, I'm still left wondering.
If there are signs of, for example, an anthrax problem- why can't hospital personnel just use the telephone and place a 35 cent call to a hotline at the CDC and tell them about it? Someone there could make a note of it, and that's that.
I just don't see how this is neccessary when there are much cheaper, simpler alternatives.
Why hundreds of millions need to be spent on this across the country is beyond me.
-yawkaw
I am all for the health, safety, and welfare of everyone in our nation, but let's face it, where exactly is the importance of this High-tech going to fit in with adding to the current outragious financial deficit we have? Like the article says, it probably won't get passed for the millions being proposed on this. And, afterall, for the time being it doesn't have anything to do with the foreign countries and their OIL.
Sorry for sounding harsh, I hope my own opinion made sense.
Yawkaw, you couldn't be more "right-on".
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moonbeam
Member
Reged: 05/23/03
Posts: 174
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I would rather see that $130 million go towards insuring the uninsured and housing the homeless. It just boggles my mind at the thoughtless waste of our precious tax dollars.
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MAXICAT
Journeyman
Reged: 12/13/03
Posts: 73
Loc: TEXAS
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I totally agree with the post from yawkaw and also, from reading the article and uses proposed, it seems that moonbeam has a much better use for this money than what they are discussing. I do believe as well, that there is another agenda at hand than the terrorism threats.
It seems to me that many organizations are using the threat of terrorism as an excuse for attaining money. Just my 2 cents.
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