Defense
Defense
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DOI：
10.1096/fasebj.8.14.7958612
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发表时间：
1994-11
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
T. Edgington
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
T. Edgington
卷。 1994 年 11 月 8 日 FASEB Journal 1101 “辩护”这个词会引起街上行人的自动反应，这种反应在早期与“战争”这个词有关。我们都知道，现代政府的国防部与1946年之前的战争部是一样的。社会格局发生了变化，语义也发生了变化。然而，这些实体的持续存在证明了人们普遍认为政府对保护其公民负有首要责任。在过去（甚至现在），这最容易体现在战争能力上。领土受到保护，有时甚至是获得，而且总是为了政治团体的利益。今天，先进国家保护自己及其盟友免受其他政治实体的侵略。因此，防御可以被视为纯粹的政治性。对于生命科学家来说，防御这个词通常会引起人们对自然界中竞争性生物体——病毒、寄生虫、害虫——的防御的担忧，所有这些都挑战并影响着所有物种的生存和进化选择。如果我们在《启示录》中注意到社会的敌人，那么只有一个可怕的骑士是战争。其他同样具有破坏性的收割者包括瘟疫和饥荒。我们的社会和政府应该更加关注应对这两个非常现实的挑战。生命科学可以开发持续防御我们不断适应的传染性敌人所需的知识库，并确实减轻其他形式的疾病和饥饿的可能性。在一个不再发生“战争”而只发生“警察行动”的世界社会中，人们可能会问，用于支持军事防御基础设施的联邦预算的三分之二是否提供了人类生存和社会利益最必需的防御类型。首先，三分之二的联邦预算真的花在了美国国防计划的各种预算排列上吗？不仅仅是国防部，而是整个“国防部”结构。如果算上国防部和能源部（后者负责核武器以及类似的开发和生产），您会发现这大致是正确的；负责管理我们国家国防相关承诺的军事和联邦雇员的退休福利、退伍军人福利、军事训练和教育、以及照顾军事设施、生产武器的承包商，最后是他们公平分享的国家债务和债务利息。如果将 NASA（其成立目的是设计洲际弹道导弹计划）纳入其中，您会发现它超过了预算的 70%，几乎接近全部所得税收入。这个庞大的政府结构是以保护你我免受一个敌人（最近的“苏联”）的名义演变的。请记住，这不包括美国境内的内部治安行动。这仅仅是为了防御我们领土的入侵者或满足感知的需求（例如石油）。在保护我们免受真正敌人侵害的作用日益减弱的情况下，对基础设施的大规模投资能带来什么回报？我们必须负责任地问，绝对成本和成本效益是否可能超出必要。我们还必须意识到有必要为我们的人民提供有效的防御，使其免受真正的敌人（即社会敌人和生物敌人）的侵害。疾病和创伤是最有可能的敌人。传染病是不可避免的。如果您小心驾驶并避免严重的创伤性伤害和死亡，您仍然需要防御我们环境中真正的生物敌人，这些敌人在历史上曾感染甚至消灭了地球人口。导致非洲出血热的埃博拉病毒和马尔堡病毒等病毒的影响确实非常可怕。人们对它们的分子细胞生物学疫苗等知之甚少。最近西南地区出现的一种汉滩病毒流行株在健康年轻人中爆发。鼠疫耶尔森氏菌（鼠疫的病原体）是一种地方病，特别是在东南亚；然而，由于美国西部是世界上最大的自然啮齿动物种群，森林鼠疫一直是一个威胁。公元 542 年至 600 年间，鼠疫耶尔森杀死了超过 1 亿人。14 世纪，它消灭了欧洲 25% 的人口。这些敌人是真实存在的，他们杀害的社会成员比历史上所有军队杀害的人数还要多。我们不应在这一对话中忽略艾滋病毒；它是当前传染风险的原型。并非我们所有的生物敌人都具有传染性。每年有三百万美国人受到脑动脉、冠状动脉或其他动脉血栓形成的严重影响。几乎同样多的人，包括儿童，都会患上肿瘤。这些挑战可能会杀死你，而不是错误的洲际弹道导弹或敌方军队。生物敌人是我们人民及其民选代表的真正敌人。这些观察并不是政治不满的结果，也不是革命热情的结果。相反，我们的政治和社会优先事项的变化是有序的。这种国家目标的重新定位是一项复杂的任务，需要一个健全的、长期的演进计划，以最有效地利用这个国家的资源和人才。对我们社会的资源、优先事项和需求进行深思熟虑的分析，重新考虑我们国家对军事防御的承诺的规模，以及精心计划的系统性重新调整我们的国家资源以防御真正的生物敌人，可能是对这个国家和世界的社会、经济和生物健康的有效战略。生命科学是我们社会健康和农业部门的基石。它们代表了主要的成就，也是我们国民经济的一个非常成功的方面。它们创造有酬就业并提供造福全球的产品。然而，推动这些行业发展的投资规模相当有限，从投资回报来看，确实小得不恰当。将国家资源从军事防御转向生命科学领域有望推动高科技企业的发展，从而防御我们最强大的敌人。如果要实现这种政治方向的转变，生命科学界、大学机构和私营部门必须传达这种价值。如果没有开始这样的事业，我们很可能会继续花费大量公共资源来采取行动，而这些行动对于促进所有物种的和谐生存、所有人的和平饮食和健康以及建立支持我们国家的建设性经济结构几乎没有任何作用。
Vol. 8 November 1994 The FASEB Journal 1101 The word defense elicits in the man on the street an automatic response that was in earlier days associated with the word war. We all know that the Defense Department of modern governments is the same as Departments of War prior to 1946. The societal landscape changed as did the semantics. However, the continued existence of such entities is testimony to the general acceptance that government has a primary responsibility for the defense of its citizens. In the past (even at the present), this wasmost readily embodied in the ability to make war. Territory was protected, sometimes acquired, and always for the perceived benefit of the political body. Today, the advanced nations defend themselves and their allies against the aggression from other political entities. Thus defense can be viewed as being purely political. To the life scientist the word defense usually elicits the concern of defense against nature’s panorama of competing biologic organisms-viruses, parasites, pests all of which challenge and shape the survival and evolutionary selection of all species. If we note the enemies of society in the book of Apocalypse, only one of the terrible horsemen was of War. Other equally devastating reapers included Pestilence and Famine. Defense against these two very real challenges should be of greater concern to our society and governments. The life sciences can develop the knowledge base necessary for a continuous defense against the constant adaption of our infectious enemies, and indeed mitigate the potential for other forms of disease and starvation. In a world society in which “war” no longer occurs but only “police actions” do, one might ask whether the two-thirds of the federal budget used to support the military defense infrastructures provides the types of defense most necessary for human survival and societal benefit. First, is two-thirds of the federal budget really spent on the various budgetary permutations of the U.S. defense program? Not just the Defense Department, but the entire structure of “defense.” You will find that this is roughly true if you count the Departments of Defense and Energy (the latter for nuclear weapons and like development and production); retirement benefits for the military and federal employees who administer the defenserelated commitment of our nation, veterans benefits, military training and education, and the contractors who care for military facilities, produce weapons, and finally their fair share of the national debt and interest on the debt. If you incorporate NASA, which was formed to engineer an intercontinental ballistic missile program, you will find that it exceeds 70 percent of the budget and something approaching the entire income tax receipts. This massive governmental structure has evolved all in the name of defending you and me from an enony, recently the ‘U.S.S.R.’ Remember, this does not include internal policing actions within the U.S. This is solely for defense against invaders of our territories or for perceived needs (such as petroleum). What is the return on this massive investment in an infrastructure with a diminishing role in defending us from our real enemies? We must responsibly ask whether the absolute cost and cost effectiveness may be more than necessary. We must also be aware of the need to provide effective defense of our population from their real enemies, namely social and biological. Disease and trauma are the most likely enemy. Infectious diseases are inevitable. If you drive carefully and avoid severe traumatic injury and death, you will still require defense from the very real biological enemies in our environment that have historically infected and even decimated the Earth’s populations. Viruses such as Ebola and Marburg, responsible for African hemorrhagic fever, are truly terrifying in their effects. Relatively little is known of their molecular cell biology vaccines, etc. The recent emergence of an endemic strain of Hantaan virus in the Southwest erupted with vengeance among healthy, young individuals. Yersinia pestis, the agent of bubonic plague is endemic, particularly in Southeast Asia; however, Sylvatic plague is a constant threat with the large natural rodent population of the Western U.S. as the world’s largest reservoir. Y pestis killed more than 100 million people between 542 and 600 A.D. It eliminated 25 percent of the population of Europe in the 14th century. These enemies are real, and they have killed more members of society than all the armies of history combined have killed. One should not omit HIV from this dialogue; it is the current prototype of infectious risk. Not all of our biological enemies are infectious. Three million Americans are seriously effected annually by thrombosis of a cerebral, coronary, or other artery. Nearly as many individuals, children included, will develop neoplasia. These challenges are likely to kill you rather than an errant ICBM or enemy military. The biological enemies are the real enemies of our people and their elected representatives. These observations are not the result of political discontent, nor of revolutionary zeal. To the contrary changes in our politics and the priorities of our society are in order. Such redirection of national goals is a complex undertaking and will require a sound, long-term evolutionary plan that most effectively utilizes the resources and talents of this nation. A well-considered analysis of the resources, priorities, and needs of our society, a reconsideration of the magnitude of our national commitments to military defense, and a carefully planned systematic redirection of our national resources to defend against very real biological enemies may be an effective strategy for the social, economic, and biological health of this nation and the world as well. The life sciences are the bedrock of the health and agriculture sectors of our society. They represent major sectors of achievement and also a highly successful aspect of our national economy. They generate gainful employment and provide products of worldwide benefit. Yet the magnitude of investment in advancing these sectors has been quite modest, indeed inappropriately small in light of the return on investment. Redirection of national resources from military defense to the life sciences sectors promises to fuel a high technology venture thatwould provide defense against our most formidable enemies. The life science community, the university establishment, and the private sector must communicate the value of such political redirection if it is to be realized. In the absence of a beginning to such an undertaking, it is likely that we will continue to expend massive public resources for actions that do little to advance the survival of all species in harmony, the feeding and health of all people in peace, and the creation of a constructive economic fabric that will support our nation.