Cancer, HIV, and terrorism: translating public health models for prevention and control to counter-terrorism

Abstract

What can cancer and HIV tell us about terrorism? How would we proceed if terrorism were a disease? A comparison of cancer and HIV can suggest alternative ways of conceptualizing terrorism and counter-terrorism using contrasting disease models that emphasize differing connections between etiology and prevention and control. A public health model also can help us think about terrorism as a basic research problem to be translated into therapeutic and preventive applications rather than primarily as a policy or political problem that makes only selective use of research studies. Through this re-conceptualization of terrorism as a basic and translational research challenge, we can draw upon the examples of the U.S. ‘War on Cancer’ and response to the ‘Aids Epidemic’ to help identify gaps in organizing academic and other resources to wage the ‘War on Terrorism.’ Recognizing and addressing these gaps could ultimately pave the way for more effective strategies in understanding and responding to the significant threats posed by terrorism, from the identification of factors that produce terrorist acts to the implementation of informed measures for the prevention and control of terrorist, and even proto-terrorist, activity.

Keywords:

• terrorism
• counter-terrorism
• definitions
• public health
• disease models
• translation research
• prevention

Notes

1. To be clear, the comparative analysis that follows is not intended to suggest that terrorism is like a disease in every way. As will be noted below, terrorism involves human agency and thus cannot be addressed in the same ‘de-humanized’ manner in which diseases are typically approached. In consideration of this point, the authors caution against the use of the comparisons being made between terrorism and disease to de-politicize terrorism, as simply a scourge to be eradicated. Terrorism clearly lies within the domain of human activity and must be appropriately addressed as such.

2. As evidence for comparative intellectual integration, while academic departments of cancer biology, immunology, and infectious diseases are common, departments of terrorism and counter-terrorism are not.

3. Some commentators, mostly from the medical community, have recently made comparisons between terrorism and cancer (e.g. Curt 2001, p. 401; 2005, p. 663; Janecka 2002; Li 2002, p. 1). While useful in some ways, those comparisons serve mainly to note some prominent similarities between terrorism and a single disease model. The present paper discusses both the similarities and differences between terrorism and cancer, but it also includes HIV as an additional comparative vector that can suggest alternative understandings and treatments of terrorism from multiple disease-based models. In both cases of comparison, the point is not simply to regard terrorism as a disease, without politically embedded human agency being recognized as a significant factor in understanding both the nature of terrorism and how it should be addressed, but rather to compare and learn from how those diseases have been investigated and treated and to transfer that understanding to the investigation of terrorism and counter-terrorism within the domain of human activity.

4. Of course, such correlation measures and intervention efforts must be carefully conducted at an appropriate level of analysis and action to protect against misuse in supporting unjustified conclusions and policies. If, for instance, militant jihadists are found attending mosques, this would not justify the implementation of policies limiting mosque attendance in itself.

5. Cervical cancer, which occurs primarily due to the spread of the human papilloma virus, is the most analogous of the different kinds of cancer to HIV/AIDS, suggesting that the HIV model can be considered as among the different aetiological combinations included in the broad category of ‘cancer’.

6. It is worth noting here that a realistic understanding of the risks posed by terrorism is something that is needed across the board, from officials directly involved in the War on Terrorism to the general public. Risk perceptions can often be misguided, especially if they are based on immediate perceptions and intuitions, rather than calculated and evidence-based considerations and evaluations. In fact, terrorism may often be seen as a more significant risk than it might actually be to many people, especially in consideration of its typically localized occurrence and relative infrequency when compared with other risks (Woo 2002, Feigenson et al. 2004).

7. Of course, this is not to suggest that propensities for terrorism or receptivity to particular counter-terrorist measures have markers in human genetic material, nor correlations with particular racial or ethnic groupings. The point is that terrorism and counter-terrorism have the potential to be investigated at multiple levels of analysis within the appropriate domains of investigation, including perhaps even the individual level, if individual correlates to terrorism precursors and/or counter-terrorist receptivity can be identified (such as particular personality traits or socio-cultural roles).