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The National Intelligence Council released this January 2000 report on "the reemergence of the threat from infectious diseases worldwide and its implications for the United States".
Among its key judgements:
"New and reemerging infectious diseases will pose a rising global health threat and will complicate US and global security over the next 20 years. These diseases will endanger US citizens at home and abroad, threaten US armed forces deployed overseas, and exacerbate social and political instability in key countries and regions in which the United States has significant interests.
Infectious diseases are a leading cause of death, accounting for a quarter to a third of the estimated 54 million deaths worldwide in 1998. The spread of infectious diseases results as much from changes in human behavior--including lifestyles and land use patterns, increased trade and travel, and inappropriate use of antibiotic drugs--as from mutations in pathogens."
