Bacteria without Borders: Communicable Disease Politics in Europe.

MEDICAL care; HEALTH policy; PUBLIC health; AIDS; BUDGET; COMMUNICABLE diseases; EPIDEMICS; HIV; INFLUENZA; INTERNATIONAL relations; PRACTICAL politics; RISK assessment; RISK management in business; SERIAL publications; H1N1 influenza

Communicable disease control might be one of the oldest and most important functions of the modern state, but it receives very little attention today. This article introduces a special issue on the Europeanization of communicable disease control politics in Europe. The Europeanization of communicable disease control is a case of both European integration and communicable disease politics. We first analyze the problems and tensions in communicable disease control as a problem of overlapping interprofessional, interorganizational, intergovernmental, and international tensions. We then present the European Union, a new and understudied actor in communicable disease politics, sketching the theoretical background for Europeanization of the field and introducing the articles in the special issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]