ABSTRACT In this article, we first document the virtually complete absence of infectious disease examples and concerns at the time bioethics emerged as a field. We then argue that this oversight was not benign by considering two central issues in the field, informed consent and distributive justice, and showing how they might have been framed differently had infectiousness been at the forefront of concern. The solution to this omission might be to apply standard approaches in liberal bioethics, such as autonomy (...) and the harm principle, to infectious examples. We argue that this is insufficient, however. Taking infectious disease into account requires understanding the patient as victim and as vector. Infectiousness reminds us that as autonomous agents we are both embodied and vulnerable in our relationships with others. We conclude by applying this reunderstanding of agency to the examples of informed consent and distributive justice in health care. (shrink)

Because medicine can preserve and restore health and function, it is widely acknowledged as a basic good that a just society owes its members. Yet there is controversy over the scope of what should be provided, to whom, how, when and why. This comprehensive and authoritative book - by well-known philosophers, doctors, lawyers, political scientists, and economists - lays a theoretical foundation for understanding the debate, assesses how health care is distributed in different countries and to various social groups, and (...) analyzes practical issues in constructing a socially just health care system. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this article, we first document the virtually complete absence of infectious disease examples and concerns at the time bioethics emerged as a field. We then argue that this oversight was not benign by considering two central issues in the field, informed consent and distributive justice, and showing how they might have been framed differently had infectiousness been at the forefront of concern. The solution to this omission might be to apply standard approaches in liberal bioethics, such as autonomy (...) and the harm principle, to infectious examples. We argue that this is insufficient, however. Taking infectious disease into account requires understanding the patient as victim and as vector. Infectiousness reminds us that as autonomous agents we are both embodied and vulnerable in our relationships with others. We conclude by applying this reunderstanding of agency to the examples of informed consent and distributive justice in health care. (shrink)

Daryl Pullman (2023), seeking to slow the slide down what he sees as the slippery slope of MAID, employs an epigraph from H.L. Mencken: “For every human problem there is a solution that is simple,...

In this view from 2007–2009, the ethical challenges facing a potential global effort to control infectious disease are explored; they provide sobering insight into the challenges of later decades. Despite the devastating pandemic of HIV/AIDS that erupted in the early 1980s, despite the failure to eradicate polio and the emergence of resistant forms of tuberculosis that came into focus in the 1990s, and despite newly emerging diseases like Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003 and the fearsome prospect of human-to-human (...) avian flu, it is nevertheless a time of some excitement over prospects for effective control of much of infectious disease. Funded by national and international governmental and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), private foundations, and even popular entertainers, large-scale new efforts are under way to address global killers like AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, among others. This “marvelous momentum” can be seen as part of a continuing effort from the time of Jenner onward. Extrapolating from this, we explore the notion of a “comprehensive global effort for the eradication, elimination or control of infectious disease”, with particular attention to the ethical issues that arise. This is to “think big” about disease-control efforts that are now often done in piecemeal ways. This chapter identifies five tracks along which such efforts need to be pursued: (1) national and international organizations and the development of collective will; (2) epidemiological and health care infrastructure; (3) scientific development; (4) religious, social, and cultural considerations; (5) legal and social protections for individuals and groups. Each of these poses significant ethical issues which, we argue, should be viewed in a comprehensive way, to ensure that practice, research, and policy in each of these areas understands the person with communicable infectious disease as both victim and (potential) vector. (shrink)

This compact and innovative book tackles one of the central issues in drug policy: the lack of a coherent conceptual structure for thinking about drugs. Drugs generally fall into one of seven categories: prescription, over the counter, alternative medicine, common-use drugs like alcohol, tobacco and caffeine; religious-use, sports enhancement; and of course illegal street drugs like cocaine and marijuana. Our thinking and policies varies wildly from one to the other, with inconsistencies that derive more from cultural and social values than (...) from medical or scientific facts. Penalties exist for steroid use, while herbal remedies or cold medication are legal. Native Americans may legally use peyote, but others may not. Penalties may vary for using different forms of the same drug, such as crack vs. powder cocaine. Herbal remedies are unregulated by the FDA; but medical marijuana is illegal in most states. Battin and her contributors lay a foundation for a wiser drug policy by promoting consistency and coherency in the discussion of drug issues and by encouraging a unique dialogue across disciplines. The contributors are an interdisciplinary group of scholars mostly based at the University of Utah, and include a pharmacologist, a psychiatrist, a toxicologist, a trial court judge, a law professor, an attorney, a diatary specialist, a physician, a health expert on substance abuse, and Battin herself who is a philosopher. They consider questions like the historical development of current policy and the rationales for it; scientific views on how drugs actually cause harm; how to define the key notions of harm and addiction; and ways in which drug policy can be made more consistent. They conclude with an examination of the implications of a consistent policy for various disciplines and society generally. The book is written accessibly with little need for expert knowledge, and will appeal to a diverse audience of philosophers, bioethicists, clinicians, policy makers, law enforcement, legal scholars and practitioners, social workers, and general readers, as well as to students in areas like pharmacy, medicine, law, nursing, sociology, social work, psychology, and bioethics. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Bioethics as “Dilemma‐motivated” The Expanding Universe of Bioethics Issues Institutional Settings of Bioethics Bioethics and Moral Reasoning Bioethics as Minimally Conventional Bioethics as Interdisciplinary The Core Theoretical Problems of Bioethics Attacks on Bioethics Can Bioethics Provide Answers? The Scope of Bioethics: From Western to Global The Future of Bioethics The Social Role of Bioethics “Uncontested Core” of Bioethics Acknowledgments.

Addressing key issues arising from the nature of death, 'Death, Dying and the Ending of Life' examines important topics relating to bioethics, philosophy and literature.

While a national health care system may be greeted with enthusiasm on many grounds, it poses substantial moral problems – not the least of which would be the clash between the ‘standardization’ of care for the sake of efficiency and the needs of individual patients. Such problems are best seen in the treatment of dying patients. Keywords: best buy, cost-saving, dying, efficiency, practice guidelines, Rilke, standards of practice, two tier CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this?

Where assistance in suicide is readily available to those dying of AIDS, as in the west coast gay communities of the United States and in the Netherlands, we must examine the different roles of physicians and friends (including lovers, spouses, family members, religious advisors, members of support groups, and intimate others) in helping a person with AIDS decide about and carry out suicide. This paper makes a central assumption: that where assistance in suicide is available, it is the moral obligation (...) of others to protect and enhance as much as possible the rationality of that choice. Four components are identified in a rational choice about suicide in AIDS – whether it is a choice for or against suicide. Phrased as questions a person with AIDS might ask him- or herself, they are: (1) "Is suicide an option I want to consider?" (2) "Shall I hold out for the chance of a cure?" (3) "How shall I time my suicide?" (4) "What weight shall I give to the welfare and interests of others?" Although physicians often make assertions relevant to (1), they are appropriately involved only in (3); and although friends or intimate partners often provide the patient with anecdotal information relevant to (3), they should be involved primarily in (1). In short, both physicians and friends often intervene in the wrong parts of choices made by a person with AIDS about suicide. Keywords: AIDS, assisted suicide, euthanasia, rationality, role of friends and physicians, timing CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Despite its virtues, lay decision-making in medicine shares with professional decision-making a disturbing common feature, reflected both in formal policies prohibiting high-risk research and in informal policies favoring treatment decisions made when a crisis or change of status occurs, often late in a downhill course. By discouraging patient decision-making but requiring dedication to the patient's interests by those who make decisions on the patient's behalf, such practices tend to preclude altruistic choice on the part of the patient. This eclipse is (...) to be regretted not just because widescale altruism has the capacity to provide important social goods and correct injustices in distribution, but for intrinsic reasons as well. It is argued that preserving the possibility of altruism obliges patients – and future patients – to make decisions about dying and other medical matters in advance, thus avoiding that displacement of decision-making onto lay and professional second parties which results in altruism's eclipse. Keywords: altruism, medical decision-making, patient's interest, self-interest, autonomy, death and dying decisions, refusal of treatment, prolongation of life, allowing to die, high-risk research CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

The prelims comprise: Seeing Infectious Disease as Central The Birth of Bioethics Amid the Decline of Infectious Disease The Shifting Concerns of Public Health Bioethics and Public Health: How the Twain Didn't Meet The Case of HIV Bridging the Gap: Seeing Bioethics in Terms of the Patient as Victim and Vector An Ordinary Example Summing Up: Autonomous Agency in the Context of Infectious Disease Notes.

In this informative and important article, Jennifer Blumenthal-Barby and her distinguished coauthors (2022) (hereafter referred to as BB) address the sensitive question of the place of philosophy i...

This paper examines the characteristics of infectious diseases that raise special medical and social ethical issues, and explores ways of integrating both current bioethical and classical public health ethics concerns. Many of the ethical issues raised by infectious diseases are related to these diseases' powerful ability to engender fear in individuals and panic in populations. We address the association of some infectious diseases with high morbidity and mortality rates, the sense that infectious diseases are caused by invasion or attack on (...) humans by foreign micro-organisms, the acute onset and rapid course of many infectious diseases, and, in particular, the communicability of infectious diseases. The individual fear and community panic associated with infectious diseases often leads to rapid, emotionally driven decision making about public health policies needed to protect the community that may be in conflict with current bioethical principles regarding the care of individual patients. The discussion includes recent examples where dialogue between public health practitioners and medical-ethicists has helped resolve ethical issues that require us to consider the infected patient as both a victim with individual needs and rights and as a potential vector of disease that is of concern to the community. (shrink)

Syndromic surveillance uses new ways of gathering data to identify possible disease outbreaks. Because syndromic surveillance can be implemented to detect patterns before diseases are even identified, it poses novel problems for informed consent, patient privacy and confidentiality, and risks of stigmatization. This paper analyzes these ethical issues from the viewpoint of the patient as victim and vector. It concludes by pointing out that the new International Health Regulations fail to take full account of the ethical challenges raised by syndromic (...) surveillance. (shrink)

This paper examines the characteristics of infectious diseases that raise special medical and social ethical issues, and explores ways of integrating both current bioethical and classical public health ethics concerns. Many of the ethical issues raised by infectious diseases are related to these diseases’ powerful ability to engender fear in individuals and panic in populations. We address the association of some infectious diseases with high morbidity and mortality rates, the sense that infectious diseases are caused by invasion or attack on (...) humans by foreign micro‐organisms, the acute onset and rapid course of many infectious diseases, and, in particular, the communicability of infectious diseases. The individual fear and community panic associated with infectious diseases often leads to rapid, emotionally driven decision making about public health policies needed to protect the community that may be in conflict with current bioethical principles regarding the care of individual patients. The discussion includes recent examples where dialogue between public health practitioners and medical‐ethicists has helped resolve ethical issues that require us to consider the infected patient as both a victim with individual needs and rights and as a potential vector of disease that is of concern to the community. (shrink)

Three medical ethicists take varied and often opposing stands on the ethical, social, and political issues that arise when religious and medical practices conflict. The interchange focuses on the tensions between the belief systems, institutional practices, and health-related decisions of Christian Scientists and those of a secularized medically oriented, broader society.

Since testing for HIV infection became possible in 1985, testing of pregnant women has been conducted primarily on a voluntary, ‘opt-in’ basis. Faden, Geller and Powers, Bayer, Wilfert, and McKenna, among others, have suggested that with the development of more reliable testing and more effective therapy to reduce maternal-fetal transmission, testing should become either routine with ‘opt-out’ provisions or mandatory. We ask, in the light of the new rapid tests for HIV, such as OraQuick, and the development of antiretroviral treatment (...) that can reduce maternal-fetal transmission rates to <2%, whether that time is now. Illustrating our argument with cases from the United States (US), Kenya, Peru, and an undocumented Mexican worker in the US, we show that when testing is accompanied by assured multi-drug therapy for the mother, the argument for opt-out or mandatory testing for HIV in pregnancy is strong, but that it is problematic where testing is accompanied by adverse events such as spousal abuse or by inadequate intrapartum or follow-up treatment. The difference is not a ‘double standard’, but reflects the presence of conflicts between the health interests of the mother and the fetus – conflicts that would be abrogated by the assurance of adequate, continuing multi-drug therapy. In light of these conflicts, where they still occur, careful processes of informed consent are appropriate, rather than opt-out or mandatory testing. (shrink)

Nie Jing-Bao, Behind the silence: Chinese voices on abortion, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005, reviewed by Shi Xianduan and Margaret P. Battin.