Moral responsibility and the justification of policies to preserve antimicrobial effectiveness

Restrictive policies that limit antimicrobial consumption, including therapeutically justified use, might be necessary to tackle the problem of antimicrobial resistance. We argue that such policies would be ethically justified when forgoing antimicrobials constitutes a form of easy rescue for an ind...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Giubilini, Alberto, Savulescu, Julian (Author)
Format: eBook
Language:English
Published: [Cham, Switzerland] [Springer] [2020], 2020
Online Access:
Collection: National Center for Biotechnology Information - Collection details see MPG.ReNa
Description
Summary:Restrictive policies that limit antimicrobial consumption, including therapeutically justified use, might be necessary to tackle the problem of antimicrobial resistance. We argue that such policies would be ethically justified when forgoing antimicrobials constitutes a form of easy rescue for an individual. These are cases of mild and self-limiting infections in otherwise healthy patients whose overall health is not significantly compromised by the infection. In such cases, restrictive policies would be ethically justified because they would coerce individuals into fulfilling a moral obligation they independently have. However, to ensure that such justification is the strongest possible, states also have the responsibility to ensure that forgoing antimicrobials is as easy as possible for patients by implementing adequate compensation measures
Item Description:Chapter 9 of the book: Ethics and drug resistance : collective responsibility for global public health / Euzebiusz Jamrozik, Michael Selgelid, editors. Cham, Switzerland : Springer, [2020]
Physical Description:1 PDF file (pages 141-154)