If you haven’t read enough about pandemics and ethics or the swine flu yet (and seriously who hasn’t read enough about this), the OUP Blog is recommending some additional reading written by philosophers Leslie Francis and Peggy Battin, as well as Jay Jacobson and Charles Smith called Patients as Victim and Vector: Ethic and Infectious Disease.
The book, published last October, discusses important issues in thinking about patients as both victims of infectious disease outbreaks but also the carriers of those same diseases.
The blog post, written by Francis and Battin talks about the current H1N1 outbreak and apply their ethical approach to the current public health crisis.
Such a framework is one of the few ethical frameworks available to thinking about pandemics and is important for everyone interested in these infectious disease and ethics to consider.
Summer Johnson, PhD