Infectious Disease Ethics Limiting Liberty in Contexts of Contagion

Infectious disease ethics is one of the fastest growing—and increasingly being recognised as one of the most important—topics in bioethics and public health ethics. Paramount among ethical issues associated with infectious disease are those that arise with conflict between the goal to promote individual liberty, on the one hand, and the goal to promote other legitimate social goals such as (equality or) utility in the way of public health, on the other. Authored by world leading figures in philosophy, bioethics, law, public health and medicine, the papers in this volume focus on such conflicts and, inter alia, illustrate the diversity of ways in which such conflicts can arise and offer carefully argued, creative solutions for addressing them. They cover a broad range of topics including ethical issues associated with pandemic planning, health workers’ rights and duties, vaccination policy, coercion and compensation, opt-out HIV testing, public health surveillance, and bioterrorism.

Preface.- Introduction.- Part I:  Pandemic Planning.- Chapter 1:  Moral Principles for Allocating Scarce Medical Resources in an Influenza Pandemic, Marcel Verweij.- Chapter 2:  Effective use of a Limited Antiviral Stockpile for Pandemic Influenza, Nimalan Arinaminpathy, Julian Savulescu and Angela R. Mclean.- Part II:  Health Workers’ Rights and Duties.- Chapter 3:  Rights and Duties of HIV Infected Health Care Professionals, Lawrence O. Gostin.- Chapter 4:  Do Physicians’ Legal Duties to Patients Conflict with Public Health Values? The Case of Antibiotic Overprescription, Carl H. Coleman.- Part III:  Vaccination Policy.- Chapter 5:  Risk Perceptions and Ethical Public Health Policy:  MMR Vaccination in the UK, Angus Dawson.- Chapter 6:  A New Vaccine for Tuberculosis: The Challenges of Development and Deployment, Helen A. Fletcher, Tony Hawkridge and Helen McShane.- Part IV:  Coercion and Compensation.- Chapter 7:  Should Persons Detained During Public Health Crises Receive Compensation? Søren Holm.- Chapter 8:  Your Liberty or Your Life: Reciprocity in the Use of Restrictive Measures in Contexts of Contagion, A. M. Viens, Cécile M. Bensimon and Ross E. G. Upshur.- Part V:  Opt-Out HIV Testing.- Chapter 9:  Increasing Knowledge of HIV Infection Status through Opt-Out HIV Testing, Harold W. Jaffe.- Chapter 10:  Challenging the Status Quo, Dominic Wilkinson.- Part VI:  Surveillance.- Chapter 11:  The Limits of Privacy:  Surveillance and the Control of Disease, Ronald Bayer and Amy Fairchild.- Chapter 12:  Syndromic Surveillance and Patients as Victims and Vectors, Leslie P. Francis, Margaret P. Battin, Jay Jacobson and Charles Smith.- Part VII:  Dual-Use Research.- Chapter 13:  Dual-Use Research Codes of Conduct:  Lessons from the Life Sciences, Michael J. Selgelid.- Chapter 14:  Dual Use and the Ethical Responsibility of Scientists, Hans-Jörg Ehni.