DOI: 10.5176/2251-3833_GHC16.40
Authors: Alan Gorr
Abstract: In the second half of the twentieth century, ethics models for health and health care were dominated by three concerns; the patient, the human research subject, and the universal right to health. At that time, it was largely assumed that economic progress would become universal, science would provide ways to combat infectious diseases, and that the remaining burden of disease would be of the chronic type. In the twenty-first century, life has become more complex. The environment has become despoiled, irreplaceable natural resources overused, and new patterns of disease have emerged owing to the changing environment. There is new resistance to drugs and pathogens carried by insect vectors and world travelers. We commonly see references to SARS, MERS, MRSA, Ebola, swine flu, H5N1 flu, XDR-tb, e. COLI, 0157-H and Zika. The field of Global Health is developing to meet these challenges, but it lacks any universally subscribed ethical framework like those which deal directly with patients or research subjects. Here I examine many of the common systems of ethics and show how they help to choose among alternatives approaches. However they lack an endpoint and for that reason they are not dynamic or independent. I will suggest and endpoint that has been used by scientists in fields other than the health sciences and explore how the use of such endpoints that can give life and energy to ethics in Global Health
Keywords: Global, Health, Ethics, Endpoint, Doomsday Clock
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