Diminishing returns? Risk and the duty to care in the SARS epidemic

Bioethics

Volumn 19, Issue 4, 2005, Pages 348-361

  Reid, Lynette ^a  

^a DALHOUSIE UNIVERSITY   (Canada)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ACQUIRED IMMUNE DEFICIENCY SYNDROME; ALTRUISM; DISEASE TRANSMISSION; EPIDEMIC; ETHICS; HEALTH CARE PERSONNEL; HEPATITIS B; HUMAN; HUMAN IMMUNODEFICIENCY VIRUS; INFECTION CONTROL; INFECTION RISK; MORALITY; PATIENT CARE; REVIEW; RISK FACTOR; SEVERE ACUTE RESPIRATORY SYNDROME;

ANALYTICAL APPROACH; HEALTH CARE AND PUBLIC HEALTH;

ALTRUISM; DELIVERY OF HEALTH CARE; ETHICAL ANALYSIS; ETHICS, PROFESSIONAL; HEALTH PERSONNEL; HIV INFECTIONS; HUMANS; MORAL OBLIGATIONS; PHYSICIANS; REFUSAL TO TREAT; RISK-TAKING; SEVERE ACUTE RESPIRATORY SYNDROME; VIRTUES;

EID: 23944505594     PISSN: 02699702     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8519.2005.00448.x     Document Type: Review

References (64)

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5. See for instance G.J. Annas. Legal risks and responsibilities of physicians in the AIDS epidemic. Hastings Center Report 1988; 18: S26-S32;
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9. See for instance N. Daniels. Duty to treat or right to refuse? Hastings Center Report 1991; 21: 36-46;
10. E.J. Emanuel. Do physicians have an obligation to treat patients with AIDS? NEJM 1988; 318: 1686-1690. I leave aside the well-known philosophical difficulties of the notion of implicit consent.
11. This standard for acceptable levels of risk does not stand up to rigorous philosophical scrutiny: Why should someone's acceptance of a risk level x imply acceptance of a risk level 2x? The calculation did establish that the right to turn away an HIV/AIDS patient on the basis of risk was no greater than the right to turn away a Hepatitis B patient, hence giving credence to the charge that refusing care to an HIV/AIDS patient would be an act of discrimination.
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14. Freedman, op. cit. note 6, p. 22.
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32. Several physicians who commented on drafts of this paper found distressing the suggestion that duty to care was a professional trade-off rather than a response to human need.
33. The Kantian (universalizing) style of the reflection invited in this question is evident.
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56. Nickell et al., op. cit. note 24;
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58. Nickell et al., op. cit. note 24.
59. Straus et al., op. cit. note 11;
60. Bernstein et al., op. cit. note 38.
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62. A substantive consequentialist argument around duty to care in HIV/AIDS did not emerge until 1997, in Smolkin, op. cit. note 13, p. 61.
63. Fox, op. cit. note 3, pp. S5-S10.
64. Sibbald, op. cit. note 41, p. 141.