27.06.2009
Is disease eradication ethical?

For many in the field of public health, the eradication of smallpox was one of the greatest triumphs of 20th-century medicine. This astounding achievement has influenced national and international organisations to mount or consider efforts to eradicate many other infectious diseases, including measles, Guinea worm disease, Chagas' disease, polio, and malaria. Eradication may well be public health's greatest rhetorical weapon in the battle against dread diseases. Indeed, the ability to command funding, popular support, the attention of politicians, and positive media coverage by talk of disease eradication is unparalleled.

Auteur : Arthur L Caplan
Discipline : The Lancet, Volume 373, Issue 9682, Pages 2192 - 2193

www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(09)61179-X/fulltext