The Patient as Victim and Vector

Reviews / Votes

"This book is one of those rare 'interdisciplinary' works that truly bridge the disciplines and make original contributions to them all. Whether you come to it from medicine, public health, ethics or law, you'll leave with a deeper understanding of the dilemmas that inhere in trying to control infectious diseases, as well as an original, internationally informed and ethically coherent approach to policymaking on new and old threats to our individual and
collective health, from SARS and pandemic influenza to HPV and childhood infections."-Alexander M. Capron, Chair in Healthcare Law, Policy and Ethics, University of Southern California, and Former Director of
Ethics, Trade, Human Rights and Health Law, World Health Organization
"This well-written, innovative and multidisciplinary text makes a timely and significant contribution to our understanding of the public health challenges posed by the emergence of new and recrudescing multi-drug resistant infectious diseases. The novel concept of 'patient as victim and vector' opens new ways of thinking that will stimulate extensive scholarly debate-and hopefully some effective action-in dealing with such major threats to human life globally.
This approach will supplement as yet inadequately operationalized paradigm shifts in thinking and acting that have been proposed to address infectious diseases, which could be considered the major
challenge to human well-being and security in the 21st century."-Solomon R. Benatar, Emeritus Professor of Medicine, University of Cape Town, and Professor in Public Health Sciences, University of Toronto
"For anyone interested in the subject or in teaching bioethics, this book is unique and essential. The ethical challenges in infectious diseases encompass a complex range of concerns, not only about the individual who suffers such an illness, but also about the impact of the individual's illness on the larger community. There are wonderful examples that illustrate the kind of dilemmas that force one to confront his or her own values with respect to the balance
between the rights of individuals and the collective responsibility of health practitioners to find fair solutions to them."- Barry R. Bloom, Dean, Harvard School of Public Health
"This new book, the collective effort of philosophers and physicians, well serves a both a statement to the field of bioethics and as a valuable text for students in medicine, public health, and bioethics. It is accessibly--and sometimes elegantly--written, cogent and provocative... With care and unusual modesty, Margaret Battin and her colleagues turn to a range of topics central to the practice of public health.... To watch the authors probe and struggle with
the moral dilemmas we all face is more than worth the price of admission."--As reviewed in Bioethical Inquiry