Polio Eradication: Assessment of Ethical Analysis
Open Access
- Author:
- Robinson, Meryn
- Area of Honors:
- Bioethics and Medical Humanities
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Science
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Rachel Annette Smith, Thesis Supervisor
Jesse F Ballenger, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- polio
eradication
ethics - Abstract:
- The eradication of smallpox, which was declared eradicated in 1980 after a ten-year global eradication initiative and $100 million of funding, is the largest global public health victory to date. In 1988, the World Health Organization joined forces with Rotary International, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and UNICEF to create the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, with the goal of eradicating polio by 2000. However, differences in the presentation of the disease caused by the poliovirus and differences in the routes of transmission of the virus have made polio more challenging to eradicate. Currently, polio still remains endemic in three countries, and the entire initiative has cost more than $8 billion. Because of the enormous amount of money and resources being used in the eradication effort, questions have arisen about the future of the eradication effort and if eradication should even continue to be the ultimate goal. Financial analysis and logistical analysis of the effort provide information from which to move forward. Alongside these analyses, ethical analysis offers a moral dimension to the debate. Supporters of the eradication effort employ the use of utilitarian reasoning to justify the amount of money and resources being used in the effort, a cost outweighed by the potential good that results from the eradication of polio. Opponents of the effort identify problems within the current effort and with future follow-up initiatives should eradication be achieved, concerned with how the burdens and costs of the initiative are shared by the actors involved, as well as with the distribution of the benefits of eradication. This reasoning is based in the theory of distributive justice, and provides the stronger analysis of the eradication effort and a more complete case to discontinue the goal of eradication.