Session: Communitarian Approaches to Public Health Issues
Justice and the Tragedy of the Commons: Addressing the Antimicrobial Resistance Crisis
Thursday, October 12, 2023
8:15 AM – 9:30 AM ET
Location: Galena (Fourth Floor)
The widespread use of antibiotics has led to the transmission of several antibiotic-resistant microbes, which is now creating a public health crisis. Contemporary ethics-based discourse regarding antimicrobial resistance (AMR) involves key elements of public health ethics coupled with unique economic paradigms that apply to antibiotic use, such as ‘the tragedy of the commons’. In this paper, we primarily focus on the ethical principle of justice to evaluate the effectiveness and applicability of different solutions that address AMR. Ethics-based discourse surrounding proposed monetary solutions, including Pigouvian taxes and tax incentives, currently focuses on justifying the use of coercive policies for collective benefit. However, these discussions largely omit justice-based considerations of the disproportionate effects on lower socioeconomic status groups and their displacement from the benefits of collective action. We suggest that taxing antibiotic use in self-limiting infections to combat AMR has the potential to harm underserved or low-income groups. Such an action also fails to address the issue of the tragedy of the commons. The modification of existing proposed monetary solutions to combat AMR or expansions of public health campaigns that focus on restricting antibiotic use warrant greater research. This justice-focused approach aims to avoid reinforcing health inequalities that may worsen the AMR health crisis.
Thomas Vida – Medical Education – Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV