Drug-Resistant Infection: Causes, Consequences, and Responses

Abstract

Abstract This chapter provides an overview of the causes and consequences of, and possible policy responses to, the problem of drug resistance. Throughout, we highlight the ways that ethical and conceptual analyses can help to clarify relevant issues and improve policy, especially in public health, broadly conceived. Drug resistant pathogens arise, persist, spread, and produce harm due to a complex set of causes: biological processes (e.g., related to microbial evolution, the transmission of genetic determinants of resistance between microbes, and human host immunity) as well as human behaviors (e.g., antimicrobial use and hygiene practices) and other social factors (e.g., access to clean water, sanitation, healthcare, and antimicrobials). Furthermore, the ethically salient consequences of drug resistance include not only morbidity and mortality from untreatable infections (that are often inequitably distributed), but also broader effects on human freedom, privacy, and well-being. Public health ethicists are ideally placed to identify and weigh the values that might be promoted or compromised by potential policies and/or interventions that aim to address the problem of drug resistance. This chapter concludes by discussing potential policy responses, including those related to surveillance, research, animal and human antimicrobial use, the broader social determinants of health, infection control practices, and vaccination.