scholarly journals Ethical health security in the age of antimicrobial resistance

2022 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. e007407
Author(s):  
Kari Pahlman ◽  
Anson Fehross ◽  
Greg J Fox ◽  
Diego S Silva
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Antimicrobial Resistance ◽  
Public Good ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Applied Ethics ◽  
Global Public Good ◽  
Economic Costs ◽  
Health Security ◽  
Critical Interpretive Synthesis ◽  
Conceptual Clarity

ObjectiveOwing to its potential human, social and economic costs, antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is frequently referred to as a threat to health security. Simultaneously, health security and the preservation of antimicrobials are often described as a global public good. However, how the term ‘public good’ is used in the context of health security, and the values that underpin it, remains ambiguous. Policymaking is never value-free, and a better examination of such values is critical to understanding how issues such as AMR are problematised and how policy decisions are informed.DesignWe used McDougall’s version of critical interpretive synthesis to capture the recurring concepts and arguments within public policy, political science and applied ethics literature on AMR. Articles were analysed by identifying recurring ideas and developing themes across the literature.ResultsA total of 77 papers were included in our review. In the context of health security and AMR, the concept of ‘public good’ appears to be used interchangeably with ‘common good’, reflecting confusion, but sometimes meaningful differences, regarding how antimicrobials, as a good, are conceived. Main approaches to addressing AMR are statism, globalism and regionalism, which appeal to different values in guiding policymakers. Common justificatory values underpinning preservation of antimicrobials as a public good were prevention of harm, solidarity, justice and rights.ConclusionThe findings suggest that within the literature there is a lack of conceptual clarity as to whether antimicrobials constitute a public good or a common good. Moreover, the way in which antimicrobials are conceived and the approaches through which AMR as a threat to health security is addressed appear to be grounded in values that are often implicit. Being explicit about the values that underpin AMR and health security is not simply an intellectual exercise but has very real policy and programmatic implications.

scholarly journals COVID-19 Vaccines as Global Common Goods: An Integrated Approach of Ethical, Economic Policy and Intellectual Property Management

Global Jurist ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nerina Boschiero
Keyword(s):  
Global Health ◽  
Public Good ◽  
Common Good ◽  
International Community ◽  
Global Public Good ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Economic Implication ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
Health Technologies ◽  
The World

Abstract The article deals with the current debate about COVID-19 Vaccines as global public/common goods. After a brief introduction on the global epidemiological and economic implication of the pandemic, the problem of the correct characterization of either vaccine or immunization/herd immunity as global public/common good, according to the necessary characteristics outlined by the pertinent economic theories, is addressed. The conclusion is that the term “global public good”/global common goods” has been extensively used in the last two years by policy makers, political leaders, academics, economists, international organizations, NGOs and others health groups, in a sort of “loose way”. Substantially, in order to underscore that equitable access to health products, including vaccines, health and biomedical technologies, medical services, medical devises, whose availability, accessibility, acceptability, affordability to the world is fundamental to tackling the pandemic. The current legal proprietary regime applied to vaccines, extensively covered by IPRs, has transformed an intrinsically non-excludable common/public good (the vaccines, due to their nature and characteristics) in something excludable and rival in consumption. Consequently, the article argues that what is needed is a swift in their legal governance. The current legal discipline of vaccines and health technologies must be changed to bring it into line with the non-excludable nature of these goods. The richest countries in the world, in pursuit of their “vaccine nationalisms”, have already collectively preordered 8.8 billion doses of vaccine, far in excess of need, thus obliging billions of people in the Global South to wait years to be vaccinated. In this respect, the article investigates the EU vaccines strategy and analyzes the Advanced Purchase Agreements signed by the European Commission with the major vaccine producers, enlightening the untenable secrecy and opacity with which the European Union’s executive has handled COVID-19 vaccine supply contracts, and how it has simply paid no more than lip-service to the concept of global common/public good by attributing a broad “private governance” to the pharmaceutical companies. Then, the various arguments, for and against, the Waiver Proposal to several sections of the WTO TRIPS agreement, introduced by India and South Africa on the TRIPS Council on October 2020, have been briefly summarized, accounting the current luck of needed consensus among the various members of the WTO. The article however describes an important number of new global and collaborative efforts already put in place by a myriad public and private actors to allow efficient development and production of vaccines in order to enhance a global access to vaccines. The article concludes by stressing the major developments in the U.S. patent’s landscape and in the Biden Administration’s attitude towards the current global health crisis, that leave hope for “extraordinary measures” to be agreed by the international community in near future. The auspice is that the time has finally arrived for the international community to develop reliable and long term solutions to tackle future global pandemic, preferably by the negotiation of a new WHO global health treaty, to secure universal fair access to essential technologies and vaccines and protecting them as global public/common goods.

Mobility as a Service Operating Model to Enable Public Policy

2021 ◽  
pp. 036119812110266
Author(s):  
Christina Joy Ditmore ◽  
Angela K. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Public Sector ◽  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Private Sector ◽  
Public Good ◽  
Business Model ◽  
Operating Model ◽  
The Public ◽  
Equity And Access ◽  
Policy Goals

Mobility as a Service (MaaS) is the concept through which travelers plan, book, and pay for public or private transport on a single platform using either a service or subscription-based model. Observations of current projects identified two distinct approaches to enabling MaaS: the private-sector approach defined as a “business model,” and the public sector approach that manifests as an “operating model.” The distinction between these models is significant. MaaS provides a unique opportunity for the public sector to set and achieve public policy goals by leveraging emerging technologies in favor of the public good. Common policy goals that relate to transportation include equity and access considerations, environmental impact, congestion mitigation, and so forth. Strategies to address these policy goals include behavioral incentivization and infrastructure reallocation. This study substantiates two models for implementing MaaS and expanding on the public sector approach, to enable policy in favor of the public good.

scholarly journals Scientific literacy, public engagement and responsibility in science

2021 ◽  
pp. 209660832110096
Author(s):  
Daya Reddy
Keyword(s):  
Public Good ◽  
Genome Editing ◽  
Public Engagement ◽  
Scientific Literacy ◽  
Scientific Community ◽  
Global Public Good ◽  
Public Communication ◽  
Digital Revolution ◽  
The Past ◽  
Responsibility Of Scientists

This work addresses the issue of scientific literacy and its connection to the responsibility of scientists in relation to public engagement. The points of departure are, first, the notion of science as a global public good, and, second, developments in the past few decades driven largely by the digital revolution. The latter lend a particular urgency to initiatives aimed at promoting scientific literacy. Arguments are presented for reassessing approaches to public communication. The particular example of genome editing is provided as a vehicle for highlighting the challenges in engagement involving the scientific community, policymakers and broader society.

scholarly journals Avoiding or restricting defectors in public goods games?

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (103) ◽  
pp. 20141203 ◽  
Author(s):  
The Anh Han ◽  
Luís Moniz Pereira ◽  
Tom Lenaerts
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Data ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
Public Good ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Full Agreement ◽  
Group Interactions ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Public Goods Games ◽  
The Common ◽  
Strategic Solution

When creating a public good, strategies or mechanisms are required to handle defectors. We first show mathematically and numerically that prior agreements with posterior compensations provide a strategic solution that leads to substantial levels of cooperation in the context of public goods games, results that are corroborated by available experimental data. Notwithstanding this success, one cannot, as with other approaches, fully exclude the presence of defectors, raising the question of how they can be dealt with to avoid the demise of the common good. We show that both avoiding creation of the common good, whenever full agreement is not reached, and limiting the benefit that disagreeing defectors can acquire, using costly restriction mechanisms, are relevant choices. Nonetheless, restriction mechanisms are found the more favourable, especially in larger group interactions. Given decreasing restriction costs, introducing restraining measures to cope with public goods free-riding issues is the ultimate advantageous solution for all participants, rather than avoiding its creation.

scholarly journals Emerging Scientists Supplementary Issue II: Nature inspired Antimicrobial Nanotextured Surfaces

2020 ◽  
Vol 04 (Supp01) ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Tan Yee Lin
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Antimicrobial Resistance ◽  
Antimicrobial Properties ◽  
Physical Contact ◽  
Health Security ◽  
Naturally Occurring ◽  
Promising Strategy ◽  
Contact Killing ◽  
Supplementary Issue

The development of cross infections arising from bacteria transmission on frequently touched facilities has led to an urgent need to promptly disinfect these surfaces, such as hand railings, door handles and elevator buttons. Conventional antimicrobial disinfectants are not ideal as they contribute to the growing antimicrobial resistance crisis. In recent years, the discovery that the wings of insects such as the Clanger cicada (Psaltoda claripennis) possess naturally occurring antimicrobial properties has led to a growing interest to synthetically recreate these surfaces. The use of a physical contact killing mechanism on such nanotextured surfaces is a promising strategy for curbing the proliferation of bacteria, as it is unlikely to contribute to the formation of antimicrobial resistance. Here, I highlight the key advantages of using these antimicrobial nanotextured materials and how they could play a role in safeguarding public health security, especially during the current COVID-19 pandemic.

scholarly journals Rapid Detection of PBP2a in Staphylococci from Shortly Incubated Subcultures of Positive Blood Cultures by an Immunochromatographic Assay

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalia Kolesnik-Goldmann ◽  
Elias Bodendoerfer ◽  
Kim Röthlin ◽  
Sebastian Herren ◽  
Frank Imkamp ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Antibiotic Resistance ◽  
Antimicrobial Resistance ◽  
Patient Care ◽  
Rapid Detection ◽  
Resistance Mechanisms ◽  
Blood Cultures ◽  
Immunochromatographic Assay ◽  
Economic Costs ◽  
Major Threat ◽  
Improving Patient Care

Antibiotic resistance poses a major threat to health and incurs high economic costs worldwide. Rapid detection of resistance mechanisms can contribute to improving patient care and preventing the dissemination of antimicrobial resistance.

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