ETHICS-BASED PUBLIC HEALTH POLICY?

Public health ethics and intellectual property policy.

The articles in this issue of the Bulletin describe some of the challenges posed by notions of intellectual property in areas as diverse as genetic testing, genomic epidemiology, pharmaceuticals and vaccines. The constructive practical solut tions suggested include royalty clearing houses, comprehensive research colt laboration policies, and modified DNA patenting regimes. All of the articles a...

Questions of ethics in public health policy.

Health and Wellness Policy Ethics

This perspective is an ethical brief overview and examination of “wellness” policies in the modern workplace using practical examples and a general application of utilitarianism. Many employers are implementing policies that provide incentives to employees who lead a “healthy” lifestyle. The authors address how these policies could adversely affect “non-healthy” employees. There are a wide vari...

Prison medicine, public health policy and ethics: the Geneva experience.

The health care of prisoners represents a public health priority. However, in many countries, the pursuit of public health goals in prison is not granted. Introducing condom distribution and syringe exchange in prisons remains the exception. This article describes the example of a Swiss canton in which the legal framework enables health-care personnel to put into practice health care that is eq...

Toward a Normative Framework for Public Health Ethics and Policy

This paper aims to shed some light on the difficulties we face in constructing a generally acceptable normative framework for thinking about public health. It argues that there are three factors which combine to make theorising about public health difficult, and which when taken together defeat simplistic top-down and