Conflict With the Resistance
THE ANTIMICROBIAL RESISTANCE
The Issues With Antimicrobial Resistance
The Ethics of Antimicrobials
The ethical issue with antimicrobials is access to and use of them. Antibiotics has no doubt saved millions of lives but overprescription has led to the emergence of antimicrobial resistance, therefore must be regulated somehow. Current use of antibiotics can be restricted with future generations in mind, but that can lead to potential deaths. Some would argue that it violates the human right to health, since only a selective few could have access and there would be no established or moral criteria to determine those individuals. While physicians are obligated to help their patients, they are also expected to do no harm. As use of antibiotics increase, resistance also increases. There is no specific point to draw the line between the choice of what will potentially lead to death or future lack of therapies available.
There are also ethical issues in antimicrobial use in agriculture and livestock. Farmers often give antibiotics to livestock, even to healthy animals as "disease prevention." The intention is to fight off infections before animals can get it. However, there are no regulations to "disease prevention," leading to the routine misuse of antibiotics in farm animals. These practices raises questions about its effectiveness and possible, but likely, resistant food-related infections spreading throughout the general public.
The Legal Issues to Regulating Antimicrobials
A prevalent concern in regulating the use of antimicrobials is the process of surveillance and privacy. The surveillance of the use of antimicrobials can be helpful in tracking resistance and in controlling and preventing infectious diseases. However, people question the legality of surveillance as it can conflict with individual privacy rights. Surveillance systems must be improved to balance the privacy of the patient with the need for scientific information used towards preventing future infections.
The Social Responsibilities to Using Antimicrobials
There is a common misunderstanding on what type of antimicrobial to use, when to use it, and how long to use it. People often misuse antibiotics, which are specifically used for bacterial infections, to treat viral infections like the cold or flu. Antibiotics will not be effective, therefore cause people to use it more; eventually leading to antibiotic resistance. People will often take antibiotics to treat these viral infections without consulting a doctor either. Moreover, patients will tend to not take the full prescribed course of antibiotics. They assume that since they feel better, the infection has been treated and therefore further use of drugs are not needed. While a shorter course can reduce the exposure of bacteria to antibiotics, it can also mean that not all of the bacteria are killed and that the bacteria will likely develop resistances to future usage of drugs.
