Ethics in Global Health

From abortion rights to environmental protection, ethical issues regarding global health are becoming increasingly more complex. A problem in ethical consideration is that it is highly subjective, there is no right or wrong answer in most cases. Please perform this exercise by answering the two questions to have a better understanding of what I mean.

Is it okay to steal?
-You probably answered "no", the issue seems essentially black and white.

However, if I rephrase the question.

Is it okay to steal food if you're family's life depends on it?
-All of a sudden an easily answerable question becomes seemingly unanswerable.

One person's response to the second question may be highly variable from another person. Some factors that influence our responses include; ethnicity,culture, religious background, upbringing, education, personality, exposure, wants and needs. Other factors may include genetics and other environmental influence.

Good ethical decisions, as described by Gurinder Shahi, are based on reason, take into account established ethical principles, based on consensus, take into account those without voice (minority, environment, unborn fetus), and are open to change in the face of new understanding and experience.

In the face of global economic development and scientific advancement the next few decades promise to hold interesting and highly controversial issues. From stem-cell research to weapon development, these issues will affect people throughout the world. For this reason more countries and international organizations should be concerned with developing a global ethics organization. A specific mechanism for weighing out ethical issues, creating global legislation, and most importantly a method to enforce ethics adherence is necessary to ensure the avoidance of moral chaos.

Global Health and Corporate Involvement

The advent of the internet along with growth in international trade has made our world increasingly dependent on "inter-economies." Inter-economies are product enterprises between any number of countries that require a specific resource or service from each. For example, a company that produces syringes in the United States may be reliant on another company who mines metal in South America. This type of inter-economy reliance illustrates the need and importance of corporate support for global health. Following the example above, if the company that mines metal for the syringe company in U.S. is devastated by a multi-drug resistant strain of tuberculosis, the U.S. company's productivity may slow or even stop until a new source for the metals could be found. For this reason corporations should more involved in global health. By helping to establish health care and/or organizations that address health issues in other countries corporations are essentially investing in their own economic security. Besides this business incentive for corporations, they may also boast their efforts to improve global health to improve their corporate image. Therefore, not only will investment in global health ensure economic security and a positive social image for the corporation but it will improve health throughout the world and promote global economic development.