Wounded Planet: How Declining Biodiversity Endangers Health and How Bioethics Can Help

Description

Exploring the interconnectedness of human health, biodiversity, and bioethics. We all depend on environmental biodiversity for clean air, safe water, adequate nutrition, effective drugs, and protection from infectious diseases. Today's healthcare experts and policymakers are keenly aware that biodiversity is one of the crucial determinants of health―not only for individuals but also for the human population of the planet. Unfortunately, rapid globalization and ongoing environmental degradation mean that biodiversity is rapidly deteriorating, threatening planetary health on a mass scale. In Wounded Planet, Henk A.M.J. ten Have argues that the ethical debate about healthcare has become too narrow and individualized. We must, he writes, adopt a new bioethical discourse―one that deals with issues of justice, equality, vulnerability, human rights, and solidarity―in order to adequately reflect the serious threat that current loss of biodiversity poses to planetary health. Exploring modern environmental challenges in depth, ten Have persuasively demonstrates that environmental concerns can no longer be separated from healthcare challenges, and thus should be included in global bioethics. Going beyond an individualized perspective, he poses audacious questions: What does it mean that patients are poor or uninsured and cannot afford suggested medicines? How can we deal with the air and water pollution that are producing a patient's illness? How do we respond to patients complaining about the safety and quality of drinking water in their neighborhood? Touching on infectious and noncommunicable diseases, as well as food, medicine, and water, Wounded Planet transcends the limited vision of mainstream bioethics to compassionately reveal how healthcare and medicine must take a broad perspective that includes the social and environmental conditions in which individuals live. Contents Preface 1. Global Bioethics and the Environment Bioethics Environment Global Bioethics Bioethics as Biomedical Ethics Environmental Ethics Reconnecting Biomedical and Environmental Ethics Conclusion 2. Biodiversity Biodiversity: A New Focus Environmentalism Popularity of Biodiversity Biodiversity and Bioeconomics From Environment to Biodiversity Values and Ethics Broader Bioethics: The Need for Different Ethical Discourse Conclusion 3. Health Health and Environment Health and Biodiversity What Is New? Global Health Relational Context Governance Ethical Implications A Different Normative Grammar The Lesson from Biodiversity and Health Relational and Inclusive Ethics Conclusion 4. Disease Bioinvasion Infectious Diseases Biosecurity Noncommunicable Diseases Conclusion 5. Drugs Gifts of Nature Traditional Medicine Comprehensive Global Medicine Global Inequality and Injustice Global Bioethics Policies An Ethical Assessment An Unfair System Conclusion 6. Food Agriculture and Ethics Food Security Protecting Biodiversity Human Health and Food Different Ways of Producing Food Food Regimes Food Consumption Ethics and Food Global Bioethics: Going to the Roots Conclusion 7. Water Water Crisis Water Ethics Water Security Water as Commons Right to Water Water Justice Water Governance Conclusion 8. Global Bioethics in Practice Individual and Social Ethics Global Bioethics Globalization Inequality Criticizing the Roots of Problems The Fundamental Challenge of Climate Change Commons Justice Global Bioethics Practices Governance Framing Awareness Raising Advocacy Grassroots Activities Conclusion Notes Index A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z