Re: The Bird Flu Pandemic
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Then first question will be do you let those in vegetative states die in order to save healthy people, or do you sacrifice the healthy people and leave the vegetatives on the vents?
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Well this would be a clear violation of the Hippocratic Oath. As well as many other local laws. other than that, I have no input into the greater moral questions being asked. My first instinct is to say pulling dying people off respirators is wrong. I'm not a big 'the ends justify the means' kind of guy.
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I disagree. The Hippocratic Oath states first do no harm and is all nice comfy in conditions of abundant health care resources. In a flu pandemic, I feel battlefield medicine rules apply and triage is in order. Save as many lives as you can with what you have. There is moral debate that usually centers around doing vs not doing: e.g., the classic you are on a train that is going to run over disrupted tracks, derail and kill all 100 people aboard. You have the option to switch to a safe track, but a helpless child is tied to those tracks and would be killed by your action. What do you do?
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