2 Why is ethics important for AMR?

The threat of AMR is well-known: infections that have previously been successfully treated will no longer be treatable. Our knowledge of the risks of AMR means we must take actions to slow resistance and find new ways of treating infections (Parsonage et al., 2017). The implications of action or inaction on AMR are a serious ethical consideration (Littmann and Viens, 2015).

Inevitably, ethical questions on how to respond to AMR come back to antimicrobial use (AMU):

• How do we balance addressing the critical lack of access to antimicrobials faced by large proportions of the global population against overuse and misuse?
• Who should receive antimicrobials and who should not?
• Can we preserve the effectiveness of antimicrobials whilst ensuring everyone (and every animal) has access to effective treatment for bacterial diseases?

Radically reducing AMU raises questions about the ethical limits of preserving antimicrobial effectiveness (Littmann and Viens, 2015).