Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T22:32:27.048Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

What is an Epidemic?: Currents in Contemporary Bioethics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Abstract

Image of the first page of this content. For PDF version, please use the ‘Save PDF’ preceeding this image.'
Type
JLME Column
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 2014

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

The reason we cannot say precisely how many times the term is used is that many historians think parts of Hippocrates's book were, like the Bible, altered or written by later commentators.Google Scholar
Hippocrates, , Of the Epidemics, 400 BCE, available at <http://classics.mit.edu/Hippocrates/epidemics.html>(last visited August 1, 2014).(last+visited+August+1,+2014).>Google Scholar
Oxford dictionary, s.v. “epidemic,” available at <http://oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/epidemic>(last visited August 1, 2014).(last+visited+August+1,+2014).>Google Scholar
Walton, J. Beeson, P., The Oxford Companion to Medicine (1st ed.), Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1986).Google Scholar
Lock, S. Last, J. Dunea, G., The Oxford Companion to Medicine, 3rd ed. (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2001).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, P. Martin-Grane, E., “2,500-Year Evolution of the Term Epidemic,” Emerging Infectious Diseases 12, no. 6 (2006): 976980.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
See supra note 3.Google Scholar
Sullum, J., “An Epidemic of Meddling,” Reason Magazine (2007), available at <http://reason.com/archives/2007/05/17/an-epidemic-of-meddling>(last visited August 1, 2014).(last+visited+August+1,+2014).>Google Scholar
Doshi, P., “The Elusive Definition of Pandemic Influenza,” Bulletin of the World Health Organization 89 (2011): 532–538, available at <http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/7/11–086173/en/>(last visited August 1, 2014).CrossRef(last+visited+August+1,+2014).>Google Scholar
O'Neil, E. Naumova, E., “Defining Outbreak: Breaking Out of Confusion,” Journal of Public Health Policy 28, no. 4 (2007): 442455.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, M.et al, “When Is an Epidemic an Epidemic?” IMAJ 4 (2002): 36.Google Scholar
The case is admittedly different for children who lack the power (because of ignorance, immaturity, or parental oversight) to control their diet and exercise patterns. See Anomaly, J., “Is Obesity a Public Health Problem?” Public Health Ethics 5, no. 3 (2012): 216221.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mark Rothstein has suggested (in correspondence) that just as many people misleadingly use medical terms to apply to non-medical events – an “epidemic of crime” – they also use non-medical terms to describe our efforts at promoting medical research, as occurs when politicians declare “war on cancer.” This is bound to happen as language evolves, but allowing scientific nomenclature to reflect the evolution of words in popular discourse can be dangerous, since it can impact funding priorities. A similar point about the increasingly vague use of “public health” is made in Rothstein, M., “Rethinking the Meaning of Public Health,” Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics 30, no. 2 (2002): 144149.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
See supra note 10, at 448.Google Scholar
Orwell, G., “Politics and the English Language,” 1946.Google Scholar