Ethics of Disaster Management, Clinical Care and Research

According to Emergency Disasters Data Base — EM-DAT (WHO), there were 16,000 major disasters and over 500,000 deaths in the last hundred years. In 2006, 44% of disasters occurred in Asia. Large-scale disasters in the past few years, such as the tsunami in Sri Lanka, the earthquake in Pakistan, the floods in India, Hurricane Katrina in the USA, the landslides in the Philippines, the earthquake in China, the Myanmar typhoon and most recently, the earthquake in Haiti, have brought up many novel challenges in the fields of human rights, research, ethics and social policies.

Seen in this light, this special issue of the Asian Bioethics Review focusing on ethical issues related to disasters matches a timely need. It bring to the fore a rich collection of real life experiences presented comprehensively by academics from Asia and Australasia.

As this series of articles highlights, although the occurrence of natural disasters may be unavoidable, the subsequent chain of events that takes place after such disasters indicates the repeated breach of ethical conduct by the very professionals who should actually be making a difference in the lives of survivors. It is understandable that even though disasters may be predictable to some extent, they may not necessarily be preventable. However, as articles in this issue indicate, there is a dire need to reinforce the message that a lot needs to be done in the area of ethical conduct following disasters.

Disasters ultimately cause destruction, death, disarray, distress, disease, and displacement. Management of every single component has strong ethical implications. Authors have put forward a concept of “ethical entry” into disasteraffected communities which should be seriously considered by those who are “duty bound” not to add anything negative to the consequences already faced by disaster survivors.