Patient's condition--severe but stable. The press and the medical community: mutual expectations surrounding the health of national leaders.
A value system that espouses the right of an individual to guard his privacy has moral, theoretical and practical validity, while equal weight must be given, morally, conceptually and socially, to a concept that extols freedom of expression and the public's right to know. The built-in contradiction between these two schools of thought is expressed, inter alia, in the inter-relationship between the media and the medical community when the health of a national leader ceases to be his private affair and becomes the legitimate concern of the public. In Israel, no set rules exist regarding how such situations are reported. This article aims to suggest such a procedure.
Benziman
Uzi
U
Jerusalem Center for Ethics. uzib@haaretz.co.il
D030881:Disclosure / Q000941:ethics*; D006801:Humans; D007557:Israel; D008402:Mass Media; D011057:Politics; D012720:Severity of Illness Index