The ethics of maggot therapy

Abstract

Maggot therapy needs a social licence, which means that regulators, healthcare administrators, doctors, nurses, allied health providers, and patients must accept and support the treatment. Therefore, medicinal maggot production and maggot therapy must be informed and guided by strong animal and healthcare ethics. The first part of this chapter explores the animal ethics of rearing flies in laboratories and using medicinal maggots for wound care. The second part is dedicated to the biomedical and healthcare ethics of maggot therapy. Rather than a definitive treatise, this chapter should be understood as a first-pass examination of ethical issues related to maggot therapy.