The importance of ethics to pandemic planning is in the "the application of value judgements to science" [15] , especially as they are embedded in planning assumptions, and within the practice of medicine itself. For example, while ethics might have little to contribute to understanding the mechanism of influenza virus transmission, it can make a significant contribution to debates such as what levels of harm the public are prepared to accept, how the burdens of negative outcomes should be distributed across the population and whether or not more resources should be invested in stockpiling antiviral medications.