Final answer:
Medications are essential when they significantly improve or save lives, especially when no alternatives exist. Misuse and overuse, particularly of antibiotics, can lead to drug resistance and global health issues. The essentiality of medication should be evaluated on individual health benefits, ethical considerations, and broader public health impacts.
Step-by-step explanation:
Medications are essential when they are the only available intervention that can significantly improve or save a patient's life, such as in the case of bacterial infections, where antibiotics can be lifesaving. However, the misuse of antibiotics, for example, can lead to increased resistance and subsequently, a decrease in their effectiveness, posing a serious global health problem. In the case of pandemics, such as Ebola, the moral dilemma arises whether it is acceptable to use untested drugs on patients with grave prognoses. Conversely, withholding a potentially life-saving drug can also be seen as unethical. Furthermore, certain medications may only be essential for a limited time, like those used to treat hypothyroidism during pregnancy, which may not be needed postpartum. On the economic side of the spectrum, evaluating the essentiality of medication becomes a question of weighing the gravity and necessity of the drug against the cost, especially when resources are scarce. In deciding when medication is or isn't essential, it's crucial to consider the cause of the health issue, the potential benefits versus the risks of the medication, and the broader implications of its use on public health. Essential information is defined as that which cannot be removed without changing the meaning or specificity of the sentence. In medical decisions, weighing essential against nonessential becomes a matter of life quality, ethical considerations, and public health consequences.