By Arthur L. Caplan and Jerrold L. Abraham. We responded to the review in JME by Monrad about ethical issues in vaccine trials, in which the discussion was limited to secondary vaccine trials (i.e. testing additional vaccines after one or more vaccines have been approved). We are concerned that the ethics of ongoing primary vaccine […]
Month: September 2020
The problem in nursing homes is not Covid-19 – it is nursing homes
By Tania Moerenhout A couple of weeks ago, the New York Times published a scathing article on how the pandemic was handled in Belgian nursing homes, focusing on instances where elderly were declined hospitalisation despite the fact that intensive care beds remained available. Refusing hospital care to nursing home residents was never the official policy, […]
Immunity passports, fundamental rights and public health hazards: A reply to Brown et al.
By Iñigo de Miguel Beriain and Jon Rueda Etxebarria In a recent article published by the Journal of Medical Ethics, Brown et al. analysed several ethical aspects around immunity passports and put forward some recommendations for implementing them. When we first read this paper, we considered that it was an excellent piece of analysis, but […]
Lockdown is not levelling down
By Jonathan A Hughes In their article “Why lockdown of the elderly is not ageist and why levelling down equality is wrong” and their related JME Blog post, Savulescu and Cameron argue for selective isolation of the elderly as preferable to a continuation of general lockdown. Central to their argument is the claim that the […]