BIOETHICS AND PANDEMICS

Infectious disease pandemics have emerged with often devastating morbidity and mortality since the beginning of recorded history. In the current era, COVID-19 has provided a multitude of examples of bioethical questions and challenges, including government preparedness, drug and vaccine development and legal approval, sufficient efficacy of prevention and treatment, resource allocation, and what information people give credibility to and which determine their behaviors. While COVID-19 was unique, many of the bioethical and policy concerns had precedent.

This course will explore examples of how bioethical and policy decision-making can have different effectiveness in the context of modern pandemics, although illustrative and unique aspects of some pre-19th century and multi-era pandemics will be examined. Modules will explore how ethical, policy, legal and social challenges are responded to in the context of different pandemics and how they differ from similar decisions and processes in “peace time”. Bioethics and related policy responses predictably arise before, during and in the aftermath of a pandemic.

In addition to bioethical concerns, including social justice, pandemic response raises policy, legal and social challenges, including: individual preference versus societal benefit, risk and opinion of individual harms, and changes in local and national laws. Policy response occurs at every level of government and within institutions: international organizations such as the World Health Organization and the World Organization for Animal Health (WHO, WOAH), national governments, state and local governments, health care and other institutions, healthcare providers and others. The impact of misinformation and disinformation on personal and political decision making will also be explored.