Bioethicist, Associate Professor, and CIHR Applied Public Health Chair in Ethics & Health Emergencies @WesternU. Associate Director @rotmanphilo. Views my own.
Oct 16 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
"Did you wear a mask prior to 2020?" / "Don't your current views about masks mean you should've been wearing a mask before COVID?"
A thread of rather obvious responses to these all-too-common 'retorts' to mask-wearing. 🧵
1. 2020 saw the emergence of a brand new virus and the 5th deadliest pandemic in human history. COVID continues to be prevalent year-round and can lead to serious acute and long-term health issues. In a world with COVID, I simply behave differently.
Oct 5, 2022 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
1/ Mask mandates are commonly justified in two ways. The first concerns population-level transmission dynamics. If a mandate is expected to have little or no impact on such dynamics, many will be quick to dismiss a mandate. But this ignores the second justification: inclusion. 🧵
2/ Equity demands inclusion. Making masks optional risks excluding people who rely on those around them to mask to protect their health/loved ones' health.
(Retorts that mask mandates risk excluding those who prefer not to mask ignore that these risks are clearly asymmetrical.)
Feb 3, 2022 • 14 tweets • 5 min read
Take it from a public health ethicist: the vision of public health to help the most vulnerable is grounded in aspirations of social justice, not "doing the greatest good for the greatest number."
In fact, as @DiegoSilvaPhD, @upshur_ross, & I have argued, public health will sometimes perpetuate or worsen the struggles of the least advantaged & most vulnerable due to misunderstanding & uncritically aligning its goals with utilitarianism. link.springer.com/article/10.172…
Oct 3, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
You can freely refuse the jab at a vaccine clinic. Your choice. This is the important moral sense in which consent is voluntary. A *job* requiring vaccination doesn't make your consent less voluntary, just like a job requiring a degree doesn't make going to college involuntary.
If choice 1 (to work in healthcare) requires that you make choice 2 (to get vaccinated), but you don't *have* to make choice 1 (to work in healthcare), then you aren't being *forced* to make choice 2 (to get vaccinated). Choosing whether to meet employment conditions = your call.
Sep 10, 2021 • 20 tweets • 6 min read
Ponesse says she's 'just asking questions' re: ethics & vaccines. But as a fellow ethics prof @WesternU who served on Ontario's Vaccine Task Force, led Ontario's ethics framework for vaxx distribution + WHO's brief on ethics & vaccine mandates, she hasn't asked me any. Telling.🧵
Despite not being asked, I felt that because Dr. Ponesse is 'just asking questions', someone should 'just provide answers'. I'll present what I believe to be the most compelling reasons why vaccine mandates can be ethically justifiable, for what it's worth. 2/n
Sep 9, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
I'm also an ethics prof at @WesternU. She calls herself an "authority on ethics". If she deserves this title, I must as well (though my area of expertise is *actually* public health ethics & I led WHO's policy brief on the ethics of vaccine mandates), & I disagree with her. 1/2
(Though, I would never call myself an 'authority on ethics'. My views on what are right & wrong are not 'authoritative'. Rather, I have *expertise* in, eg, ethical reasoning, ethical dimensions of public health issues. Not: "I'm an ethicist, whatever I say is right".) 2/3
Sep 8, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
The ethics of future #COVID19 vaccine trials deserves more attention. Placebo controls are hard to justify in the context of authorized vaccines. But there are barriers to securing comparator vaccines from manufacturers to conduct trials with active controls. This needs to change
And choosing instead to conduct placebo-controlled trials by locating them in countries with limited access to authorized vaccines is not a good alternative - this would be to repeat past mistakes (e.g., AZT) & further threaten #VaccinEquity
Sep 1, 2021 • 7 tweets • 4 min read
#VaccinePassports are a measure intended to facilitate societal & economic reopening while still trying to reduce community transmission & avoid lockdown. They should be seen not as "imposing restrictions on the unvaccinated" but rather "easing restrictions for the vaccinated"🧵
Because in the absence of our high vaccination coverage, we would likely ALL be experiencing greater restrictions. We are fortunate to be able to facilitate societal & economic reopening by capitalizing on our high vaccination coverage & ease restrictions for the vaccinated. 2/7
Aug 11, 2021 • 13 tweets • 6 min read
@WesternU has announced that it's implementing a #COVID19 vaccination policy for all students, staff, & faculty on campus. Prudent & smart. As a public health ethicist, I thought I'd address some frequently raised concerns about vaccination policies and #vaccinationmandates 1/13
Vaxx policies/mandates do not force anyone to be vaccinated. It's erroneous to call this a forced medical intervention or to reference Nuremberg. Informed consent is still required and people can still choose to not be vaccinated. There are simply consequences to one's choice. /2
