Bioethics, Volume 36, Issue 6, Page 687-698, July 2022.

Should people get vaccinated for the sake of others? What could ground—and limit—the normative claim that people ought to do so? In this paper, we propose a reasons-based consequentialist account of vaccination for the benefit of others. We outline eight harm-based and probabilistic factors that, we argue, give people moral reasons to get vaccinated. Instead of understanding other-directed vaccination in terms of binary moral duties (i.e., where people either have or do not have a moral duty to get vaccinated), we (...) develop a scalar approach according to which people can have stronger or weaker moral reasons to get vaccinated in view of the moral good of vaccination. One advantage of our approach is that it can capture why a person might have strong moral reasons to get vaccinated with Vaccine A, but only weak moral reasons to get vaccinated with Vaccine B. We discuss theoretical strengths of our approach and provide a case study of vaccination against COVID-19 to demonstrate its practical significance. (shrink)

Este número de acceso abierto tiene como objetivo resaltar los puntos de vista de los países latinoamericanos sobre la justicia en un contexto de pandemia y contribuir al diálogo entre estos y con la comunidad científica global. Explora los desafíos globales de la pandemia de COVID-19, las diferencias relevantes entre las medidas de salud pública y su impacto en los países de ingresos altos versus los países de ingresos bajos o medios, y cómo la injusticia global se profundizó debido a (...) la pandemia de COVID-19. También llama la atención sobre las experiencias, los resultados y las respuestas del norte global a la pandemia con respecto a poblaciones vulnerables y trayectorias de exposición que se reproducen en América Latina. (shrink)

This open-access issue aims to highlight views about justice in a pandemic context from Latin American countries and to contribute to the dialogue between them as well as with the global scientific community. It explores the global challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, relevant differences between public health measures and their impact on high-income countries versus low- or middle-income countries, and how global injustice deepened because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It also draws attention to experiences, outcomes, and responses to the pandemic (...) from the global north regarding vulnerable populations and exposure paths that are also present in Latin America. (shrink)

COVID-19 vaccination of children has begun in various high-income countries with regulatory approval and general public support, but largely without careful ethical consideration. This trend is expected to extend to other COVID-19 vaccines and lower ages as clinical trials progress. This paper provides an ethical analysis of COVID-19 vaccination of healthy children. Specifically, we argue that it is currently unclear whether routine COVID-19 vaccination of healthy children is ethically justified in most contexts, given the minimal direct benefit that COVID-19 vaccination (...) provides to children, the potential for rare risks to outweigh these benefits and undermine vaccine confidence, and substantial evidence that COVID-19 vaccination confers adequate protection to risk groups, such as older adults, without the need to vaccinate healthy children. We conclude that child COVID-19 vaccination in wealthy communities before adults in poor communities worldwide is ethically unacceptable and consider how policy deliberations might evolve in light of future developments. (shrink)