What are the ethics and social acceptability of vaccine mandates?

As the latest COVID-19 surge continues to rage throughout the United States, some states such as California have mandates vaccination for healthcare workers and other states have resisted mandates.

For this panel, we will be discussing the ethics of vaccine mandates, what kind of exception should exist, and what sorts of penalties are appropriate.



Moderator: David Magnus

Editor In-Chief, The American Journal of Bioethics

Panellists: Arthur Caplan, PhD

Seema Mohapatra, JD

Kevin Schulman, MD, MBA

Matthew Wynia, MD, MPH


The discussion includes:

3:35 Mandates for healthcare workers. What would justify requiring healthcare workers to be vaccinated rather than to keep it voluntary, what are the key factors and are we at that point today?

12:08 Can behavioral economics approach to recruitment and more concerted marketing should be attempted prior to implementation of mandates?

17:45 How should we ensure that the vaccine requirements increase equity rather than decrease it?

25:31 Should there be religious exemptions for any employment-based mandates or is the undue hardship requirement met by concerns for health and safety of the workforce?

27:17 How religious exemptions should be defined?

Q&A:

48:03 Should people who have already had COVID be exempted, if they can demonstrate through an antibody tighter or because you've previously tested positive that you don't need to be vaccinated?

50:15 Mandates for non-healthcare workers.

54: 34 What does the strategy to address different targets of mistrust entail?


Panellists’ bios:

Arthur Caplan, PhD is the Drs. William and Virginia Connolly Mitty Professor and founding head of the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU School of Medicine. During the Covid-19 pandemic, he created a working group on coronavirus vaccine challenge studies, developed an ethical framework for distributing drugs and vaccines for J&J, and helped develop rationing policies for NYU Langone Health and many other health systems. He is a member of the WHO advisory committee on Covid-19, ethics, and experimental drugs/vaccines, and he helped set policy for WIRB/WCG for research studies. He was an adviser to Moderna, Inc., and he serves on the NCAA Covid-19 Medical Advisory Group.

Seema Mohapatra, JD is currently the Murray Visiting Professor of Law at SMU Dedman School of Law. Prior to visiting at SMU Dedman School of Law, Professor Mohapatra was a tenured professor at Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law, where she twice earned the Dean’s Fellow title and award for outstanding scholarship. Seema Mohapatra's research interests include the intersection of biosciences and the law, assisted reproduction and surrogacy, international family and health law, health care equity, and informed consent.

Kevin Schulman, MD, MBA is a Professor of Medicine, Clinical Excellence Research Center (CERC) and an Associate Chair of the Department of Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine, and, by courtesy, Professor of Operations, Information and Technology at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. He is the Founding Faculty Director of the Master of Science in Clinical Informatics Management (MCiM).

Matthew Wynia, MD, MPH, is the Director of the University of Colorado’s Center for Bioethics and Humanities. Trained in internal medicine, infectious diseases, public health and health services research, from 1997-2015 Dr. Wynia was a leader in several program areas at the American Medical Association, including the AMA Institute for Ethics, the Center for Patient Safety, the Commission to End Health Care Disparities, and the Improving Health Outcomes’ section on Patient and Physician Engagement. Dr. Wynia has led projects related to ethics and professionalism in health care with the National Academies, the Joint Commission, professional associations and multiple government agencies, on topics from public health to disaster ethics and many more.



About Us

Bioethics Today is a series of panel discussions exploring ethical questions about current events, news, and other bioethics topics.

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