Meetup 14 : Thursday, February 23rd, 2023 at 5 pm Gva time – 11 am US Eastern time- 4 pm London time
Register here
Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise: The Ethics of Benefit-Cost Analysis.
Conventional benefit-cost analysis is well-established and widely used to assess policy options that profoundly affect public health globally. It is based on a strong normative assumptions, however. These include measuring changes in individual welfare based on peoples’ preferences for exchanging their own money for changes in their own wellbeing, and measuring changes in societal welfare by summing these values across individuals. These assumptions are often challenged on ethical grounds. One set of questions relates to how welfare is defined. For example, should we focus on satisfying individual preferences? On maximizing other measures of wellbeing? Give priority to health over other attributes of welfare? In addition, there are worries that conventional benefit-cost analysis underweights benefits that accrue to the poor, ignores distributional impacts, relies on self-regarding rather than other-regarding (e.g., altruistic) values, and does not adequately distinguish between morally-desirable and undesirable preferences. Outcomes that are difficult to quantify or to value in monetary terms, such as respect for human dignity, also cannot be easily accommodated within this framework.
In this Brocher Meetup, we will explore the ethical dimensions of conventional benefit-cost analysis and alternatives, focusing on approaches that compare harms and improvements using the same metric. These alternatives include the use of subjective wellbeing (“happiness”) units and social welfare functions. We will also discuss pragmatic issues related to applying these approaches to evaluate and prioritize risk reduction policies.
Chair: Sally Davies
Editor, Aeon magazine
sally.davies@aeon.co
Richard A. Horvitz Professor of Law and Professor of Economics, Philosophy and Public Policy, Duke University
adler@law.duke.edu
Assistant Professor in Behavioural Science, London School of Economics
c.krekel@lse.ac.uk
Professor of Medical Ethics, University of Bergen
Ole.Norheim@uib.no
Deputy Director, Center for Health Decision Science, and Senior Research Scientist, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
robinson@hsph.harvard.edu
Brocher Meetup Replays
Special Edition # 1 | 13 November 2020 | The Covid-19 Pandemic: A Humanitarian Crisis
For this special edition, we received:
- Karl Blanchet Professor @ Faculty of Medicine, University of Geneva
- Joanne Liù Doctor @ University of Montreal
- Antoine Flahault Professor @ University of Geneva
- Ciara Staunton Doctor @ Middlesex University of London as moderator
# 1 | 28 January 2021 | Covid and bioethics; What role have bioethicists have played in forming policy, what have we learned so far and how best to be constructive going forward
For this first Brocher Meetup, we received:
Arthur Caplan Professor @ NYU Grossmann School of Medicine
Kiarash Aramesh Assistant Professor @ Edinboro University
Thomas Douglas Professor @ University of Oxford
Jan Heldge Solbakk Professor @ University of Oslo
Yeyang Su Doctor@ Chinese Academy of Sciences of Beijing
Related Bibliography:
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Kupferschmidt, K. (2020) WHO unveils global plan to fairly distribute COVID-19 vaccine, but challenges await. Science ( Link) | World Health Organization (2020) WHO SAGE values framework for the allocation and prioritization of COVID-19 vaccination, 14 September 2020 (Link) | COVAX – Working for global equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines (Link)
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Initiatives from South Africa and India in calling for the IP reform to facilitate access to vaccines in less resourceful countries. Usher, A. D. (2020) South Africa and India push for COVID-19 patents ban. The Lancet. [Online] 396 (10265), 1790–1791.
Springer article (Link)
# 2 | 11 February 2021 | Priority groups for COVID-19 vaccination: Ethics, policy and practice in select jurisdictions
For this second Brocher Meetup, we received:
Françoise Baylis Professor @ Dalhousie University
Gaia Barazzetti Senior Researcher @ University of Lausanne
Angus Clarke Professor @ Cardiff University
Bjorn Hoffman Professor @ University of Oslo
Jan Eerik Leppänen PhD Researcher @ Felm NGO
# 3 | 25 February 2021 | From your perspective, what has been your country's greatest or most unexpected challenge or unintended consequence in relation to Covid-19?
For this third Brocher Meetup, we received:
Diane B. Paul Professor @ University Massachusetts Boston
Meredith Temple Smith Professor @ University of Melbourne
Ruth Chadwick Professor Emerita @ Cardiff University
Flis Henwood Professor @ University of Brighton
Alexandre McClelland Assistant Professor @ Carleton University
Brigìda Riso PhD @ CIES-iscte, Lisbon
Priya Satalkar Dr @ Ghent University
Denise Steers Dr @ University of Otago
Mary Jean Walker Dr @ La Trobe University
Follow this link to watch the replay on our youtube channel: Replay
# 4 | 11 March 2021 | What Have We Learned About COVID Preparedness so Far, and Where Does Bioethics Leads Us?
For this fourth Brocher Meetup, we received:
Barry R. Furrow Professor @ Drexel University
Robert Cook-Deagan Professor @ Arizona State University
Dena S. Davies Professor @ Lehigh University
Stefan Ecks Doctor @ University of Edinburgh
Reed Pyeritz Professor @ University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
Leigh E. Rich Professor @ Georgia Southern University
Follow this link to watch the replay on our youtube channel: Replay
# 5 | 25 March 2021 | Covid and its impact on the ethics of pandemic surveillance
For this fith Brocher Meetup, we received:
Bertrand Taithe Professor @ The University of Manchester
Michael Bartos Honorary Associate Professor @ Australian National University
Lukas Engelmann Doctor @ The University of Edinburgh
Alain Giami Emeritus Research Professor @ INSERM France
Adam Henschke Doctor @ National Security College, College of Asia and the Pacific
Christos Lynteris Doctor @ University of St Andrews
Benjamin Mason Meier Associate Professor @ University of North California
Monika Sawhney Associate Professor @ University of North California
Follow this link to watch the replay on our youtube channel: Replay
# 6 | 29 April 2021 | Mandating Covid-19 Vaccination Certificates and Passports: Benefits, Risks, and Challenges
For this sixth Brocher Meetup, we received:
Ruth Macklin Professor @ Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York
Sharon Bassan @ DePaul University College of Law, Chicago
Diego S. Silva Lecture @ The University of Sydney School of Public Health
Maxwell J. Smith Assistant Professor @ Western University, London, Ontario
Follow this link to watch the replay on our youtube channel: Replay
# 7 | 27 May 2021 | Justice in an Unjust World: COVID -19 and Global Justice
For this seventh Brocher Meetup, we received:
Laurie Zoloth Professor @ The University of Chigago
Anna Berti Suman @ Tilburg University, Institute for law
Tereza Hendl Research Associate @ University in Munich
Euzebiusz Jamrozik Dr @ University of Oxford
Ali Kazemian Chair & Assistant Professor @ Mashhad University of Medical Sciences
Prevan Moodley Senior Researcher @ University of Johannesburg
William Ollier Emeritus Professor @ University of Manchester
Ruud ter Meulen Emeritus Professor @ University of Bristol
John Noël Vina Dr @ The Australian National University
Follow this link to watch the replay on our youtube channel: Replay
# 8 | 8 July 2021 | Visions of a post-pandemic world
For this eight Brocher Meetup, we received:
Sally Davies Editor @ Aeon Magazine
Diane B. Paul Professor @ University of Massachusetts Boston | Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University
Arthur Caplan Professor @ NYU Grossman School of Medicine
Barry R. Furrow Professor @ Drexel University
Ruth Macklin Emeritus Professor @ Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Bertrand Taithe Professor @ The University of Manchester
Laurie Zoloth Professor @ The University of Chicago
Follow this link to watch the replay on our youtube channel: Replay
# 9 | 22 September 2021 | The Ethics of organoids
For this ninth Brocher Meetup, we received:
Sally Davies Editor @ Aeon Magazine
Alysson R. Muotri Dr, Professor @ University of California San Diego
Jan Helge Solbakk Professor @ University of Oslo
Follow this link to watch the replay on our youtube channel: Replay
# 10 | 8 December 2021 | The Past, Present, and Future of Human Experimentation: Research Ethics after Covid-19
For this tenth Brocher Meetup, we received:
Sally Davies Editor @ Aeon Magazine
Andreas Frewer Professor @ Friedrich-Alexander University
Otmar Kloiber Dr @ World Medical Association
Ulf Schmidt Professor @ University of Hamburg
Dominique Sprumont Professor @ Institute of Health Law, Federal Office of Public Health
Follow this link to watch the replay on our youtube channel: Replay
# 11 | 17 March 2022 | Is humanitarianism fit for purpose? Ethical considerations on humanitarian practices from a practitioner and historical perspective
For this eleventh Brocher Meetup, we received:
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Sally Davies Editor @ Aeon Magazine
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Carloline Abu Sa’da Director @ Swiss SOS Méditerranée
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Karl Blanchet Professor @ Geneva Centre for Humanitarian Studies
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Bertrand Taithe Professor @ The University of Manchester
Follow this link to watch the replay on our youtube channel: Replay
# 12 | 31 May 2022 | Navigating the surrogacy labyrinth: the ethical, legal and psychological dimensions for children
For this twelfth Brocher Meetup, we received:
Sally Davies Editor @ Aeon Magazine
Mia Dambach @ Child Identity Protection
Géraldine Mathiew Professor @ University of Namur
Sharon Pettle Dr @ University College London
Follow this link to watch the replay on our youtube channel: Replay
#13 | 14 November 2022 | Ethical and legal complexities in genomic data sharing in consortia: reflections from Asia, Africa and Europe.
For this twelfth Brocher Meetup, we received:
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Sally Davies Editor @ Aeon Magazine
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Ciara Staunton @ Eurac Research
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Calvin Ho @ University of Hong Kong
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Deborah Mascalzoni @ Eurac Research
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Paulina Tindana @ University of Ghana School of Public Health
