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The Ethical Principles of Public Health

dc.hillsdale.edu

21–30 of 67 posts

Re: The Ethical Principles of Public Health

#21

Coronavirus hit New Zealand in 2020, and by May 2nd twenty people had died. New Zealand implemented lockdowns and ordered vaccines, although they took a while to come. By the end of October 2021, 28 people had died of Covid in New Zealand. They had massively attended sporting events at the height of the world pandemic as coronavirus was undetectable in the country. Once pretty much any one who wanted to be vaccinated…

> dead of Covid

w/covid

Re: The Ethical Principles of Public Health

#22
post #3

1. 'Make sure your wife is overseeing your ethical decisions - you won't get anything done without the right support structure in place' - Fauci. 2. 'Work for 40 years in the same job, be responsible for allocation of resources received from pharmaceutical companies, never retire!' - also Fauci.

3. Fund gain-of-function research.

Re: The Ethical Principles of Public Health

#23

Food for thought: "Greenough, P. (1995). Intimidation, coercion and resistance in the final stages of the South Asian Smallpox Eradication Campaign, 1973–1975." https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/0277-9536(95)00035-6 Assignment: As an exercise in arguing both sides of an issue with equal fervor, construct arguments in favor of coercive measures (for example, without such measures, eradication of smallpox would have failed) a…

genius. maybe also publicly agree with yourself to show people it's possible

Re: The Ethical Principles of Public Health

#24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A major assumption in the 'principle of least harm' on forcing people to get vaccines is that the vaccines are well-characterized in terms of efficacy and side-effects. In the case of the smallpox vaccine, it was a sterilizing vaccine (i.e. there were zero breakthrough cases post-vaccination as far as I know, so it could be used to effectively eliminate the virus from human populations), and the side-effects, though…

These guidelines aren't specific to COVID though, and they are not conditioned upon any projected efficacy or disease severity. They are laid out as a matter of principle, valid even assuming, say a 90% fatal disease and a 90% effective vaccine with only minor side-effects.

There's two general reasons for a person to get a vaccine. One is that it makes them healthier, and the other is that it makes society healthier.

If the person gets to choose, then there's a natural counterbalance against things that are harmful to the person but good for society. Only an idiot would turn down a vaccine that has a 90% chance of saving their life.

If society gets to choose, then forcibly sterilizing poor single mothers/disabled people /those of poor breeding/etc might be on the table again. (It's a health intervention that is bad for the individual but also leads to a healthier next generation)

Re: The Ethical Principles of Public Health

#25

6. Public health emergencies like a deadly, highly infectious pandemic require emergency measures. Quarantine the infection to reduce the spread. Spend public funds to create and deliver vaccines. Prohibit access to public resources like schools without proof of vaccination.

6. There are no silver bullets. People have the right to assess their personal risks & do not have the right to coerce others. During the time of pandemics, irrational fear is high. Solutions offered as silver bullets should be viewed with increased scrutiny.

Re: The Ethical Principles of Public Health

#26
FYI -- Hillsdale College does not have a public health program and is not an accredited school of public health (SPH). Their document on "Ethical Principles of Public Health" feels more political than oriented around public health. There are people at actual SPHs that work on public health ethics, it might be worth focusing on those instead of amplifying whatever this is.

Re: The Ethical Principles of Public Health

#27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These guidelines aren't specific to COVID though, and they are not conditioned upon any projected efficacy or disease severity. They are laid out as a matter of principle, valid even assuming, say a 90% fatal disease and a 90% effective vaccine with only minor side-effects.

There's two general reasons for a person to get a vaccine. One is that it makes them healthier, and the other is that it makes society healthier. If the person gets to choose, then there's a natural counterbalance against things that are harmful to the person but good for society. Only an idiot would turn down a vaccine that has a 90% chance of saving their life. If society gets to choose, then forcibly sterilizing p…

[deleted]

Re: The Ethical Principles of Public Health

#28
post #26

FYI -- Hillsdale College does not have a public health program and is not an accredited school of public health (SPH). Their document on "Ethical Principles of Public Health" feels more political than oriented around public health. There are people at actual SPHs that work on public health ethics, it might be worth focusing on those instead of amplifying whatever this is.

Well let's see which health experts signed it...

Roger Severino, vice president of the Heritage Foundation.

He's a lawyer with no medical training. I guess his credentials for health is Trump appointed him as an HHS lawyer to undo what Severino called the "radical gender ideology" of Obama.

Re: The Ethical Principles of Public Health

#29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These guidelines aren't specific to COVID though, and they are not conditioned upon any projected efficacy or disease severity. They are laid out as a matter of principle, valid even assuming, say a 90% fatal disease and a 90% effective vaccine with only minor side-effects.

There's two general reasons for a person to get a vaccine. One is that it makes them healthier, and the other is that it makes society healthier. If the person gets to choose, then there's a natural counterbalance against things that are harmful to the person but good for society. Only an idiot would turn down a vaccine that has a 90% chance of saving their life. If society gets to choose, then forcibly sterilizing p…

Vaccines generally don't make you healthier, they protect you from potential illness (so you keep a baseline in the future rather than increasing).

Forcible vaccination is bad, but I think it's hard to start from freedom of association and then argue that a vaccinated majority can't choose to exclude unvaccinated people from things. This is society choosing, but the consequence isn't forced vaccination, it's telling the unvaccinated "good luck, stay away from here".

Re: The Ethical Principles of Public Health

#30
post #17
post #11

0. Don't lie to the public. Even though you may think it is helpful in the short run, it is devastating in the long run. All the rest is commentary.

> 0. Don't lie I think this is also good advice for engineering teams, companies, humans.

But it's not that damaging if it's not a trust based institution. When Facebook writes next to their ads "recommended for you", I know that's a lie. But it doesn't bother me that much. When government medical leaders say that wearing a mask is worse for you, unless you go through 6 years of medical training to learn how to properly put on a mask, I ignore almost any future advice from them.
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