Dr. Arthur Caplan, chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, says the nation will have other issues to confront when the swine flu epidemic ends.
If you go:
Who: Bioethicist Dr. Arthur Caplan
When: Sunday, May 17, 10:30 a.m.
Where: Anshe Emeth Memorial Temple, New Brunswick
Cost: $15, $12 for temple members
Contact: 732-545-6484.
Advertisement
May 12, 2009
When the panic surrounding the current swine flu subsides, says Dr. Arthur Caplan, the nation will have to confront a new crisis as it deals with ethical questions surrounding the pandemic.
“Can we force people to get vaccinated? And what about doctors and nurses who don’t wash their hands; what do we do, fire them?” are among the issues Caplan says will have to be confronted.
The chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania said he plans to bring up these and other ethical questions surrounding swine flu when he appears Sunday, May 17, at Anshe Emeth Memorial Temple in New Brunswick. Caplan is also the Emanuel and Robert Hart Professor of Bioethics at Penn and author or editor of 25 books and more than 500 articles.
The program was originally slated to be about the ethics of dying in America, but in a phone interview with NJJN, Caplan said he planned to devote a portion of his talk to the swine flu.
Among the most challenging issues confronting America will be the distribution of a vaccine that will be available in the coming months, he said. “Who gets the vaccine once it’s made, since there won’t be enough of it?” he asked. “Will there be rationing and how will that decision be made? Why don’t we do more about regular flu, which kills a lot more people? Half a million people die worldwide from flu every year.”
Caplan, who writes a column on bioethics for MSNBC.com, said he plans to touch on the news media coverage of the swine flu epidemic, which, he said, was not as bad as some have made out.
The media “were crazy at the beginning, with this ‘death is coming to your neighborhood,’ but once they calmed down four or five days later, they did a much better job about informing the public about washing their hands and staying home when you’re sick,” he said.
Rabbi Claudio Kogan, the temple’s director of education, described the issues to be discussed by Caplan as “hot topics.”
Kogan, also a medical doctor and mohel, has just finished a degree in the bioethical master’s program at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, where he came to respect Caplan.
“We as Jewish people believe in ethics,” he said. “I think it’s important to push these issues so that we can live in a better world. This is part of tikun olam.
Comment: comments@njjewishnews.com
--TOP--
