In a recent CDC webinar, “Ethics and Equity in Crisis Standards of Care,”  Matthew Wynia, MD, MPH, underscored how complicated—and imperfect—medical ethics can be during disaster response.  “This is why ethical dilemmas arise—because you have a circumstance in which you cannot optimize all of your key ethical principles,” Dr. Wynia said. “You have to pick some that are going to exceed the value of others.”

For example, equity is important—even when trying to maximize the number of lives saved. In the rollout of vaccines, public health authorities sometimes prioritized older populations over people who have been historically marginalized.  Read article>>