Berman Institute Monthly Newsletter – October 2020
October 2020
Announcements
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has appointed Brendan Saloner, PhD, as a Bloomberg Associate Professor of American Health in the Department of Health Policy and Management. This is an endowed position supported by the Bloomberg American Health Initiative through a gift from Bloomberg Philanthropies.
Saloner is an associate professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management, with a joint appointment in Mental Health. He is also core faculty in the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. His research focuses on the intersection of health and social policy, particularly on the role of public programs that serve people with substance use disorders.
Cynda Rushton, along with Theresa Brown, the American Journal of Nursing, and New Voice Strategies published a report titled “The Wisdom of Frontline Nurses: 14 Solutions.” This report is a culmination of stories solicited from nurses from around the country. The 14 summary recommendations from those at the front line provide an important perspective born of the reality of dealing with dying patients and grieving families, making do with unsafe equipment, fearing for their own lives and those of their families, and knowing that it didn’t have to be this way.
This fall, the Berman Institute quickly created and offered a new elective, Ethical and Policy Challenges in the Era of Covid-19: Implications for Clinical Practice, Research and Public Health. The elective was made available to medical students whose in-person clinical rotations were disrupted by the pandemic.
The Berman Institute virtually hosted the 2nd Annual Stavros Niarchos Foundation Bioethics Academy, in which panelists unraveled some of the prominent and interesting ethical dilemmas that affect us all during the COVID-19 pandemic that has changed our world dramatically. Nancy Kass, Ruth Faden, Jeffrey Kahn, and Jeremy Sugarman served as panelists.
Joe Ali is hosting a podcast on Ethics, COVID-19 & Africa along with colleagues from the continent. The goal of this podcast series is to explore, from an African perspective, the ethical challenges facing government, institutions, researchers, and the public as we collectively manage the COVID-19 pandemic. The topics covered include:
- Ethical Aspects of COVID-19 and Non-COVID-19 Research during the Pandemic (mp3)
- The Public Health Response to COVID-19 (mp3)
- Health System Preparedness and Clinical Ethics Issues in Ethiopia (mp3)
- Application of Digital and Mobile Technologies in the Context of COVID-19 (URL)
The Berman Institute has created a YouTube series of short Bioethics Conversations on COVID-19 and other ethics topics. Episodes include:
Events
October 12, 12:00 – 1:00 PM EST
Seminar: An African Philosophical Perspective on the Tension between Autonomy and Solidarity
Caesar Atuire, PhD
This event will take place on Zoom. The passcode for the event is: Atuire
October 15 – 18
The Berman Institute will be well represented at the virtual 22nd annual meeting of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities(ASBH), with a group of faculty, fellows, and students scheduled to present. Visit our virtual exhibit and see the schedule of Berman Institute affiliates’ presentations.
The Berman Institute will sponsor the plenary session: Social Justice and Bioethics through the Lens of the Story of Henrietta Lacks. Topics include structural injustice; the perspective of members of the Lacks family; a retrospective on law, social justice, and bioethics from the release of the Belmont Report in 1979 to the present; and a discussion of how architecture and design can represent legacy and naming. An audience Q&A will follow the panel presentations.
The Institute is a co-sponsor of a special performance by Theater of War at ASBH on Saturday, October 17th from 6:00 – 8:30 PM EST. This special presentation of Antigone in Ferguson on Zoom will foreground the perspectives of people in Baltimore, Maryland whose lives have been impacted by racialized police violence and health inequity. The performance is free and open to the public; register for this free Zoom event. Watch the trailer here.
October 26, 12:00 – 1:00 PM EST
Seminar: Humanitarian Ethics and COVID-19
Hugo Slim, PhD
This event will take place on Zoom. The passcode for the event is: Slim
October 30, 12:00 – 1:00 PM EST
Seminar: Viral Justice: Pandemics, Policing, and Public Bioethics
Ruha Benjamin, PhD
This seminar will take place on Zoom. The passcode for the event is: Benjamin
Publications
Outreach
October 28
Yoram Unguru will give a talk to the Leukemia / Lymphoma Society titled Drug shortages, ethical dilemmas, and clinical trials.
October 26
Nancy Kass will give a seminar on “COVID-19 Vaccine Challenge Studies: What are the Ethics of Deliberately Infecting Participants to Speed Up The Science?” at the University of Malaya as part of their Master of Health Research Ethics program.
October 9
Yoram Unguru served as a discussant for a #policyethx Session titled Drug Shortages: Policy Solutions and Ethical Responses, as part of the Harvard Medical School Policy & Bioethics Consortium.
September 30
Jeffrey Kahn was a speaker at an event hosted by the National Academies’ Science & Entertainment Exchange. The event was titled: The COVID-19 Dashboard: Deciphering the Data, Visualizing the Virus.
September 24
Debra Mathews gave a talk titled The Ethics of Gene Therapy as part of the Baltimore-Washington Genetics Group Educational Series at an event called The Treatment of Genetic Disorders: Today and Tomorrow.
September 17
Jess Fanzo and Rebecca McLaren spoke at a webinar on the Food Systems Dashboard: A Decision-Making Tool for Better Food Governance Decisions.
Jeremy Sugarman served on a panel at the President’s Session: Ethics, Legislation and Regulation” of the 2020 Cord Blood Virtual Connect.
September 16
Jess Fanzo gave a talk titled Eating Healthy, Sustainably and Equitably in the Anthropocene Era as part of Tufts University’s Friedman School Speaker Series.
September 10
Jeremy Sugarman spoke at the 2020 Cord Blood Conference – “Path to the Future,” hosted by the Arizona Cord Blood Program. His talk was titled “Ethical Considerations of Stem Cell Use from Cord Blood and Tissues.”