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Pfizer Jab Approved for Children, but First Other People need to be Vaccinated
Dominic Wilkinson, University of Oxford; Jonathan Pugh, University of Oxford, and Julian Savulescu, University of Oxford Moderna and Pfizer have released data suggesting that their vaccines are well tolerated in adolescents and highly effective in preventing COVID-19. Canada, the US and the EU have already authorised the Pfizer vaccine in children as young as 12.
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Phobias, Paternalism and the Prevention of Home Birth
By Dominic Wilkinson, Cross post from the Open Justice Court of Protection blog In a case in the Court of Protection last week, a judge authorised the use of force, if necessary, to ensure that a young woman gives birth in hospital rather than at home. The woman (call her ‘P’) has severe agoraphobia, and has barely
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Press Release: ISSCR Guidelines for Stem Cell Research and Clinical Translation
Response to the: ISSCR Guidelines for Stem Cell Research and Clinical Translation “The new ISSCR guidelines provide a much welcomed framework for research that many find ethically contentious. Genome editing, the creation of human gametes in a lab, and the creation of human/non-human chimeras raise fundamental ethical issues that scientists can no longer overlook. The ISSCR
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Special St Cross Seminar summary of Maureen Kelley’s: Fighting Diseases of Poverty Through Research: Deadly dilemmas, moral distress and misplaced responsibilities
Written By Tess Johnson You can find the video recording of Maureen Kelley’s seminar here, and the podcast here. Lately, we have heard much in the media about disease transmission in conditions of poverty, given the crisis-point COVID-19 spread and mortality that India is experiencing. Yet, much of the conversation is centred on the ‘proximal’—or
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Imposter Syndrome And Environmental Sampling
Written by Rebecca Brown Imposter syndrome has received recent, though still fairly limited, philosophical discussion. Scholars such as Katherine Hawley (and, drawing upon Hawley in a recent and excellent podcast, Rebecca Roache), amongst a handful of others have illuminated issues such as how we can develop a useful definition of imposter syndrome, the extent to
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Is Life-Sustaining Treatment Being Lawfully Withdrawn From Patients In Prolonged Disorders Of Consciousness? Nobody Seems To Know
By Charles Foster From the time of the decision of the House of Lords in Airedale NHS Trust v Bland (1993) until the decision of the Supreme Court in An NHS Trust v Y (2018) (which I will refer to here as ‘Y”) it had been understood that the withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment (typically clinically
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Stowaway, Self-Defense, and the Sheriff Case
Written by Hazem Zohny. You and your two fellow astronauts are on your way to Mars when you uncover a stowaway in your spaceship. His mere presence means there won’t be enough oxygen for anyone to survive the journey. You toss him out the spaceship, of course. But what if that stowaway is there by
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Cross Post: Vaccine passports: why they are good for society
Written by Barbara Jacquelyn Sahakian, University of Cambridge; Christelle Langley, University of Cambridge, and Julian Savulescu, University of Oxford As more and more people get vaccinated, some governments are relying on “vaccine passports” as a way of reopening society. These passports are essentially certificates that show the holder has been immunised against COVID-19, which
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A Juror’s Guide to Going Rogue
Written by Doug McConnell A jury recently acquitted several activists charged with causing £25,000 worth of damage to Shell’s HQ in London despite the defendants admitting that they caused the damage and the judge informing the jury that the defendants had no legal defence. In other words, if the law were applied correctly, the jury