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An Ethical Anaylsis of the Arguments Both For and Against COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates for Healthcare Workers
BACKGROUND: Since the development of the first U.S. Food and Drug Administration–approved vaccine for the prevention of serious disease and death associated with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, health care workers have been expected to comply with mandatory immunization requirements or face potential terminat...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Elsevier
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9659509/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36746692 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jemermed.2022.11.005 |
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author | Myers, MD, Melissa Dunikoski, Leonard Brantner, Richard Fletcher, Debbie Saltzberg, Eugene E. Urdaneta, Alfredo E. Wedro, Benjamin Giwa, Al |
author_facet | Myers, MD, Melissa Dunikoski, Leonard Brantner, Richard Fletcher, Debbie Saltzberg, Eugene E. Urdaneta, Alfredo E. Wedro, Benjamin Giwa, Al |
author_sort | Myers, MD, Melissa |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Since the development of the first U.S. Food and Drug Administration–approved vaccine for the prevention of serious disease and death associated with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, health care workers have been expected to comply with mandatory immunization requirements or face potential termination of employment and censure by their state medical boards. Although most accepted this mandate, there have been several who have felt this was an unnecessary intrusion and violation of their right to choose their own health care mitigation strategies, or an infringement on their autonomy and other civil liberties. Others have argued that being a health care professional places your duties above your own self-interests, so-called fiduciary duties. As a result of these duties, there is an expected obligation to do the best action to achieve the “most good” for society. A so-called “utilitarian argument.” DISCUSSION: We explore arguments both for and against these mandatory vaccine requirements and conclude using duty- and consequence-based moral reasoning to weigh the merits of each. CONCLUSIONS: Although arguments for and against vaccine mandates are compelling, it is the opinion of the Ethics Committee of the American Academy of Emergency Medicine that vaccine mandates for health care workers are ethically just and appropriate, and the benefit to society far outweighs the minor inconvenience to an individual's personal liberties. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9659509 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | Elsevier |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-96595092022-11-14 An Ethical Anaylsis of the Arguments Both For and Against COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates for Healthcare Workers Myers, MD, Melissa Dunikoski, Leonard Brantner, Richard Fletcher, Debbie Saltzberg, Eugene E. Urdaneta, Alfredo E. Wedro, Benjamin Giwa, Al J Emerg Med Ethics BACKGROUND: Since the development of the first U.S. Food and Drug Administration–approved vaccine for the prevention of serious disease and death associated with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, health care workers have been expected to comply with mandatory immunization requirements or face potential termination of employment and censure by their state medical boards. Although most accepted this mandate, there have been several who have felt this was an unnecessary intrusion and violation of their right to choose their own health care mitigation strategies, or an infringement on their autonomy and other civil liberties. Others have argued that being a health care professional places your duties above your own self-interests, so-called fiduciary duties. As a result of these duties, there is an expected obligation to do the best action to achieve the “most good” for society. A so-called “utilitarian argument.” DISCUSSION: We explore arguments both for and against these mandatory vaccine requirements and conclude using duty- and consequence-based moral reasoning to weigh the merits of each. CONCLUSIONS: Although arguments for and against vaccine mandates are compelling, it is the opinion of the Ethics Committee of the American Academy of Emergency Medicine that vaccine mandates for health care workers are ethically just and appropriate, and the benefit to society far outweighs the minor inconvenience to an individual's personal liberties. Elsevier 2023-02 2022-11-14 /pmc/articles/PMC9659509/ /pubmed/36746692 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jemermed.2022.11.005 Text en Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active. |
spellingShingle | Ethics Myers, MD, Melissa Dunikoski, Leonard Brantner, Richard Fletcher, Debbie Saltzberg, Eugene E. Urdaneta, Alfredo E. Wedro, Benjamin Giwa, Al An Ethical Anaylsis of the Arguments Both For and Against COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates for Healthcare Workers |
title | An Ethical Anaylsis of the Arguments Both For and Against COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates for Healthcare Workers |
title_full | An Ethical Anaylsis of the Arguments Both For and Against COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates for Healthcare Workers |
title_fullStr | An Ethical Anaylsis of the Arguments Both For and Against COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates for Healthcare Workers |
title_full_unstemmed | An Ethical Anaylsis of the Arguments Both For and Against COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates for Healthcare Workers |
title_short | An Ethical Anaylsis of the Arguments Both For and Against COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates for Healthcare Workers |
title_sort | ethical anaylsis of the arguments both for and against covid-19 vaccine mandates for healthcare workers |
topic | Ethics |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9659509/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36746692 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jemermed.2022.11.005 |
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