Questioning Cure: Disability, Identity, and Healing
Next in Our NEH-Supported Online Event Series
Should cure be the ultimate aim of health care? Sometimes aiming at cure entails trying to fix a disability rather than enabling disabled people to flourish. And sometimes it obscures the goal of healing. Disabled writers and educators Anand Prahlad, Ann Millett-Gallant, and Karen Kakamura will discuss how the idea of cure has shaped their own lives and how we can think beyond cure. Join us for part 4 of our online event series, “The Art of Flourishing: Conversations on Disability,” May 11, 3 PM EST. ASL and CART will be provided. The series is supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Learn more and register.
In the Media: Vaccine Hesitancy's "Porous Boundaries"
While more than half of U.S. adults have gotten at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, there are major gaps in who has been vaccinated, and officials are trying to reach vaccine holdouts—a group that will help determine how severe the country’s Covid-19 threat will be in the months ahead. Hastings Center President Mildred Solomon commented on the results of new national survey of 30,000 U.S. adults that identifies the groups who are most vaccine-hesitant and most cut off from access to vaccines. Some states have been “surprisingly slow to deliver, even to people who want to be vaccinated,” Solomon said in an interview with Morning Consult, which conducted the survey. Noting especially high vaccine opposition in five states—Mississippi, Idaho, South Dakota, West Virginia, and Oklahoma--where 28% of adults say they don’t plan to get shots, Solomon said: “This is a setup for dangerous clustering of infections, in different states or regions. That’s going to affect everybody’s safety. These regions have porous boundaries.” Read the Morning Consult article.
From Hastings Bioethics Forum: Vaccination in Rural Areas; Trust in Experts
Does vaccine hesitancy explain why vaccine doses in rural areas remain unclaimed? “We must check our assumptions to prevent a false narrative that could cause harm by reinforcing a false belief that rural residents are not interested in vaccination,” writes Lisa M. Lee, a professor at Virginia Tech who was the executive director of the Presidential Commission for Bioethical Issues under President Barack Obama. Read “Vaccine Hesitancy in Rural Communities: Checking Our Assumptions.”
How are people supposed to trust scientific experts when those experts disagree—for example, about whether scientific evidence supports delaying the second shot of Covid-19 vaccines?“When people are asked simply to trust biomedical experts, there seems to be a discounting of the real possibility and appropriateness of scientific disagreements,” writes Hastings Center fellow Inmaculada de Melo-Martin, of Weill-Cornell Medical College. “The exhortations might leave people confused, skeptical, and unsure whom to trust.”Read “Exhortations to Trust Biomedical Experts: What’s Missing?”
Upcoming Events
"Questioning Cure: Disability, Identity, and Healing." Disabled writers and educators Anand Prahlad, Ann Millett-Gallant, and Karen Nakamura discuss how the idea of cure has shaped their own lives and how we can think beyond cure. May 11, 3 pm EST.
"Planning for Seniors Housing in Changing Cities: A Cross National Exchange." Hastings Center research scholar Nancy Berlinger will speak on priority topics related to seniors housing. May 11-12, 12 pm EST.
"Binocularity: A Conceptual Tool for Comprehending and Respecting Persons." Senior research scholar Erik Parens will be presenting as part of the Montreal Health Ethics Conference Series 2021: Wellness, Health, and Human Flourishing. May 27, 12 pm EST.
"Do Genetic Findings Impact Perceptions of Responsibility?" sponsored by the Center for Research on Ethical, Legal and Social Implications of Psychiatric, Neurologic & Behavioral Genetics and Columbia Irvine Medical Center in collaboration with The Hastings Center. May 28, 9 am EST.
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