Caste Author Isabel Wilkerson to Keynote National Forum "Righting the Wrongs: Tackling Health Inequities"
The Hastings Center, with the Association of American Medical Colleges Center for Health Justice, announced that Isabel Wilkerson, author of Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, will keynote a two-day summit on health equity on January 19-20, 2022. Day one will focus on historical events and decisions that have led to major inequities in health today. Day two will offer insights and examples of promising strategies that health care leaders and practicing clinicians can employ to address health and health care inequities through policy, clinical care, medical education, research, and community collaborations. Additional speakers and partners will be announced soon, along with information to register for the virtual event. Learn more.
Patricia A. King Honored for Impact on Public Policy
Patricia A. King, Professor Emerita of Georgetown Law, has been named the 2021 recipient of The Bioethics Founders’ Award, formerly the Henry Knowles Beecher Award. The award, given by The Hastings Center, recognizes individuals from around the world who have made substantial, sustained contributions to bioethics in ways that have advanced thinking and practice in medicine, the life sciences, and public policy. King will receive the award at a Hastings Center event at the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities annual meeting in October. Learn more.
In the Media: Covid Vaccine Boosters, Resurrecting Woolly Mammoths
Responding to the ongoing controversy over Covid vaccine booster shots, Hastings Center research scholar Nancy Berlinger listed three reasons for feeling morally uncertain about getting a booster: evidence, global justice, and equity. She expressed concern about public health messaging in the U.S. that pushes boosters ahead of data. “We must commit our vast resources to helping poor nations protect their citizens from preventable illness and death. That’s the ‘pan’ part of ‘pandemic.’ This is a moral and ethical imperative,” she said in an interview with Stat. “I know people have said I can’t take my booster and mail it to somebody in the developing world, but we can keep articulating this as an issue.” Read the Stat article.
Hastings Center research scholar Gregory Kaebnick commented on the announcement of a new company called Colossal that aims to recreate the woolly mammoth using Crispr gene-editing technology. “I’m very sympathetic to the idea of trying to recover lost natural phenomena—missing species, the ecosystems that were build around those species,” he told Emerging Tech Brew. “I am very skeptical that we’d be able to bring back the actual species . . . Really, it’s more like creating something brand new that’s similar.” Read the Emerging Tech Brew article. Kaebnick co-edited a special report “Recreating the Wild: De-Extinction, Technology, and the Ethics of Conservation.”
Upcoming Events
"Democratic Deliberation and Gene Editing," a presentation by Hastings Center research scholars Michael Gusmano and Karen Maschke at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association. September 29.
"Creating Health Care Systems of Safety for Immigrants and Refugees," a presentation by Hastings Center research scholar Nancy Berlinger at the Division of Medical Ethics series at Weil Cornell Medicine. September 30.
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