The Hastings Center will present a two-day virtual health equity summit on Wednesday, January 19, and Thursday, January 20, in collaboration with the American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC) Center for Health Justice, the American Medical Association, the American Nurses Association, the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation, and the American Hospital Association.
Day one-- designed for the general public, as well as health professionals, researchers, and policymakers--will explore the historical underpinnings of the inequities we see today, including the federal and state laws and socioeconomic determinants that have led to shorter longevity and a greater burden of chronic illness on communities of color. Speakers include Isabel Wilkerson, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and author of the best-selling books, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents and The Warmth of Other Suns; Richard Rothstein, author of The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America; and David Williams, an internationally recognized scientist whose TED Talk entitled “How Racism Makes Us Sick” has been viewed over 1 million times.
Day two will offer examples of promising strategies that policymakers, researchers, health care leaders, and caregivers can employ to address inequities through policy, clinical care, medical education, research, and community collaborations. Speakers include Daniel Dawes, a leader in the movement to advance health equity and a key figure in shaping the Mental Health Parity Act and the Affordable Care Act. Full agenda here. Register here. (Zoom account login is required).
Pig-to-Human Heart Transplant: Ethical and Policy Questions
In a medical first, doctors transplanted a pig heart into a patient in an experimental procedure seen as the last hope of saving his life. Hastings Center research scholar Karen Maschke told the Associated Press that it will be crucial to share data gathered from this transplant before using the surgery on other patients. "Rushing into animal-to-human transplants without this information would not be advisable," she said. Read the AP article.
“Xenotransplantation holds great promise as a way to overcome the organ shortage,” write Maschke; Michael Gusmano, a Hastings research scholar and professor at Lehigh University; and Elisa J. Gordon, of Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, in a Washington Post opinion essay. However, they say that “clinical research trials—with human recipients of pig-organ transplants serving as research participants—will need to be conducted” to obtain evidence about the safety and effectiveness of the transplants. Read the Washington Post essay.
Maschke is leading a National Institutes of Health-funded project to help develop ethics and policy recommendations for the first clinical trials involving animal organ transplants, called xenotransplantation. Learn more about the project.
Upcoming Events
"Righting the Wrongs: Tackling Health Inequities," a Hastings Center event in collaboration with the Association of American Medical Colleges, American Nurses Association, American Medical Association, American Hospital Association, and the ABIM Foundation. January 19 & 20. (Zoom account login is required.)
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