11 - Moral mathematics Flashcards
what are 4 ethical challenges which arise from the uncertainty of a pandemic?
- Addressing asymptomatic carriers,
- conducting human challenge trials for scientific insights,
- defining the pandemic’s death toll,
- reconciling early expectations with later realities
What does Hirose argue for PCR testing during the COVID-19 pandemic?
The analysis concludes that random testing of large populations is ineffective and ethically wrong, advocating for targeted testing of high-risk individuals.
what is a human challenge trial, and what are possible ethical concerns?
healthy volunteers are deliberately infected to test vaccines and treatments. Ethical concerns include deliberately exposing individuals to potential harm, the recruitment process’s fairness, and historical parallels with unethical human experimentation
which safety measures are included in HCTs?
Safety measures include selecting young and healthy participants, closely monitoring health conditions, and obtaining informed consent
when are HCTs argued to be morally permissible?
The net benefit must outweigh the risks and emphasizes the importance of a low acceptable level of risk. It discusses uncertainties in risk assessment and suggests cautious regulation, especially considering potential repeated HCTs for different variants. The cumulative risk over multiple HCTs should be carefully assessed and regulated by a central body.
Describe the skepticism around excess mortality during the covid-19 pandemic
It questions the accuracy of reported deaths due to the virus, highlighting potential underestimation when not all deceased persons are tested for COVID-19. Skepticism arises, with concerns about government manipulation of figures leading to distrust.
define excess mortality
the difference between total deaths during a certain period and the average deaths in previous years, is presented as a measure of the net effects of events, expressing the overall impact in terms of lives lost
how can pandemics indirectly affect excess mortality?
pandemic diseases, including COVID-19, can indirectly save lives by triggering interventions that reduce deaths from other cause
which three key examples are put forward by Hirose when considering the importance of counterfactuals in public health assessments?
- downplaying the pandemic’s severity by focusing only on confirmed deaths, neglecting potential worse outcomes without implemented measures.
- critiques the analysis of mathematical models predicting large death tolls, highlighting that projections assume no preventive measures and do not account for the impact of measures actually taken.
- Examines the criticism of Sweden’s light-touch approach, cautioning against evaluating its success solely based on the number of confirmed COVID-19 deaths, emphasizing the need to consider how the situation could have been with a different strategy
what is counterfactual thinking?
concept in psychology that involves the human tendency to create possible alternatives to life events that have already occurred; something that is contrary to what actually happened. Counterfactual thinking is, as it states: “counter to the facts”. These thoughts consist of the “What if?” and the “If only…” that occur when thinking of how things could have turned out differently. Counterfactual thoughts include things that – in the present – could not have happened because they are dependent on events that did not occur in the past.
describe the nature of ethics committees
- within the existing legal framework or the mandate
- multi-disciplinary
- diff opinions at diff levels
- limited timeline
- a set of action-guiding recs
- concessions are necessary to some extent
is it morally okay to infect healthy people with a live virus to do research on them?
- it seems wrong to infect intentionally someone w disease, like no matter what, even to gain scientific knowledge
- question of informed consent & monetary compensation (affects disproportionately?)
- parallelly, you can save hundreds of people by doing it
- what is an acceptable level of risk?
