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Errors In Converting Principles To Protocols: Where The Bioethics Of Us Covid‐19 Vaccine Allocation Went Wrong, William F. Parker, Govind C. Persad, Monica E. Peek

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

For much of 2021, allocating the scarce supply of Covid-19 vaccines was the world's most pressing bioethical challenge, and similar challenges may recur for novel therapies and future vaccines. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) identified three fundamental ethical principles to guide the process: maximize benefits, promote justice, and mitigate health inequities. We argue that critical components of the recommended protocol were internally inconsistent with these principles. Specifically, the ACIP violated its principles by recommending overly broad health care worker priority in phase 1a, using being at least seventy-five …