Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

A Multicenter Weighted Lottery To Equitably Allocate Scarce Covid-19 Therapeutics, Douglas B. White, Erin K. Mccreary, Chung-Chou H. Chang, Mark Schmidhoffer, J. Ryan Bariola, Naudia N. Jonassaint, Govind C. Persad, Robert D. Truog, Parag A. Pathak, Tayfun Sönmez, M. Utku Unver

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Shortages of new therapeutics to treat coronavirus disease (COVID-19) have forced clinicians, public health officials, and health systems to grapple with difficult questions about how to fairly allocate potentially life-saving treatments when there are not enough for all patients in need. Shortages have occurred with remdesivir, tocilizumab, monoclonal antibodies, and the oralantiviral Paxlovid.

Ensuring equitable allocation is especially important in light of the disproportionate burden experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic by disadvantaged groups, including Black, Hispanic/Latino and Indigenous communities, individuals with certain disabilities, and low-income persons. However, many health systems have resorted to first-come, first-served approaches to allocation, which tend …

Fair Allocation Of Scarce Therapies For Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid-19), Govind C. Persad, Monica E. Peek, Seema K. Shah

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued emergency use authorizations (EUAs) for monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) for nonhospitalized patients with mild or moderate coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) disease and for individuals exposed to COVID-19 as postexposure prophylaxis. EUAs for oral antiviral drugs have also been issued. Due to increased demand because of the Delta variant, the federal government resumed control over the supply and asked states to ration doses. As future variants (e.g., the Omicron variant) emerge, further rationing may be required. We identify relevant ethical principles (i.e., benefiting people and preventing harm, equal concern, and mitigating health inequities) …

Fair Access To Scarce Medical Capacity For Non-Covid-19 Patients: A Role For Reserves, Govind C. Persad, Parag A. Pathak, Tayfun Sönmez, M. Utku Unver

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

As hospitals in the US and elsewhere fill again with patients with covid-19, discussions about how to fairly allocate scarce medical resources have come to the fore once again. One frequently voiced concern is that non-covid-19 patients with urgent health needs are facing indefinitely postponed surgeries, long-distance hospital transfers, or even are unable to access medical treatment. In our view, a reserve or categorised priority system could help. It could be used to fairly distribute scarce medical capacity—such as staffing, physical space, and medical treatments—between covid-19 and non-covid-19 patients, just as it has been used or proposed to allocate covid-19 …

A Comprehensive Covid-19 Response—The Need For Economic Evaluation, Govind C. Persad, Ankur Pandya

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Recently, the World Health Organization has exhorted countries to fight the Covid-19 pandemic with other interventions in addition to vaccines. But for countries to mount a comprehensive and effective response, more than exhortation is needed. Policymakers must understand the benefits and burdens associated with various policy options. They also have to be equipped to rigorously and systematically compare these benefits and burdens, both when evaluating individual policies and when determining which policies to include in a legislative or regulatory package.

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 …

Dose Optimisation And Scarce Resource Allocation: Two Sides Of The Same Coin, Garth Strohbehn, Govind C. Persad, William F. Parker, Srinivas Murthy

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Objective: A deep understanding of the relationship between a scarce drug's dose and clinical response is necessary to appropriately distribute a supply-constrained drug along these lines.

Summary of key data: The vast majority of drug development and repurposing during the COVID-19 pandemic – an event that has made clear the ever-present scarcity in health care systems –has been ignorant of scarcity and dose optimisation's ability to help address it.

Conclusions: Future pandemic clinical trials systems should obtain dose optimisation data, as these appear necessary to enable appropriate scarce resource allocation according to societal values.