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CPLB Dilemma #6: the ethics of "booster" COVID vaccine shots

The sixth edition of CPLB Dilemmas is now online. This edition asks: should rich countries give “booster” COVID vaccines to their own citizens, given that they can send these doses to countries where the majority is still unvaccinated?

After an overview of the dilemma by CPLB’s Nir Eyal and Monica Magalhaes, Frank Jackson of the Australian National University offers an argument for a second-best solution where, in the near term, rich countries get booster shots but in the longer term vaccine availability is increased worldwide. While not optimal, in his view this solution is less risky than the more desirable alternative of diverting shots from richer countries to poorer ones. NYU's Arthur Caplan questions whether such diversion would be both feasible and morally required, considering the sized of existing vaccine stockpiles in rich countries, these countries' obligations towards their own citizens, and the need for clear prioritization for fair global vaccine distribution. CPLB's Nir Eyal raises political reasons why "boosters" for Americans may in practice make it easier to vaccinate the world. CPLB's Monica Magalhaes argues that only plans for supra-national action can counteract the existing incentives that maintain unequal distribution of vaccines. Malabika Sarker of Bangladesh's BRAC University closes the debate by raising pragmatic and ethical reasons for redistribution of vaccines, which in her view are both ethical and in the self-interest of rich nations due to the globalized nature of the economy and the pandemic.

Dilemmas is a section of the CPLB website devoted to conversations on pressing normative questions of health policy and population health. Dilemmas will bring together contributions from a diversity of disciplinary perspectives, including those of population-level bioethics, medicine, epidemiology, economics, health policy, philosophy, law, and others. Rather than attempting to converge on a consensus, the goal is to think together about a hard question relating to ethics and health.