Over at the Washington Post, Megan McArdle looks at the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, and their debate about how to distribute the vaccine, whether to make it available to the elderly who are most likely to die of COVID, or to essential workers, who are slightly less likely to be white people. The Committee chose the essential workers because they are slightly less likely to be white.
McArdle writes: “[T]he discussion of whether to prioritize essential workers was anything but robust. The committee left only 10 minutes for it, during which not one of those 14 intelligent and dedicated health professionals suggested adopting the plan that kills the fewest people.” Then she provides a representative sample of their conversation:
“This is where we can really elevate the issue of health equity”
“If we’re serious about valuing equity . . . we need to have that baked in early on in the vaccination program”
“Strongly agree . . . for equity reasons . . . ”
“I think equity is a priority”
“I want to applaud the entire conversation today around the emphasis on equity and identifying that the racial, ethnic and low-income disparities in the impact of covid warrants prioritization of essential workers”
Oh my.
This is frighteningly similar to those parodies of life under Communism in which every meeting of every professional body had to praise the “revolution” and “the workers” and show themselves at pains to have promoted both by the decisions taken that day. Free-floating talk about what is “just” or moral in absolute terms apart from ideology, would be seen as obvious disloyalty. Recall too, that this is the state of the government under Republican control.
It is such a shame that the medical profession doesn’t have a longstanding body of ethical reflection and restraint that stretches back into classical antiquity. The poor dears are just stuck crudely applying the political fashions of the day.