Ethical considerations for mandating food worker vaccination during outbreaks: an analysis of hepatitis A vaccine.

A widespread global outbreak of Hepatitis A virus (HAV) has prompted regulations in a few cities in the United States (US) mandating HAV vaccination of food service workers. This Viewpoint considers the global impact of HAV, analyzes ethical issues pertinent to recent mandatory vaccination regulations and the core values of public health. It explores the health and rights of stakeholders and ethical criteria for mandatory vaccination that could be applied globally with the ethical codes of the World Health Organization and the American Public Health Association. The goal is to help create ethical guidance for determining under what conditions, and for what populations, should regulations be created requiring vaccination for a communicable disease.

Scores on doors: restaurant hygiene ratings and public health policy.

This paper seeks to contribute to the ongoing policy debate about mandated posting of health department hygiene ratings for establishments that sell food. Posted restaurant hygiene ratings, or 'scores on doors,' exemplify a public health transparency policy in the form of words, letters, numbers, or symbols displayed at entrances to food-serving establishments summarizing their most recent health inspection. After describing the scope of restaurant hygiene inspections and the problem of foodborne illness, this paper critically examines the 'mandation' debate on economic, practical, ethical, and legal aspects. It concludes that mandated posting of hygiene ratings, if done properly, is a potentially effective public policy that fosters transparency, population health, and informed consumer choice.

Public Health, Ethics, and Autonomous Vehicles.

With the potential to save nearly 30 000 lives per year in the United States, autonomous vehicles portend the most significant advance in auto safety history by shifting the focus from minimization of postcrash injury to collision prevention. I have delineated the important public health implications of autonomous vehicles and provided a brief analysis of a critically important ethical issue inherent in autonomous vehicle design. The broad expertise, ethical principles, and values of public health should be brought to bear on a wide range of issues pertaining to autonomous vehicles.

The double helix of activity and scholarship: building a medical education career with limited resources.

CONTEXT: Creating respected scholarship from educational and clinical activities is challenging for medical school faculty members. In the USA and Europe, criteria for 'scholarship' has broadened and enriched. However, in developing countries, promotion systems generally continue to emphasise traditional laboratory or clinical research. OBJECTIVE: This paper sets forth a broad conception of scholarship and provides international distribution venues that reinforce the importance of scholarly activity corresponding to clinical and educational work. METHODS: Information sources about non-traditional scholarship included 50 medical school faculty from 20 economically developing nations plus senior faculty from throughout the USA. Resources for distribution venues were drawn from a citation index search, a literature search and Google. RESULTS: The authors provide resources for faculty advancement, including examples of non-traditional scholarship that meet rigorous criteria, and a comprehensive list of venues for the dissemination of educational materials and studies. They give a relative value process for academic work to assist faculty in developing educational scholarship. Finally, they propose a double helix model for academic advancement, consisting of 2 congruent helices with the same axis, 1 representing educational, service or clinical activity and the other scholarly achievement. CONCLUSIONS: These materials and the double helix model will support faculty and promotion committees, especially those from schools that have not yet broadened their view of scholarship, to envisage a realistic starting point and see how educational and clinical activities can generate internationally recognised, high-quality scholarship.

Ethical differences between socialized and HMO systems.

A visiting scholar from the School of Philosophy of Leeds University, England, was invited to participate in a seminar at the Section of Bioethics of Drexel University School of Medicine, which discussed (a) ethical differences between socialized and HMO systems, (b) physician-assisted suicide, (c) reproductive technology, (d) triage and rationing, and (e) organ donation and sale.