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Vaccine Questions Ep6: Vaccine solidarity with Dr Siobhán O'Sullivan

14 June 2021

In episode six Dick chats to Dr Siobhán O’Sullivan, Chief Bioethic Officer at the Department of Health about the difficult decisions officials and individuals must grapple with in this pandemic and the values and principles which underpin them. 

While science plays a vital role in informing decisions such as prioritisation for vaccination, these decisions are not made in a vacuum. They impact on all our lives and require assessment of legal, socio-economic factors, and judgements about what is right and wrong and what kind of society we want to live in. Siobhán explains how bioethics provides a framework that helps guide this decision making and Dick asks for her thoughts on complicated questions like should vaccination ever be mandatory, are vaccine passports fair, and are rich countries doing enough to ensure people in poorer countries have access to vaccines. 

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About the series

In this podcast series, science journalist Dick Ahlstrom chats with experts in public health, immunology, virology, bioethics, statistics and behavioural science. He will ask them questions sent in by you and help make sense of the answers.

This series is organised by the Life and Medical Sciences Committee  in partnership with the Health Research Board 

Science CommitteesLife and Health Sciences Committee

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