On April 3-5, 2011, a symposium on Disaster Bioethics was held at the Brocher Foundation near Geneva, Switzerland. This Symposium brought together a distinguished group of international experts to examine bioethics in the context of disasters. One of the aims of the Symposium was to produce resources which would help to stimulate and promote further discussion of disaster bioethics. The original presentation slides are provided below, and the materials were developed into an edited book: Dónal P. O’Mathúna, Bert Gordijn, & Mike Clarke (eds.). Disaster Bioethics: Normative Issues When Nothing is Normal. Dordrecht: Springer, 2014.
We are grateful for the funding provided for the symposium by Brocher Foundation, Porticus UK, The Cochrane Collaboration and Dublin City University. For further information, contact donal.omathuna@dcu.ie
The presentations are listed in the order in which they were given. Clicking on the title will lead to a pdf of the PowerPoint slides. Note: some files are very large. Audio files of the presentations will be available here in the near future. The original programme for the symposium is available here.
Evidence and healthcare needs during disasters; Aasim Ahmad, Chairperson Bioethics Group, Aga Khan University and Chief Nephrologist, The Kidney Centre, Karachi, Pakistan
Setting disaster research priorities; Virginia Murray, Head of Extreme Events and Health Protection, Centre for Radiation, Chemicals and Environmental Hazards, UK Health Protection Agency, London, UK
Ethical issues in pandemic communications; Joseph Scanlon, Professor Emeritus, Emergency Communications Research Unit, Carleton University, Canada
Micro-triage in the midst of disasters; Michael Barilan, MD, Tel Aviv University, Israel
When relief comes from a different culture; Athula Sumathipala, Senior Lecturer, King’s College London and Director, Institute for Research & Development, Sri Lanka
Preparing and taking care of the carers; Herman Delooz, Professor Emeritus of Emergency Medicine, Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium
Caring for disaster researchers; Wolf Dombrowsky, Prof. dr., Steinbeis University, Berlin, Germany
Caring for disaster researchers; Ruth Macklin, Professor of Bioethics, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York, USA
Macro-triage in disaster planning; Henk ten Have, Director, Center for Healthcare Ethics, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, USA
Research ethics governance in disaster situations; Doris Schopper, MD, DrPH, Chairperson, Ethics Review Board, Médicins Sans Frontières, Geneva, Switzerland
Anticipating ethical concerns during disaster research: perspectives from South Africa; Keymanthri Moodley, Head of Bioethics Unit, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa
Benefit and harm assessment in healthcare research and practice in disaster settings; Evelyne Shuster, PhD, Medical Ethicist, Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Philadelphia, USA
Benefit and harm assessment in healthcare research and practice in disaster settings; George Annas, Professor of Health Law, Bioethics & Human Rights, Boston University, USA
Recent disasters and ethical issues in health management in Pakistan; Badaruddin Abbasi, Director, National Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Network, Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, Ministry of Health, Pakistan