Has mandatory COVID-19 vaccination warped medical ethics?
AusDoc debates whether the demands on Australians to get vaccinated during the pandemic amount to coercive medical interventions
Medical ethics is rooted in patients providing informed consent to treatment.
Obviously, there are cases, such as with severe mental illness, when capacity is impaired and health is seriously threatened; but compulsion is justified because the interventions are administered in the individual’s best interest.
But has the pandemic, and specifically vaccines mandates, shifted the ethical framework?
In Australia, non-health workers faced losing their jobs if they refused vaccination against COVID-19 even if the vaccination was going to be of limited benefit to them as individuals.
