Is the CDC Using Science or Social Justice Ideology for Vaccine Prioritization?

Katie Pavlich | December 18, 2020 6:30 PM

The Center’s for Disease Control, the federal government entity responsible for evaluating the most efficient way to combat Wuhan coronavirus, could be making future vaccine recipient and prioritization determinations on “diversity” instead of age.

According to the CDC website, the "ethics" portion of an official presentation includes "providing justice."

According to the CDC and listed in the science section of the presentation, the elderly are the most at risk of death due to Wuhan coronavirus. The CDC also confirms "older adults in congregate settings are disproportionately affected by COVID-19."

Regardless, the CDC is weighing whether the government should prioritize vaccination for other risk groups instead, essentially because they are more racially diverse.

In a piece published in the New York Times on Thursday, this concept and vaccine strategy was echoed and endorsed by a professor on a committee that advises the CDC on these decisions. (Bolding is mine)

An independent committee of medical experts that advises the C.D.C. on immunization practices will soon vote on whom to recommend for the second phase of vaccination — “Phase 1b.” In a meeting last month, all voting members of the committee indicated support for putting essential workers ahead of people 65 and older and those with high-risk health conditions.
Historically, the committee relied on scientific evidence to inform its decisions. But now the members are weighing social justice concerns as well, noted Lisa A. Prosser, a professor of health policy and decision sciences at the University of Michigan.
“To me the issue of ethics is very significant, very important for this country,” Dr. Peter Szilagyi, a committee member and a pediatrics professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, said at the time, “and clearly favors the essential worker group because of the high proportion of minority, low-income and low-education workers among essential workers.”
That position runs counter to frameworks proposed by the World Health Organization, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, and many countries, which say that reducing deaths should be the unequivocal priority and that older and sicker people should thus go before the workers, a view shared by many in public health and medicine.