Autonomy and Social Responsibility: The Post-Pandemic Challenge.

Over the last 80 years, a series of critical events has led to reconsideration of the basic premises of medical ethics. One of these events was the recognition of horrific medical experiments performed by German medical scientists in World War II concentration camps, resulting in intensified emphasis on a consent requirement, later understood as grounded in the bioethical principle of respect for autonomy, as well as on the moral accountability of the experimenter. Another important event that is forcing a reconsideration of respect for autonomy in medicine and health care is the COVID-19 pandemic. But this time the matter pulls in a different direction, from respect for autonomy to social responsibility, represented in problems as disparate as the wearing of masks, vaccination requirements, and equity in vaccine access and distribution. How can modern bioethics, in part a creature of the response to Nazi crimes, accommodate the intensified sensitivity about public health needs that has accompanied the shock of the pandemic? The responses of European medical ethics to the Nazi era provide tools for bioethics as it faces the challenge now at hand. This article uses historical context from postwar Europe to argue that, in light of the pandemic experience, respect for autonomy must systematically incorporate a commitment to social responsibility.

The Vaccination Cold War.

Surveying the early responses to the Covid-19 pandemic among nation states, one finds a veritable babel of responses, some predictable and some not. Would these results have been different half a century or more ago, when smallpox was eradicated and hopes were high that international cooperation would yield similar results for other infectious diseases? Is this a story about the stability provided by the bipolar postwar world, juxtaposed with the complex geopolitical repositioning that finally followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, or is that too rich an irony? A multipolar world may indeed be less prepared to cope with an international health crisis than a bipolar one. In any case, the patterns of global response are not only reminiscent of the Cold War era itself but also suggestive of a new vaccination cold war.

HEALTH AND LEGAL POLICY IN HUNGARY AT THE TIME OF COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Just as in many countries, the Covid-19 pandemic has posed unprecedented challenges to the Hungarian society in a variety of ways. It was a test to the health care system which had already lacked resources even before the pandemic: deteriorating infrastructure, worsening hygienic conditions, and growing scarcity of doctors and nurses had impaired the health care sector. While it seems that the country survived with a relatively little loss in the first wave of the epidemic between February and May, some political and social changes will remain with us even after the pandemic passes. It has become obvious that the techniques of containing the epidemic can be extended to implement stricter political control over the population. Deploying military rhetoric have also contributed to the normalization of the state of exception: people, in general, got used to the "state of danger" and accepted the disciplinary measures as normal. This fight to suppress the epidemic have therefore strengthened populism in the country as it proved to be a continuation of fights against other enemies (migrants, minorities, foreigners, etc.) in order to unite society behind its leaders. Based on these mixed elements of health and political control, it is necessary to discuss public health measures and extending political control in parallel with each other, as they are inseparable in our biopolitical reality today.