Passport to freedom? Immunity passports for COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led a number of countries to introduce restrictive 'lockdown' policies on their citizens in order to control infection spread. Immunity passports have been proposed as a way of easing the harms of such policies, and could be used in conjunction with other strategies for infection control. These passports would permit those who test positive for COVID-19 antibodies to return to some of their normal behaviours, such as travelling more freely and returning to work. The introduction of immunity passports raises a number of practical and ethical challenges. In this paper, we seek to review the challenges relating to various practical considerations, fairness issues, the risk to social cooperation and the impact on people's civil liberties. We make tentative recommendations for the ethical introduction of immunity passports.

Antibodies as Currency: COVID-19's Golden Passport.

Due to COVID-19, the fragile economy, travel restrictions, and generalized anxieties, the concept of antibodies as a "declaration of immunity" or "passport" is sweeping the world. Numerous scientific and ethical issues confound the concept of an antibody passport; nonetheless, antibodies can be seen as a potential currency to allow movement of people and resuscitation of global economics. Just as financial currency can be forged, so too is the potential for fraudulent antibody passports. This paper explores matters of science, ethics, and identity theft, as well as the problems of bias and discrimination that could promulgate a world of pandemic "golden passports."

Impact of relational leadership on employees' unethical pro-organizational behavior: A survey based on tourism companies in four countries.

Based on the theory of social construction and self-consistency, this study aims to investigate the mechanism of relational leadership's role in employees' unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB) from the perspective of moral identity and ethical climate. We found that relational leadership negatively correlates with the instrumental ethical climate, positively correlates with caring ethical climate, and exerts no significant impact on the rule ethical climate. Instrumental ethical climate and caring ethical climate mediate the relationship between relational leadership and employees' unethical pro-organizational behavior. In addition, moral identity negatively moderates the relationship between instrumental ethical climate and employees' unethical pro-organizational behavior, and between caring ethical climate and employees' unethical pro-organizational behavior. Furthermore, moral identity positively moderates the relationship between a rule ethical climate and employees' unethical, pro-organizational behavior.

Voluntourism.

A rise in international medical volunteering (IMV) poses complex issues for organizations, clinicians, and trainees to navigate. This article explores ethical implications of IMV, such as scope of practice, continuity of care, and erosion of local health systems, and offers a personal perspective from a related field.

Relocation of study participants for rare and ultra-rare disease trials: Ethics and operations.

Clinical trials for investigational new products to treat rare and ultra-rare diseases typically involve a limited number of research sites recruiting from a small pool of patients dispersed over a large geographical area. When remote access is not possible and participants must be present at a trial site, participation in research may require individuals and their families/caregivers to travel great distances, often at significant cost personally and financially and, frequently, for the duration of the trial. This article addresses the ethical and practical issues associated with the practice of sponsors offering financial and other assistance for relocation to trial sites from significant geographical distances, providing both foundational analysis of the ethical issues as well as actionable policy-level guidance on how to best approach these situations.

Sharks and people: insight into the global practices of tourism operators and their attitudes to shark behaviour.

Shark tourism is a popular but controversial activity. We obtained insights into this industry via a global e-mailed questionnaire completed by 45 diving/snorkelling operators who advertised shark experiences (shark operators) and 49 who did not (non-shark operators). 42% of shark operators used an attractant to lure sharks and 93% stated they had a formal code of conduct which 86% enforced "very strictly". While sharks were reported to normally ignore people, 9 operators had experienced troublesome behaviour from them. Whilst our research corroborates previous studies indicating minimal risk to humans from most shark encounters, a precautionary approach to provisioning is required to avoid potential ecological and societal effects of shark tourism. Codes of conduct should always stipulate acceptable diver behaviour and appropriate diver numbers and shark operators should have a moral responsibility to educate their customers about the need for shark conservation.

Airports, localities and disease: representations of global travel during the H1N1 pandemic.

During summer 2009, the UK experienced one of the highest incidences of H1N1 infection outside of the Americas and Australia. Building on existing research into biosecurity and the spread of infectious disease via the global airline network, this paper explores the biopolitics of public health in the UK through an in-depth empirical analysis of the representation of H1N1 in UK national and regional newspapers. We uncover new discourses relating to the significance of the airport as a site for control and the ethics of the treatment of the traveller as a potential transmitter of disease. We conclude by highlighting how the global spread of infectious diseases is grounded in particular localities associated with distinctive notions of biosecurity and the traveller.

Ethnocentrism is an unacceptable rationale for health care policy: a critique of transplant tourism position statements.

Medical tourism has emerged as a global health care phenomenon, valued at $60 billion worldwide in 2006. Transplant tourism, unlike other more benign forms of medical tourism, has become a flashpoint within the transplant community, underscoring the uneasy relationships among science, religion, politics, ethics and international health care policies concerning the commercialization of transplantation. Numerous professional associations have drafted or issued position statements condemning transplant tourism. Often the criticism is misdirected. The real issue concerns both the source and circumstances surrounding the procurement of donor organs, including commercialization. Unfortunately, many of the position statements circulated to date represent an ethnocentric and decidedly western view of transplantation. As such, the merits of culturally insensitive policy statements issued by otherwise well-intended transplant professionals, and the organizations they represent, must be evaluated within the broader context of foreign relations and diplomacy, as well as cultural and ethical relativity. Having done so, many persons may find themselves reluctant to endorse statements that have produced a misleading social desirability bias, which, to a great extent, has impeded more thoughtful and inclusive deliberations on the issues. Therefore, instead of taking an official position on policy matters concerning the commercial aspects of transplantation, international professional associations should offer culturally respectful guidance.