First Place Winner: Katharine Steers, Harvard-Westlake High School, California
Second Place Winner: Katie Nash, Arete Preparatory Academy, California
Short-Essay Competition Judged by Columbia Law School “CAPI” Ethics Center
Applications are closed for this event. Please check back for new events.
We at Neebi are hosting a short 500-word maximum essay competition which will be judged by the Columbia Law School Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity (CAPI). CAPI will be evaluating the essays and selecting the winners who will be recognized on our website.
Deadline for submission: December 20, 2020
Fill out form below to learn more about how to submit your essay
Essay Question:
Pharmaceutical corporations in the United States are at the final approval stages for the COVID-19 vaccine, which will soon be made available to the public. Several of these vaccines were fast-tracked within the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which means that pharmaceutical corporations had more frequent meetings with the FDA to discuss drug development and design, and were granted eligibility for accelerated approval if criteria was met. While many medical professionals feel that the vaccines will be safe even though they were fast-tracked through trials, other medical professionals feel that compromises on vaccine safety might have been made. The vaccines are set for distribution early next year, and government officials will determine how they will be distributed to citizens. Some officials propose that those at greatest risk, such as front-line workers and elderly citizens with underlying conditions, will be the first to receive the vaccines with other citizens to be vaccinated much later.
- Do you think government officials have ethical obligations to the public relating to the vaccines? What kind? Do you feel that citizens who are concerned about the safety of these vaccines have the right not to be vaccinated? Is there a conflicting right that a community might have to require citizens to be vaccinated, or even children attending school to be vaccinated, to reduce disease-spread, COVID-19 deaths, and risks to front-line workers?
- Do you feel that it is ethically-fair to a community for government officials to decide who gets vaccinated first? Should front-line workers receive vaccines before elderly and at-risk citizens? Should the elderly receive vaccines before younger citizens with pre-existing conditions who are at risk, or even young mothers and children?
Applications are closed for this event. Please check back for new events.