Events
3600 Civic Center Blvd, 11-102AB (Hybrid)
Research Ethics & Policy Series (REPS): "Intentionally Infecting Humans: is it Ethical?" - Seema Shah, JD, HEC-C
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2026-09-08 12:00:00
2026-09-08 13:00:00
America/New_York
Research Ethics & Policy Series (REPS): "Intentionally Infecting Humans: is it Ethical?" - Seema Shah, JD, HEC-C
Intentionally Infecting Humans: Is it Ethical?
Seema Shah, JD, HEC-C
Founder’s Board Professor of Medical Ethics
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
Lurie Children’s Hospital
In controlled human infection (CHI) research, researchers intentionally expose people to pathogens to gain powerful scientific insights. CHI research has led to key breakthroughs but remains controversial. In this talk, Prof. Shah will first provide a brief historical overview of this research, demonstrating how ethically problematic research from the past still casts a shadow on research today. She will then explain modern CHI research, demonstrating how a fundamental lack of understanding of this research contributed to ethical controversy during the COVID-19 pandemic that has persisted. Finally, Prof. Shah will provide an ethical framework to govern the appropriate use of this research going forward, with implications for research ethics oversight more generally.
Registration required; Lunch provided
Streaming available via Zoom.
3600 Civic Center Blvd, 11-102AB (Hybrid)
Penn Medical Ethics
3440 Market St Philadelphia, PA
Ethical Reentry: Simulation & Policy Catalyst
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2026-09-09 09:00:00
2026-09-09 15:00:00
America/New_York
Ethical Reentry: Simulation & Policy Catalyst
Overview
Experience & learn about jail reentry & what it takes for returning citizens to rebuild their lives. Help find solutions at this free event.
Ethical Reentry: Simulation & Policy Catalyst is focused on improving outcomes for people returning from incarceration in Philadelphia through a powerful, experiential reentry simulation.
Attendees from government, healthcare, business, higher education, nonprofit organizations, and the community will engage in discussions to identify practical, near-term solutions to barriers facing individuals returning to their communities.
Featured Speakers
Valerie Arkoosh, MD, Pennsylvania Secretary of Human Services
David "Suave" Gonzalez, artist, activist, and Pulitzer Prize–winning podcaster
Jane Golden, Founder of the Mural Arts Philadelphia
Mary Archer, MSW, Assistant Deputy Commissioner of Reentry, Philadelphia Department of Prisons
Event Details
Attendance is free of charge, and lunch will be provided.
The venue is easily reached by SEPTA's Market-Frankford Line, trolley, or bus.
Parking is available in nearby Drexel and Penn garages.
Please Only Register If You Plan to Attend
Because tickets are free, slots fill up quickly. If your plans change, please cancel your registration as soon as possible so we can give your spot to someone else. Thank you for helping us keep this event accessible and full!
3440 Market St Philadelphia, PA
Penn Medical Ethics
CCB 05-031, 5th Floor, 3600 Civic Center Blvd. (Note: Virtual attendees can join by accessing this link: https://upenn.zoom.us/j/95740259034.)
Health Policy Research Seminar: Sonia Bhalotra, FBA
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2026-09-10 12:00:00
2026-09-10 13:00:00
America/New_York
Health Policy Research Seminar: Sonia Bhalotra, FBA
Topic: "Antidepressant Treatment in Childhood."
Lunch will be served. While registration is not required to attend, we encourage you to respond so we can plan appropriately for catering. Please register here.
Mental health disorders tend to emerge in childhood, with half starting by age 14. This makes
early intervention important, but treatment rates are low, and antidepressant treatment for children
remains controversial since an FDA warning in 2004 that highlighted adverse effects. Linking
individuals across Danish administrative registers, we provide some of the first evidence of
impacts of antidepressant treatment in childhood on objectively measured mental health indicators
and economic outcomes over time, and the first attempt to investigate under- vs overtreatment.
Leveraging conditional random assignment of patients to psychiatrists with different
prescribing tendencies, we find that treatment during ages 8-15 improves test scores at age
16, particularly inMath, increases enrollment in post-compulsory education at age 18, and that
it leads to higher employment and earnings and lower welfare dependence at ages 25–30. We
demonstrate, on average, a reduction in suicide attempts, self-harm, and hospital visits following
AD initiation. The gains to treatment are, in general, larger for low SES children, but they
are less likely to be treated. Using a marginal treatment effects framework andMath scores as the
focal outcome, we show positive returns to treatment among the untreated. Policy simulations
confirm that expanding treatment among low SES children (and boys) generates substantial net
benefits, consistent with under-treatment in these groups. Our findings underscore the potential
of early mental health treatment to improve longer term economic outcomes and reducing
inequality.
Sonia Bhalotra is Professor of Economics at the University of Warwick. Her research has contributed to identifying elements of the micro-foundations of inequality and social mobility, with a focus on health and gender. She uses experimental methods on large data sets to illuminate decision-making in families, businesses and government, guided by the belief that good policy depends upon credible evidence. Contributions of her research include identifying maternal health as a source of non-randomness in twin births, long term economic impacts of treatment for depression, conditions under which unemployment benefits can reduce domestic violence, understanding why women do not leave abusive partnerships, how firms respond to sexual harassment legislation, how barriers to opportunity cap long run returns to childhood investments, how improvements in child health liberate women into fulfilling work, how low cost sanitation and nutrition programmes in infancy can lower the risk of chronic disease, how to prospectively select good managers, and the substantive impacts of political representation. Sonia is Fellow of the Royal Economic Society, the UK Academy of Social Sciences, and the International Economic Association. She is Research Fellow at the Institute for Fiscal Studies London, Centre for Economic Policy Research London, Rockwool Foundation Berlin and CESifo Munich, and Visiting Professor at Erasmus University Rotterdam. She serves on the Council of the Royal Economic Society, and on their Standards of Conduct Committee; she is on the Women in Economics Committee of the European Economic Association, Associate Editor of the Economic Journal, and she acts on a number of advisory boards.
CCB 05-031, 5th Floor, 3600 Civic Center Blvd. (Note: Virtual attendees can join by accessing this link: https://upenn.zoom.us/j/95740259034.)
Penn Medical Ethics
VIRTUAL
Penn Bioethics Seminar (PBS): "The Promises and Perils of Palliative Psychiatry: Implications for Psychiatric Ethics" - Daniel Buchman, PhD, MSW
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2026-09-15 12:00:00
2026-09-15 13:00:00
America/New_York
Penn Bioethics Seminar (PBS): "The Promises and Perils of Palliative Psychiatry: Implications for Psychiatric Ethics" - Daniel Buchman, PhD, MSW
The Promises and Perils of Palliative Psychiatry: Implications for Psychiatric Ethics
Daniel Buchman, PhD, MSW
Associate Professor
Dalla Lana School of Public Health, dept. of psychiatry
University of Toronto
senior Scientist, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health
Palliative psychiatry has emerged as a potential framework that applies the principles of palliative care for serious physical illnesses to people living with severe and persistent mental illnesses (SPMI). This talk examines the ethical foundations of palliative psychiatry and its implications for practice. First, Dr. Buchman defines palliative psychiatry and distinguishes it from traditional psychiatric approaches oriented toward symptom remission and functional recovery. Second, he identifies key ethical promises and perils raised by this emerging framework, considering its potential benefits alongside significant risks to patient welfare and clinical practice. Finally, Dr. Buchman outlines research, clinical, and educational priorities to guide the responsible development of this field. Dr. Buchman argues that careful ethical scrutiny is essential to ensure palliative psychiatry enhances, rather than undermines, care for people with SPMI.
VIRTUAL
Penn Medical Ethics
3600 Civic Center Blvd., 8-031 (hybrid)
Penn Bioethics Seminar (PBS): "Medicine Under East German Dictatorship, 1949 - 1990" - Ulf Schmidt, PhD
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2026-09-29 12:00:00
2026-09-29 13:00:00
America/New_York
Penn Bioethics Seminar (PBS): "Medicine Under East German Dictatorship, 1949 - 1990" - Ulf Schmidt, PhD
Medicine Under East German Dictatorship, 1949-1990
Ulf Schmidt, PhD
Nucleus Professor of Modern History
University of Hamburg
Dictatorship under state socialism as it evolved was experienced differently by different people and sections of society. Taking an integrated history approach, Ulf Schmidt, author of Justice at Nuremberg, asks how the East German variant of a modern dictatorship worked in practice in the field of medicine and science. Were medical professionals aware that they were living in a dictatorship, and if so how did this influence their thinking and learned behaviour? How much agency did they believe they had? Did they know that their daily choices were not only contributing but defining factors in transforming the regime into what scholars have called a participatory dictatorship?
Drawing on newly-discovered correspondence and State Security files, this talk explores the relationships and underlying tensions between this dictatorial system and medical professionals who were managing, supporting, and resisting it in multiple, often highly informal ways. It explores how doctors and medical experts internalised and cultivated knowledge which helped to navigate, contribute to, and stabilise the regime through explicit and subtle forms of action and inaction. It critically examines those elusive bonds which linked people in myriad ways to the machinery of power and mass surveillance.
Ulf Schmidt is senior Professor of Modern History, Director of the Centre for the Study of Health, Ethics, and Society, and Fellow of the UK Royal Historical Society. His books include Justice at Nuremberg (2004), Karl Brandt: The Nazi Doctor (2007) and Secret Science (2015). His latest book on Rethinking Cooperation in Cold War Europe will be published by Bloomsbury in 2026.
Registration required; Streaming available via Zoom.
3600 Civic Center Blvd., 8-031 (hybrid)
Penn Medical Ethics
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