Vaccines, civil liberties & mandates: What is the balance?

Recorded Nov. 21, 2019

The measles outbreak over the past year shines a spotlight on the challenges of finding the right public health approach to vaccine hesitancy and refusal. Join this webcast in which three public health experts will discuss the following questions: Do vaccine mandates work? What are some ways to counter misinformation about vaccines? How far should governments go when it comes to mandating vaccines for preventing measles or other infectious diseases? When does public health outweigh individual liberty? What can public health officials do better when communicating about vaccines or responding to vaccines hesitancy or refusal? Learn some answers to these questions and new angles on public health and vaccines.

• Doug Levy (@sfdoug), independent journalist and author, The Communications Golden Hour: The Essential Guide to Public Information When Every Minute Counts

• Saad Omer (@SaadOmer3), M.B.B.S., M.P.H., Ph.D., F.I.D.S.A., director, Yale Institute for Global Health

• Dorit Reiss (@doritmi), professor of law and the James Edgar Hervey ’50 chair of litigation, University of California, Hastings College of the Law, San Francisco

• Moderator: Bara Vaida (@BaraV), independent journalist, AHCJ core topic leader/infectious diseases

Doug Levy has spent more than 20 years at the intersection of technology, science, health, policy, and ethics and now is a consultant to corporations, academic institutions, and other organizations on crisis communications and reputation management. As a freelance journalist, Levy writes mostly about health, science, and technology. His first book, The Communications Golden Hour: The Essential Guide to Public Information When Every Minute Counts reached No. 1 in the public relations and public administration categories on Amazon.com when it was released in April 2018.

Saad Omer is an infectious disease specialist and has an extensive research portfolio in numerous countries. Omer’s work includes clinical trials to estimate efficacy of maternal and/or infant influenza, pertussis, polio, measles and pneumococcal vaccines and trials to evaluate drug regimens to reduce mother-to-child transmission of HIV. Moreover, he has conducted several studies on interventions to increase immunization coverage and acceptance. Omer’s work has been cited in global and country-specific policy recommendations and has informed clinical practice and health legislation in several countries. He has also served on several advisory panels including the U.S. National Vaccine Advisory Committee.

Dorit Reiss’ undergraduate degree in law and political science is from the faculty of law in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem where she served as editor in chief of the Law Review. Following graduation from law school, Reiss clerked for a year and a half in the Israeli Ministry of Justice’s Department of Public Law, working on constitutional and administrative law issues. She received her doctorate from the Jurisprudence and Social Policy program at the University of California Berkeley. During her studies in Berkeley she worked as a teaching assistant in 10 courses, winning the Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award. Professor Reiss’ research examined accountability of agencies at the state, national and international level, with agencies studied including the FAA, and other agencies in the United States and Europe. Increasingly, however, her research and activities are focused on legal issues related to vaccines, including exemption laws and tort liability related to non-vaccination.