Pandemics and economics, what’s different this time?

Speaker: Dr. Sridhar Venkatapuram

Abstract:

In this talk, I aim to introduce an audience of economists, particularly health economists, about the relevance and practicability of a moral right to the capability to be healthy. I will start with summarizing two publications from the late 1990s- the 1998 World Bank report called Confronting AIDS-public priorities in a global epidemic, and 1999 book by Amartya Sen called Development as Freedom. And then discuss how I was motivated in different ways by these two publications, to make the argument for a human right to the capability to be healthy. (Health Justice, 2011 Polity Press). I will then follow by discussing how this argument seeks to be coherent in health economics, particularly by shaking the foundations of welfarist health economics. I will conclude with illustrating how governments worldwide have, in effect, promoted health capabilities rather than just cost-effective or health maximizing healthcare.

About the speaker:

Sridhar Venkatapuram is an academic-practitioner in global and public health ethics/justice. He is an Associate Professor in Global Health and Philosophy at King’s College London and Deputy Director of King’s Global Health Institute. Sridhar has been at the forefront of public/global health ethics for over 25 years starting in the early 1990s as the first researcher at Human Rights Watch to focus directly on health-related human rights violations (HIV/AIDS in India). Sridhar is known for helping establish the area of ‘health justice’ philosophy, for engaging with and advising public/global health practitioners, and for amplifying ethical reasoning in public/global health education, research, and practice.

He has been awarded numerous awards, research fellowships, and selected to prestigious professional organizations, commissions, and panels. Sridhar has worked with diverse health equity organizations such as Population Council, Open Society Foundations, Doctors of the World, Minorities Rights Group International, Wellcome Trust, and World Health Organization (HQ, MENA).

Since early 2020, he has been actively serving in various pandemic ethics advisory roles at the local and international levels. Sridhar also founded and chairs a panel of international political philosophers helping address the ethical dimensions of the global COVID-19 response (IRG-GHJ). He can be found at @sridhartweet.

He is currently serving as an ethics advisor for:
-WHO COVID-19 Clinical Management/Treatment Guideline Development Group
-WHO Ebola Infection Prevention Control Guideline Development Group
-NHS London Ethics Advisory Committee
-BMA Medical Ethics Committee
-Chair, International Resource Group for Global Health Justice (IRG-GHJ).