Beginning in 2008, the Center for Vaccine Ethics and Policy began to respond to request for ethics and policy consultation by state and local government, major NGOs in the public health sphere, vaccine makers and corporations. These consults have included ethical issues around pandemic preparedness planning; H1N1 vaccine deployment; clinical trial design for novel vaccines; informed consent issues around vaccine clinical trials and immunization campaigns; pre-licensure access to vaccines in development, and targeted market withdrawal of specific vaccine products.

These consults are typically confidential in nature but have included WHO, PATH, The Wistar Institute; the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the City of Philadelphia, Merck, Novavax, MediVector and Goldman Sachs, among others.

Approach
The Center for Vaccine Ethics and Policy has developed a practice approach to consults of this type which includes:
– rigorous analysis of the relevant medical, life sciences, policy and public health literature around the issue in question,

– aggressive outreach to the expertise in the fields involved based on an extensive network of collaborative relationships in academia, government, the NGO community, and industry to ground the engagement,

– immersion on-site with the client principals responsible for the issue,

– recommendation of appropriate strategies to address the issue ranging from new primary or secondary research; convenings of internal and/or external expertise to engage the issues (forums/retreats, etc.),

– sourcing of appropriate expertise for needed research, and logistics support for convening and management of meetings/forums, etc.,

– development of white paper-level analysis of the problem and recommended strategies and actions as a principal work product of the consult,

– presentation of findings to client leadership and governance bodies as appropriate, and

– development of articles for peer-reviewed journals positioning the underlying issues involved to contribute to the field overall.

Contacts
The Center welcomes inquiries on its consulting capabilities, fees and further details. Please contact either:

– David R. Curry, MS, Executive Director of the Center at david.r.curry@centerforvaccineethicsandpolicy.org (001.267.251.2305)

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We believe the ethical imperative for vaccine policy is to accelerate the development and delivery of needed vaccines − providing safe. affordable and effective access, and producing sustained immunity, for all people at risk regardless of circumstance or geography.