Maxwell J. Smith, PhD

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COVID-19 Ethics Articles

• Smith MJ. (2021). What Constitutes Success in the Rollout of COVID-19 Vaccines? The Lancet, 398(10295): 115-116.
• Smith MJ, Ujewe S, Katz R, Upshur REG. (2020). Emergency Use Authorisation for COVID-19 Vaccines: Lessons from Ebola. The Lancet, 396(10264): 1707-1709.
• Emanuel EJ, Persad G, Upshur R, Thomé B, Parker M, Glickman A, Zhang C, Boyle C, Smith MJ, Phillips JP. (2020). Fair Allocation of Scarce Medical Resources in the Time of Covid-19. New England Journal of Medicine, 382(21): 2049-2055.
• Singh JA, Kochhar S, Wolff J, and the World Health Organization ACT-Accelerator Ethics and Governance Working Group (Atuire C, Bhan A, Emanuel E, Faden R, Ghimire P, Greco D, Ho C, Moon S, Shamsi-Gooshki E, Touré A, Thomé B, Smith MJ, Upshur REG). (2021). Placebo Use and Unblinding in COVID-19 Vaccine Trials: Recommendations of a WHO Expert Working Group. Nature Medicine, 27(4): 569-570.
• Smith MJ, Upshur REG, Emanuel EJ. (2020). Publication Ethics During Public Health Emergencies Such as the Covid-19 Pandemic. American Journal of Public Health. 110(7): 947–948.
• Smith MJ. (2021). Why We Should Not ‘Just Use Age’ for COVID-19 Vaccine Prioritisation. Journal of Medical Ethics. Doi: 10.1136/medethics-2021-107443.
• Smith MJ. (2021). Balancing Speed and Equity in the Rollout of COVID-19 Vaccines. Journal of Medical Ethics Blog. July 13, 2021.
• Downar J, Smith MJ. (2021). Delaying Second Vaccine Doses Helped Avert ICU Catastrophe. Healthy Debate. June 29, 2021.
• Smith MJ, Forman L, Parker M, Perehudoff K, Rawson B, Sekalala S. (2021). Should COVID-19 Vaccines Authorized for Emergency Use be Considered ‘Essential’ Medicines? Health and Human Rights, 23(1): 1-6.
• Smith MJ, Dryburgh JA, Duong I, Shelley JS. (2021). Should COVID-19 Vaccination be a Condition for Returning to University and College Campuses? University Affairs. May 26, 2021.
• Wolff J, Atuire C, Bhan A, Emanuel E, Faden R, Ghimire P, Greco D, Ho C, Kochhar S, Moon S, Schaefer OG, Shamsi E, Singh JA, Smith MJ, Thomé B, Touré A, Upshur R. (2021). Ethical and Policy Considerations for COVID-19 Vaccination Modalities: Delayed Second Dose, Fractional Dose, Mixed Vaccines. BMJ Global Health, 6: e005912.
• Sekalala S, Perehudoff K, Parker M, Forman L, Rawson B, Smith MJ. (2021). An Intersectional Human Rights Approach to Prioritising Access to COVID-19 Vaccines. BMJ Global Health, 6: e004462.
• Voo TC, Reis A, Ho C, Tam C, Kelly-Cirino C, Emanuel E, Beca JP, Littler K, Smith MJ, Parker M, Kass N, Gobat N, Lei R, Upshur R, Hurst S, Munsaka S. (2021). Immunity Certification for COVID-19: Ethical Considerations. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 99: 155-161.
• Smith MJ. (2020). Failure to Combat COVID-19 Can Have Economic Consequences, Too. Impact Ethics. December 8, 2020.
• Smith MJ, Ahmad A, Arawai T, Dawson A, Emanuel EJ, Garani S, Ghimire P, Iliyasu Z, Lei R, Mandil A, Mastroleo I, Mathur R, Okeibunor J, Parker M, Saenz C, Thomé B, Upshur REG, Voo TC. (2021). Top Five Ethical Lessons of COVID-19 that the World Must Learn. Wellcome Open Research, 6: 17.
• Smith MJ, Emanuel EJ, Thomé B, Upshur REG. (2020). Ethical Conditions for Accelerating COVID-19 Vaccine Research. Wellcome Open Research, 5: 249.
• Smith MJ, Upshur REG. (2020). Learning Lessons from COVID-19 Requires Recognizing Moral Failures. Journal of Bioethical Inquiry, 17(4): 563-566.
• Mastroleo I, Smith MJ, and the WHO MEURI Working Group (Ahmad A, Dagron S, Mathur R, Moodley K, Pascoe L-A, Pirard V, Thomé B, Upshur R, Voo TC). (2020). Allocating Scarce Unproven Interventions During Public Health Emergencies: Insights from the WHO MEURI Framework. American Journal of Bioethics, 20(9): 41-44.
• Silva DS, Smith MJ. (2020). Social Distancing, Social Justice, and Risk During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Canadian Journal of Public Health, 111: 459–461.
• Dawson A, Emanuel EJ, Parker M, Smith MJ, Voo TC. (2020). Key Ethical Concepts and their Application to COVID-19 Research. Public Health Ethics, 13(2): 127-132.

COVID-19 Ethics Reports, Policy Briefs and Guidance Documents

• World Health Organization. (2021). COVID-19 and Mandatory Vaccination: Ethical Considerations and Caveats. Geneva: World Health Organization. WHO/2019-nCoV/Policy_brief/Mandatory_vaccination/2021.1
• World Health Organization. (2021). Ethical Framework for WHO’s work in the ACT-Accelerator. Geneva: World Health Organization. WHO/2019-nCoV/ACT-Accelerator/Ethical_framework/2021.1.
• World Health Organization. (2020). Emergency Use Designation of COVID-19 Candidate Vaccines: Ethical Considerations for Current and Future COVID-19 Placebo-Controlled Vaccine Trials and Trial Unblinding. Geneva: World Health Organization. WHO/2019-nCoV/Policy_Brief/EUD_placebo-controlled_vaccine_trials/2020.1
• World Health Organization. (2020). Ethical Considerations to Guide the Use of Digital Proximity Tracking Technologies for COVID-19 Contact Tracing. Geneva: World Health Organization. WHO/2019-nCoV/Ethics_Contact_tracing_apps/2020.1
• World Health Organization. (2020). Guidance for Research Ethics Committees for Rapid Review of Research During Public Health Emergencies. Geneva: World Health Organization. ISBN 978-92-4-000621-8.
• World Health Organization. (2020). Ethics & COVID-19: Resource Allocation and Priority Setting. Geneva: World Health Organization. WHO/RFH/20.2.
• World Health Organization. (2020). Ethics & SARS-CoV-2 – Restrictive Measures and Physical Distancing. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization Public Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Ethics Network (PHEPREN).
• World Health Organization. (2020). Ethical Standards for Research During Public Health Emergencies: Distilling Existing Guidance to Support COVID-19 R&D. Geneva: World Health Organization. WHO/RFH/20.1.
• Government of Ontario. (2020). Ethical Framework for COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution. December 30, 2020.

Health Equity and Social Justice

• Smith MJ. (2021). Social Justice and Health Equity: Core Ethical Values in the Health Sciences. In Encyclopedia of Life Sciences, 2(2). Wiley-Blackwell.
• Smith MJ. (2020). Let’s Talk: Ethical Foundations of Health Equity. Antigonish, NS: National Collaborating Centre for Determinants of Health, St. Francis Xavier University.
• Smith MJ, Thompson A, Upshur REG. (2019). Public Health as Social Justice? A Qualitative Study of Public Health Policy-Makers’ Perspectives. Social Justice Research, 32(3): 384-402.
• Smith MJ, Weinstock D. (2019). Reducing Health Inequities Through Intersectoral Action: Balancing Equity in Health with Equity for Other Social Goods. International Journal of Health Policy and Management. 8(1): 1–3.
• Smith MJ, Thompson A, Upshur REG. (2018). Is ‘Health Equity’ Bad for Our Health? A Qualitative Empirical Ethics Study of Public Health Policy-Makers’ Perspectives. Canadian Journal of Public Health, 109(5): 633-642.
• Smith MJ. (2015). Health Equity in Public Health: Clarifying our Commitment. Public Health Ethics, 8(2): 173-184.

• Cross Appointment - Department of Philosophy, Western University
• Assistant Professor (status) - Division of Clinical Public Health & Joint Centre for Bioethics, University of Toronto

• Associate Director, Health Ethics, Law, & Policy (HELP) Lab
• Associate Member, Rotman Institute of Philosophy
• Associate Member, Institute for Earth and Space Exploration
• Member, Centre for Research on Health Equity and Social Inclusion (CRHESI)
• Faculty Member, Complex Adaptive Systems Lab

• Health policy
• Bioethics
• Health equity

• Member and Rapporteur, World Health Organization Ethics & COVID-19 Working Group
• Consultant, World Health Organization Health Ethics & Governance Unit
• Member, Public Health Agency of Canada Public Health Ethics Consultative Group
• Member, Ontario COVID-19 Bioethics Table
• Consulting Ethicist, Health Ethics Alliance, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre
• Member, Ontario COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution Task Force
• Member and Rapporteur, World Health Organization Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator Ethics and Governance Working Group
• Member, Canadian Institutes of Health Research College of Reviewers