I was interviewed for Crux by Charles C. Camosy. The title is: “Ethical debates over vaccines continues as more people get inoculated against COVID.” The topic is obviously vaccine ethics.
Here is the first question:
Camosy: You’ve been perhaps the most active public figure I’ve seen responding to the very public debate over whether a Catholic may licitly take a COVID vaccine. Can you say something about what has driven you to be so active on this set of issues?
Schneider: There are several reasons. Very early in the pandemic, I started looking at things like how long it would take to flatten the curve such that all Americans got COVID, but we never overwhelmed hospitals and it looked like it would take a long time. However, vaccines would provide a way to end the pandemic sooner. Second, the science of vaccines in general and the newer mRNA vaccines seems really interesting. I’m currently writing a doctoral thesis on moral theology that borders on bioethics, so I tend to be interested in such things. (My thesis is on privacy which started more specifically with an interest in genetic privacy, so not vaccines; but it lead me to a lot of research in microbiology.) Also, after I was diagnosed with autism as an adult, I had investigated the vaccine-autism link and concluded that the scientists were right and there is no connection. I also noticed that imagining such a connection tends to take a rather negative attitude towards those on the spectrum which motivated me to fight antivax misinformation. Finally, all those reasons led me to researching what experts in epidemiology said to better understand the topic, which heightened my interest on the topic.
Please go read the rest on Crux.
