Working Group Members
Co-Chairs
Arthur L. Caplan, PhD, is the Drs. William F and Virginia Connolly Mitty Professor and founding head of the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU Grossman School of Medicine.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, he co-directs an advisory group on sports and recreation for the US Conference of Mayors, created and serves on a working group on coronavirus vaccine challenge studies, developed an ethical framework for distributing drugs and vaccines for Janssen/J&J, helped develop rationing policies for NYU Langone and many other health systems, is a member of the WHO advisory committee on Covid, ethics and preapproval access to experimental drugs/vaccines and helped set policy for WIRB/WCG for research studies and compassionate use.
David M. Oshinsky, PhD, is director of the Division of Medical Humanities at NYU Grossman School of Medicine and a professor in the NYU Department of History. An accomplished writer and American historian, his books include Bellevue: Three Centuries of Medicine and Mayhem at America’s Most Storied Hospital, which won the New York Library Society’s “Best Book About New York City”; A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joe McCarthy, which won the Hardeman Prize for the best book about the US Congress; and Worse Than Slavery, which won the Robert F. Kennedy Prize for distinguished contribution to human rights. His book, Polio: An American Story, won both the Pulitzer Prize in History and the Hoover Presidential Book Award. Bill Gates wrote that reading Polio “broadened my appreciation of the challenges associated with global health issues and influenced the decision that Melinda and I made to make polio eradication the top priority of the foundation, as well as my own personal priority.” Oshinsky’s articles and reviews appear regularly in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and New York Review of Books.
Members
Kristen A. Feemster, MD, MPH, MSHP, is a board-certified pediatric infectious diseases physician, health services researcher and public health practitioner who is currently a Global Director in Medical Affairs for Pneumococcal Vaccines at Merck Research Laboratories, Merck & Co., Inc. Prior to joining Merck, Kristen served as Medical Director of the Immunization Program and Acute Communicable Diseases at the Philadelphia Department of Public Health and Research Director for the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). She received a B.S. in Environmental Biology at Yale University and an M.D. / M.P.H. at Columbia University before moving to Philadelphia for residency and fellowship training at CHOP and the and University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. She joined the faculty at Penn in 2010 and after several years as an academic physician, transitioned to the health department in 2018 while maintaining an academic appointment as an adjunct associate professor of pediatrics.
Kristen’s research interests have included vaccine policy and the epidemiology of vaccine preventable diseases both domestically and internationally. She has been active in the Vaccine Education Center, PolicyLab and global health fellowship programs at CHOP. In the community, she serves on the boards of the Pennsylvania and Philadelphia Immunization Coalitions, the UNITY Consortium that promotes adolescent vaccination and GE2P2 (Governance, Evidence, Ethics, Policy and Practice.) She is also a technical advisor for the American Academy of Pediatrics Global Immunization Advocacy Initiative working with pediatric societies to support immunization programs in low and middle income countries. Related to her positions and community involvement, Kristen has authored a book (Vaccines: What Everyone Needs to Know), numerous peer—reviewed manuscripts and invited commentaries and has regularly provided vaccine education to a wide range of audiences.
Kristen resides in Philadelphia with her husband, James, and two children.
Vicki Freimuth, PhD, is the former director of the Center for Health and Risk Communication at the University of Georgia and Emeritus Faculty in the Department of Communication Studies. Before joining the faculty at the University of Georgia, she served as Director of Communication at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Her research focuses on health communication, specifically the role of communication in health behavior change programs. She is author of Searching for Health Information, co-editor of two books on HIV/AIDS and communication, and author of chapters in several major books on health communication. Her research has appeared in such journals as Human Communication Research, Journal of Communication, Journal of Health Communication, American Journal of Public Health, Social Science and Medicine, and Journal of Emerging Infectious Diseases. She has received grants from the CDC and the National Cancer Institute.
Richard N. Gottfried, JD, has chaired the New York State Assembly Committee on Health since 1987. He is a Democrat representing a Manhattan district including Chelsea, Hell’s Kitchen, Midtown, and part of the Upper West Side.
He sponsors the N.Y. Health Act to create a universal “improved Medicare for all” single-payer health plan for New York. He is a leading proponent of patient autonomy and reproductive freedom. He was the sponsor of the law to allow medical use of marijuana in New York and the HIV Testing and Confidentiality Law.
He works to protect funding for Medicaid, community health centers, school health clinics, HIV/AIDS services, and other health concerns, and creating and expanding public health insurance programs in New York, including Child Health Plus.
His legislative work includes: promoting primary and preventive care; the Health Care Proxy Law (which allows people to designate an agent to make health care decisions for them if they lose decision-making capacity); the Family Health Care Decisions Act (which enables family members to make health care decisions for incapacitated patients who have not signed a health care proxy); managed care reforms; giving patients access to information about a doctor's background and malpractice record; licensing of midwives; and insurance coverage for midwife services.
He is a graduate of Cornell University (1968) and Columbia Law School (1973). He is licensed to practice law in New York, but does not maintain a private practice; his only occupation is Assembly Member. He is a member of the New York Academy of Medicine, the National Academy for State Health Policy, the Public Health Association of New York City, and the New York Civil Liberties Union. He was first elected to the Assembly in 1970 while in law school.
Matt McCarthy, MD, is an associate professor of medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine and a staff physician at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, where he was the first COVID19 attending hospitalist. His research focuses on novel diagnostics and therapeutics for COVID19 and he is the author of three books, including the international bestseller, Superbugs: The Race to Stop an Epidemic.
Walter A. Orenstein, MD, is a Professor of Medicine, Epidemiology, Global Health, and Pediatrics at Emory University; as well as the Associate Director of the Emory Vaccine Center and Director, Emory Vaccine Policy and Development. From 2008 through 2011, Dr. Orenstein was Deputy Director for Immunization Programs at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. His primary focus at the foundation had been on polio eradication, measles control, and improving routine immunization programs. Prior to 2004, Dr. Orenstein worked for 26 years in the Immunization Program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. From 1988-2004, he was the Director of the United States Immunization Program. He is currently the Chair of WHO’s Immunization and Vaccines Related Implementation Research Advisory Committee (IVIR-AC). Between July 1, 2016 and June 30, 2018, Dr. Orenstein was the President of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases (NFID).
Adam J. Ratner, MD, MPH, is the Director of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Hassenfeld Children’s Hospital and Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Microbiology at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. He heads an active, NIH-funded translational research laboratory focused on understanding and preventing infections during pregnancy and early childhood. Dr. Ratner is the immediate past chair of the Clinical Research and Field Studies in Infectious Diseases review panel at NIH, serves on the Committee on Infectious Diseases of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Board of Directors of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society, and is President of the Infectious Diseases Society of New York.
Dorit R. Reiss, PhD, is Professor of Law and the James Edgar Hervey '50 Chair of Litigation at UC Hastings Law, San Francisco. Her undergraduate degree in Law and Political Science (1999, Magna cum Laude) 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, Professor Reiss clerked for a year and a half in the Israeli Ministry of Justice’s Department of Public Law, working on a variety of constitutional and administrative law issues.
She received her Ph.D. from the Jurisprudence and Social Policy program in UC Berkeley, writing her dissertation on accountability in the liberalized telecommunications and electricity sectors in England, France and Sweden. Professor Reiss’ initial research examined accountability of agencies at the state, national and international level, with agencies studied including the CPUC, the FAA, and other agencies in the United States and Europe. Increasingly, however, her research and activities are focused on legal and policy issues related to vaccines. She writes about school mandate, policy responses to non-vaccinating, tort issues and administrative issues related to vaccines.
Jason L. Schwartz, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Yale School of Public Health. He holds a secondary appointment in the Section of the History of Medicine at the Yale School of Medicine. He has written widely on vaccines and vaccination programs, decision-making in public health policy, and the structure and function of scientific expert advice to government. His general research interest is in the ways in which evidence is interpreted, evaluated, and translated into regulation and policy in medicine and public health. Schwartz's publications have appeared in The New England Journal of Medicine, The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), The American Journal of Public Health, Health Affairs, The Milbank Quarterly, and elsewhere. He is also an author of the chapter titled “Ethics” in Plotkin's Vaccines, the leading textbook of vaccine science and policy, and editor of Vaccination Ethics and Policy: An Introduction with Readings (MIT Press, 2017). Schwartz is a graduate of Princeton University, where he received an A.B. in classics, and the University of Pennsylvania, where he received a Ph.D. in the history and sociology of science and a master's degree (MBE) in bioethics.
Ross D. Silverman, JD, MPH, is Professor of Health Policy and Management at the Indiana University Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health and Professor of Public Health and Law at the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law in Indianapolis. He is a member of the IU Centers on Health Policy and Bioethics. Professor Silverman's work focuses on public health and medical law, policy, and ethics, with particular concentrations in vaccine law, policy and ethics, and policy surveillance, the study of variations in and the impact of law, its interpretation, and its implementation and enforcement on health outcomes and vulnerable populations. His recent research has appeared in such publications as the New England Journal of Medicine, BMJ, JAMA, JAMA-Pediatrics, Health Affairs, the Hastings Center Report, Public Health Reports, the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, Vaccine, Chest, and the Journal of Law, Medicine, and Ethics. Prior to his tenure at Indiana University, Professor Silverman was Professor and Chair of Medical Humanities at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine. He is an Associate Editor for the journal Public Health Reports, the official journal of the U.S. Surgeon General and the U.S. Public Health Service.
George Strait, was the chief Health and Medical Correspondent for ABC News for 22 years. Mr. Strait served as the head of Public Affairs at UC Berkeley, and has been in charge of the media operations at the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration. At the FDA Mr. Strait was the Assistant Commissioner for Public Affairs. In this role, he served as principal deputy for communications to the FDA Commissioner and director of the Press Office. Mr. Strait designed communications strategy for the Agency and led the implementation of an interactive web and social media presence. During his tenure he guided the Agency through what seemed like daily communication challenges; including several nationwide food recalls, messaging around the H1N1 flu outbreak and the politically explosive Plan B contraceptive pill. Prior to coming to the FDA, Mr. Strait was the Director of Communications and Public Liaison for the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities at the National Institutes of Health.
Walter Straus, MD, MPH, FACP, FCPP, is the Associate Vice President, Therapeutic Area Head, Clinical Safety and Risk Management at Merck Research Laboratories, Merck & Co, Inc., where he leads a team that conducts research in vaccine-preventable and other infectious diseases, as well as oncology. Dr. Straus is a former Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and has served as a consultant to the World Health Organization and other non-governmental organizations. His primary medical ethics focus is upon ensuring appropriate research protection for vaccine research in developing countries. His team is active in scientific presentations and publications. He serves as a Technical Consultant to the AHRQ Center for Education and Research on Therapeutics at the University of Alabama, and holds an adjunct appointment with the Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of Pennsylvania.
Brit Trogen, MD, MS, is a rising chief resident in the NYU Pediatrics residency program. She completed medical school at the NYU School of Medicine, where she received the Vilcek Scholarship and Leonard J. Tow Humanism in Medicine Award, and completed a Rudin Fellowship in medical ethics. Prior to medical school, she received a master’s degree in medical anthropology at Imperial College London and worked as the national science columnist for CBC Radio.
Y. Tony Yang, ScD, LLM, MPH, is a tenured Professor and the Executive Director of the Center for Health Policy and Media Engagement at the George Washington University. His main scholarly interest is in policy issues at the intersection of the legal and health systems, especially in vaccination policy. He takes an empirical approach to most of his research, blending methods from the econometrical and statistical sciences with more traditional legal research methods. He has authored more than 120 peer-reviewed articles. His first-authored work has appeared in leading journals, including NEJM, JAMA, Lancet, Health Affairs, and American Journal of Public Health. The impact of his scholarship is observable in media coverage such as CNN, NPR, NY Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal. He has been awarded more than $2.5-million-dollar federal grants as principal investigator. Also, he has been supported by various foundation funders as principal investigator, including Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (Policy for Action, Interdisciplinary Research Leaders, and Public Health Law Research). He has received honors such as the Early Career Award for Excellence from American Public Health Association. He was a postdoctoral researcher at the MIT, FDA Regulatory Science Fellow (jointly organized by the National Academy of Medicine), and CDC-National Center of Health Statistics Health Policy Fellow. He is a member of AcademyHealth Education Council. He holds graduate degrees in Public Health (Harvard), Health Policy (Harvard), and Law (Penn).
Head of Student Working Group
Samantha Ratner is a junior in the honors program at the University of Michigan majoring in Biology, Health, and Society with a minor in the History of Medicine and Health. She is a member of the Dawid lab at the University of Michigan, where she researches the competence mechanism of Streptococcus pneumoniae. She is a former intern in the NYU Division of Medical Ethics and a current member of the University of Michigan Bioethics Society.
Research Team
Joseph Bishop is a graduate student in the Department of History at NYU. He focuses on the history of science, medicine, and technology. Currently, he researches the social framework and cultural impact of American medical technology at the turn of the twentieth century. From 2012–2018, he served in the US Navy as a Mass Communication Specialist. He completed a BA at UC San Diego and an MA at San Diego State University, both in philosophy.
Kyle Ferguson, PhD, is a postdoctoral fellow in the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU Grossman School of Medicine and an adjunct professor in the Department of Environmental Studies at NYU. His work focuses on ethical and philosophical issues arising in vaccine research, development, and distribution, in global health, and in research on potential strategies to mitigate and adapt to climate change. He holds a PhD in Philosophy from The Graduate Center, City University of New York, and a BA in Philosophy from Augustana College. Before coming to NYU, he taught philosophy at Hunter College, CUNY, and medical ethics at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.