我知道很多人的道德本能是不在「先救谁」的时刻做选择，一切理性思考后的选择都会与本能的道德情感相抵触。但是，不做选择其实也是选择的一种，甚至可能是最自私（仅仅考虑自己的道德情感接受与否）因此很不负责任的一种选择。尤其是几年前看日剧 CODE BLUE 的时候感受最为强烈——几位直升机急救医赶到一个几十上百人受伤的事故现场，每个医生都必须做出优先救谁的艰难选择。

如果你还不熟悉与流俗用法不同的功利主义，请先看我上一篇文章：

功利主义（utilitarianism）的几个关键原则

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Who Should Be Saved First? Experts Offer Ethical Guidance

Austin Frakt

波士顿退伍军人医疗系统下设的合作循证政策资源中心主任

波士顿大学公共卫生学院副教授

哈佛 T.H.Chan 公共卫生学院高级研究科学家

The Incidental Economist 主编

原文 2020 年 3 月 24 日发在 NYT

翻译：晋其角、邓妍

How do doctors and hospitals decide who gets potentially lifesaving treatment and who doesn’t?

医生和医院该如何决定谁可以得到挽救生命的治疗，谁得不到？

A lot of thought has been given to just such a predicament, well before critical shortages from the coronavirus pandemic.

对于这样的困境，在冠状病毒大流行引发的医疗资源严重短缺之前就已经有了很多思考。

“It would be irresponsible at this point not to get ready to make tragic decisions about who lives and who dies,” said Dr. Matthew Wynia, director of the Center for Bioethics and Humanities at the University of Colorado.

科罗拉多大学生物伦理与人文中心 (Center for Bioethics and Humanities at the University of Colorado) 主任马修?怀尼亚 (Matthew Wynia) 博士说：“此时，不准备好作出谁生谁死的抉择，是不负责任的。”

Facing this dilemma recently — who gets a ventilator or a hospital bed — Italian doctors sought ethical counsel and were told to consider an approach that draws on utilitarian principles.

面对近日的这个两难局面 —— 谁该用上呼吸机或得到一张医院病床，意大利医生寻求伦理建议，被告知要考虑采用功利主义原则。

In layman’s terms, a utilitarianism approach would maximize overall health by directing care toward those most likely to benefit the most from it. If you had only one ventilator, it would go to someone more likely to survive instead of someone deemed unlikely to do so. It would not go to whichever patient was first admitted, and it would not be assigned via a lottery system. (If there are ties within classes of people, then a lottery — choosing at random — is what ethicists recommend.)

用浅显易懂的话来说，功利主义方法会通过把护理留给最可能从中受益最大的人，从而使整体健康最大化。如果你只有一台呼吸机，它将被分配给更有可能生存的人，而非那些生存几率更小的人。它不分先来后到，也不会通过抽签分配。（如果某个分类中的人之间存在关系，那么伦理学家建议使用抽签 —— 随机选择。）

In a paper in The New England Journal of Medicine published Monday, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, vice provost for global initiatives and chairman of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania, and colleagues offer ways to apply ethical principles to rationing in the coronavirus pandemic. These too are utilitarian, favoring those with the best prospects for the longest remaining life.

在周一发表的《新英格兰医学杂志》(The New England Journal of Medicine) 上的一篇论文中，宾夕法尼亚大学 (University of Pennsylvania) 全球行动副教务长及医学伦理学和卫生政策系主任伊奇基尔?伊曼纽尔 (Ezekiel Emanuel) 及其同事提供了将道德原则应用于在冠状病毒大流行中的分配方法。这些同样也是功利主义的，偏向于那些最有可能拥有最长寿命的人。

In addition, they say prioritizing the health of front-line health care workers is necessary to maximize the number of lives saved. We may face a shortage of such workers, and some have already fallen ill.

此外，他们说，将一线医护人员的健康放在优先位置对于挽救最多的生命是必要的。我们可能会遇到这类人员的短缺，而且其中一些已经病倒了。

In a recent article in The New York Times, a British researcher said, “There are arguments about valuing the young over the old that I am personally very uncomfortable with,” adding, “Is a 20-year-old really more valuable than a 50-year-old, or are 50-year-olds actually more useful for your economy, because they have experience and skills that 20-year-olds don’t have?”

在《纽约时报》最近的一篇文章中，一位英国研究人员说：“有人争论年轻人或是老人谁更有价值，对于我个人来说，这让我感到很不舒服，” 他补充说，“一个 20 岁的年轻人真的比一个 50 岁的人更有价值吗？或者 50 岁的人实际上对你的经济更有用，因为他们拥有 20 岁人没有的经验和技能？”

Dr. Emanuel disagreed with that interpretation: “The 20-year-old has lived fewer years of life; they have been deprived of a full life. If they have roughly comparable prognoses, then the fact that the 20-year-old has not had a full life counts in their favor for getting scarce resources.”

伊曼纽尔不同意这种说法：“这位 20 岁的年轻人活过的时间较短；他们被剥夺了完整的生命。如果他们的预后大致相当，那么这个 20 岁的年轻人还没过上充实美满的生活的事实，使他们更有理由得到稀缺的资源。”

Some organizations, states and federal agencies have anticipated challenges like these and developed resources and guides for hospitals and health systems.

一些组织、州和联邦机构已经预见到类似的挑战，为医院和卫生系统开发了资源和指南。

The Hastings Center has curated a list of resources that health care institutions can use to prepare for responding to the coronavirus, including for shortages. In 2015, the New York Department of Health released a report on the logistical, ethical and legal issues of allocating ventilators during a pandemic-created shortage. This and many other states’ plans are modeled on guidance from the Ontario Ministry of Health on critical care during a pandemic.

黑斯廷斯中心 (Hastings Center) 整理了一系列医疗机构可以用来应对冠状病毒的资源，包括因此造成的短缺。2015 年，纽约卫生局发布了一份报告，内容涉及在大流行造成的短缺期间呼吸机分配的实务、道德和法律问题。该州和其他许多州的计划均以安大略省卫生部 (Ontario Ministry of Health) 在大流行期间提供的重症监护为指导。

Federal health agencies, including the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Health and Human Services, have also published guidance that includes approaches for allocation of scarce resources during a pandemic.

包括退伍军人事务部和卫生与公共服务部在内的联邦卫生机构还发布了指南，其中包括在大流行期间分配稀缺资源的方法。

A study in Chest in April 2019 imagined a 1918 flulike pandemic in which there weren’t enough I.C.U. beds and ventilators to meet demand. The authors engaged focus groups in Maryland about views on how to ration care. The preference of the focus groups? Direct resources to those with the greatest chance of survival and the longest remaining life spans — in other words, also the pragmatic utilitarian approach. This study stemmed from work for a Maryland report on allocating scarce medical resources during a public health emergency.

2019 年 4 月《肺部疾病》(Chest) 进行的一项研究设想了 1918 年的流感大流行，那时重症监护病房床位和呼吸机数量无法满足需求。作者与马里兰州的焦点小组就如何分配护理资源的观点进行了讨论。焦点小组的偏好是怎样的呢？将资源转向具有最大生存机会和最长寿命的人 —— 换句话说，还是讲求实际的功利主义方法。这项研究源自马里兰州一份报告，该报告涉及在公共卫生紧急情况下的稀缺医疗资源分配。

“Key is to be transparent about the principles, save as many lives as possible, and ensure that there are no considerations such as money, race, ethnicity or political pull that go into allocation of lifesaving resources such as ventilators,” said Dr. Tom Frieden, president and C.E.O. of Resolve to Save Lives and former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“决心拯救生命”(Resolve to Save Lives) 总裁兼首席执行官、前疾病控制与预防中心主任汤姆?弗里登 (Tom Frieden) 博士说：“关键是要对原则保持透明，挽救尽可能多的生命，并确保在分配诸如呼吸机等救生资源时不考虑金钱、种族、民族或政治影响等因素。”

Another principle recommended by medical ethicists is to take tough choices out of the hands of front-line clinicians. Instead, have dedicated triage officers decide. Also, decisions should be free of financial considerations or the social status of patients, something that seems to have been violated in the provision of scarce coronavirus tests to N.B.A. players, for example.

医学伦理学家建议的另一项原则是把一线医生从抉择的艰难中解救出来。取而代之的是请专职的分诊专家决定。此外，决定应不涉及财务方面的考虑或患者的社会地位，例如，将稀缺的冠状病毒检测提供给 NBA 球员是违反此原则的。

“Ethically speaking, rationing by ability to pay is the worst way to allocate scarce medical resources in an emergency,” said Dr. Jerry La Forgia, chief technical officer of Aceso Global and former lead health specialist for the World Bank.

“从伦理上讲，按支付能力定量供应是在紧急情况下分配稀缺医疗资源的最糟方式，”Aceso Global 首席技术官、前世界银行首席卫生专家杰里?拉?弗吉亚 (Jerry La Forgia) 博士说。

Nevertheless, precisely this kind of rationing is commonplace in the U.S. health system during more normal times.

然而，在比较正常的时期，这种分配方式在美国的卫生系统中极为常见。

Health economists have also thought deeply about how to allocate finite health care resources, in government budgets for instance. Often there are winners and losers in these calculations — some treatments covered and some not — but they’re not always individually identifiable.

卫生经济学家还曾深入思考如何分配有限的卫生保健资源，例如政府预算。预算常常造成赢家和输家 —— 有些疗法会被包括在预算之内，有些则不会 —— 但并不总能被一一辨认出来。

During a pandemic, the winners and losers are both clearly identifiable. They’re right in front of the doctor at the same time. “This shifts the ethical and emotional burden from society or government to the clinician,” said Christopher McCabe, a health economist and executive director and C.E.O. of the Institute of Health Economics in Alberta, Canada. “There’s no perfect way to choose who gets lifesaving treatment. At times like these, society may be more forgiving of utilitarian decision making.”

在大流行期间，赢家和输家都显而易见。他们同时就在医生面前。“这把伦理和情感负担从社会或政府转移到了临床医生身上，” 加拿大阿尔伯塔省卫生经济学研究所 (Institute of health Economics) 执行主任兼首席执行官、卫生经济学家克里斯托弗?麦凯布 (Christopher McCabe) 说。“没有完美的方法来选择谁能得到挽救生命的治疗。在这种时候，社会可能对功利主义的决策更宽容。”

History offers examples of competing values. During World War II, soldiers received penicillin before civilians. In Seattle in the 1960s, social worth was among the criteria used to ration dialysis machines.

历史为相互矛盾的价值观提供了例子。第二次世界大战期间，士兵可以先于平民得到盘尼西林。在 1960 年代的西雅图，社会价值是定量供应透析仪的标准之一。

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina caused acute shortages under emergency conditions in Louisiana health centers. “Health care workers were forced to make things up as they went along, amounting to life and death decisions,” Dr. Wynia said. “This was widely viewed as unfortunate for patients, doctors, and not what we want as a society.”

2005 年，卡特里娜飓风造成路易斯安那州卫生中心在紧急情况下出现严重物资短缺。“医疗工作者被迫随机应变，相当于在决定生死，” 怀尼亚说。“人们普遍认为，这对病人和医生来说都是不幸的，这不是我们社会想要的。”

Today, there is greater demand for some organs for transplants than supply can accommodate. The United Network for Organ Sharing is a system for prioritizing patients for transplants. It combines medical condition, waiting time and prognosis into a scoring system that varies by type of organ.

如今，一些用于移植的器官供不应求。器官共享联合网络 (United Network for Organ Sharing) 是一个为移植病人排序的系统。它结合医疗条件、等待时间和预后情况，为不同类型的器官制定评分系统。

“It has elements of utilitarianism,” said David Vanness, Professor of Health Policy and Administration at Penn State. “But it’s not designed for the urgency of a pandemic.”

“它有功利主义的成分，” 宾夕法尼亚州立大学 (Penn State) 卫生政策与行政学教授戴维?范内斯 (David Vanness) 说。“但它不是为了应对紧迫的流行病而设计的。”

In particular, society has had time to consider how to cover the care for patients needing transplants. The vast majority of end-stage kidney disease patients are eligible for Medicare at any age, for example.

特别是，社会有时间去考虑如何为需要移植的病人提供照顾。例如，绝大多数终末期肾病患者在任何年龄都有资格享受医疗保险。

When antivirals or vaccines become available, those too will initially be in short supply, and undoubtedly discussion will arise on who should get them first.

当抗病毒药物或疫苗实现临床应用时，最初阶段也将出现供应短缺，而且毫无疑问将会出现讨论：谁有资格首先获得它们。

Dr. Emanuel predicts we will soon see in the U.S. the kind of rationing happening in Italy, where there are too few ventilators and I.C.U. beds for all the patients who need them. Estimates by researchers at Harvard show that without drastic expansion of supply, many areas of the U.S. will have inadequate numbers of hospital beds.

伊曼纽尔预测，美国很快就会出现意大利那样的定量供应，那里的呼吸器和重症监护病床太少，无法满足所有病人的需求。哈佛大学研究人员估计，如果不大幅增加供应，美国许多地区的医院床位将会出现不足。

“When you consider the shortage of coronavirus tests, we’re already seeing rationing,” he said.

“考虑到冠状病毒检测的供应不足，我们可以预测到定量配给的前景，” 他说。

编辑于 2020-03-29 23:58