Maxwell Smith

Maxwell J. Smith is a Canadian bioethicist and assistant professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Western University in London, Ontario, Canada. He is the Co-Director of Western's Health Ethics, Law, and Policy (HELP) Lab and holds appointments in Western's Department of Philosophy and Rotman Institute of Philosophy. He also serves as a consulting clinical bioethicist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Smith was appointed to . He served as co-chair of Ontario's COVID-19 Bioethics Table and is a member of the World Health Organization's Working Group on Ethics and COVID-19, ACT Accelerator Ethics and Governance Working Group, and Public Health Agency of Canada's Public Health Ethics Consultative Group.
Education
Smith holds a bachelor's degree in philosophy from the University of Toronto, a master's degree in bioethics from Union Graduate College and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and a Ph.D. in public health sciences and bioethics from the University of Toronto, which he completed under the supervision of Ross Upshur. From 2016 to 2018, Smith held a Banting Post-Doctoral Fellowship in the Institute for Health and Social Policy at McGill University.
Research
Smith's research is in the area of public health ethics, with a specific focus on ethical issues that emerge in pandemics and infectious disease outbreaks. In particular, he is a notable proponent of vaccination mandates, arguing that they can be ethically justified in certain circumstances. Smith led the drafting of the World Health Organization's policy brief on the ethics of mandatory vaccination for COVID-19. His work also often explores the ethical requirements of health equity and social justice in public health policy, practice, and research.
Selected Articles
*Smith MJ. What Constitutes Success in the Rollout of COVID-19 Vaccines? The Lancet, 2021; 398(10295): 115-116.
*Smith MJ. Why We Should Not 'Just Use Age' for COVID-19 Vaccine Prioritisation. Journal of Medical Ethics, 2021; Doi: 10.1136/medethics-2021-107443.
*Smith MJ, Forman L, Parker M, Perehudoff K, Rawson B, Sekalala S. Should COVID-19 Vaccines Authorized for Emergency Use be Considered "Essential" Medicines? Health and Human Rights, 2021; 23(1): 1-6.
*Smith MJ, Upshur REG, Emanuel EJ. Publication Ethics During Public Health Emergencies Such as the COVID-19 Pandemic. American Journal of Public Health, 2020; 110(7): 947-948.
*Smith MJ, Upshur REG. Learning Lessons from COVID-19 Requires Recognizing Moral Failures. Journal of Bioethical Inquiry, 2020; 17(4): 563-566.
*Smith MJ, Ujewe S, Katz R, Upshur REG. Emergency Use Authorisation for COVID-19 Vaccines: Lessons from Ebola. The Lancet, 2020; 396(10264): 1707-1709.
*Emanuel EJ, Persad G, Upshur R, Thomé B, Parker M, Glickman A, Zhang C, Boyle C, Smith MJ, Phillips JP. Fair Allocation of Scarce Medical Resources in the Time of COVID-19. New England Journal of Medicine, 2020; 382(21): 2049-2055.
*Smith MJ, Thompson A, Upshur REG. Public Health as Social Justice? A Qualitative Study of Public Health Policy-Makers' Perspectives. Social Justice Research, 2019; 32(3): 384-402.
*Smith MJ, Thompson A, Upshur REG. Is 'Health Equity' Bad for Our Health? A Qualitative Empirical Ethics Study of Public Health Policy-Makers' Perspectives. Canadian Journal of Public Health, 2018; 109(5): 633-642.
*Smith MJ. Health Equity in Public Health: Clarifying our Commitment. Public Health Ethics, 2015; 8(2): 173-184.

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