Penn Integrates Knowledge Professors

PIK Professor Ezekiel Emanuel coordinated a joint statement by dozens of health care associations calling on U.S. employers to voluntarily implement President Biden’s proposed vaccine-or-testing mandate. “We’re not getting [enough] volunteers coming forward” to get vaccinated, said Emanuel.

PIK Professor Ezekiel Emanuel said that instead of wasting time trying to overturn COVID-19 vaccine mandates, business leaders should focus on protecting their employees from the virus. “That’s the only way we’ll be able to return to normal and stabilize our economy,” he said. Emanuel organized a statement on the matter signed by more than 60 health care organizations.

PIK Professor Dolores Albarracín, Jess Fishman, and Andy Tan, all of the Leonard Davis Institute, wrote an op-ed about the efficacy of vaccine mandates. “Regulations can promote behaviors that benefit society and, in so doing, also may instill social norms to do the right thing,” they wrote.

PIK Professor Ezekiel Emanuel called for faster access to data from the trials of drugs designed to treat Alzheimer’s disease.

Research by PIK Professor Shelly Berger and Roberto Bonasio of the Perelman School of Medicine found a protein in the brains of ants is responsible for regulating social behavior. “Kr-h1 is required to maintain the boundaries between social castes and to ensure that workers continue to work while gamergates continue to act like queens,” said Berger.

PIK Professor Dorothy Roberts’ 2015 TEDMED Talk on medical racism was cited. Roberts said 19th-century doctor Samuel Cartwright’s unsubstantiated theory that Black people had lower lung capacity than whites is still circulating, with some doctors still using Cartwright’s race-adjusted spirometer to measure breathing.

PIK Professor Dolores Albarracín authored a study that found mandates are more likely to lead to vaccine uptake than suggestions. “The requirement condition works better across the board, for different racial and ethnic groups and even among people who dislike feeling and being controlled by others,” she said.

PIK Professor Ezekiel Emanuel said lower COVID-19 vaccination rates lead to more infections. “We should be clear that mandates have been working and have been working in every industry that has tried them,” he said.

PIK Professor Ezekiel Emanuel said Francis Collins’ departure from the NIH was an opportunity to restructure the agency. Apart from its organizational inefficiencies, the NIH awards too few grants to young and/or Black researchers, said Emanuel. “That's not a good thing for innovation.”