LAUSR

This talk will review (1) the impact of the covid-19 outbreak on treating cancer patients who were infected with the virus with unapproved and off-label agents under a philosophy of compassionate use including disclosure of conflicts of interest; (2) the ethics of withholding diagnosis and treatment from patients with cancer or who might have acquired cancer in the USA once social isolation, quarantines, and restriction of “nonessential” services began; (3) decisions about how to define “essential” services during the onset of the pandemic in severely impacted areas of the U.S.; (4) the management of those who died during the pandemic as lessons for future clinical care of cancer patients; (5) decisions about how to decide how much risk to permit those involved in clinical care for cancer or for reassigned duties to assume during an ongoing pandemic; and (6) how to prioritize future cancer research as the viral outbreak continues and resources remain restricted. Citation Format: Arthur Caplan. Ethics, cancer, and COVID [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Virtual Meeting: COVID-19 and Cancer; 2020 Jul 20-22. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Clin Cancer Res 2020;26(18_Suppl):Abstract nr IA17.