Harm Reduction – A Catholic Approach with Dr. Lucas Vivas

“Harm reduction” is an approach to the treatment of medical illness that focuses on reducing collateral harms rather than reversing or changing fundamental behaviours. It is the prevailing philosophy in the treatment of concurrent medical-psychiatric disorders such as drug and alcohol abuse. Many of the methods used in harm reduction seem at odds with the Catholic understanding of morality, including the objective nature of moral acts and the appropriateness of cooperating with evil. In this seminar, we will explore a Catholic response to harm reduction approaches through the lens of needle-exchange programs and supervised injection sites for drug abuse.

Dr Lucas Vivas is a general internist in hospital-based community practice in Brampton, Ontario. He holds a Masters degree in Bioethics from the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto and has published in the academic and lay press on various topics in bioethics, from a secular and Catholic perspective. He is the current president of the Toronto Catholic Doctors’ Guild. He lives in Mississauga with his wife and children.

Please RSVP here and I will send a link a day before the talk! https://forms.gle/kveD9a3W6UdMLdJ16