GLP-1 in Children and Adolescents: Navigating the Ethical Landscape

Date: Friday 8 May 2026

Time: 3.00 to 6.00pm (SGT)

Mode: Online via Zoom

Session Description

GLP-1 receptor agonists are emerging as a potential treatment for obesity and related conditions in children and adolescents. While these therapies offer promise, they also raise complex ethical questions around safety, consent, equity, and long-term impact.
This webinar will explore the ethical considerations of prescribing GLP-1 medications to younger populations, balancing clinical benefits with moral responsibilities

CME Points

MME CME Points for doctors: Under Review
CPE point is pending approval for nurses and pharmacists.

Programme

Time	Activity	Speaker & Chair
3.00pm – 3.10pm	Welcome and Introduction	Prof Julian Savulescu
3.10pm – 3.35pm	GLP-1 in Children and Adolescents: Uses and Abuses	Dr Cindy Ho
3.40pm – 4.05pm	Obesity Interventions: Is there a Role for GLP-1 drugs in Children and Adolescents?	Dr Keri McCrickerd
4.10pm – 4.35pm	Ethics of GLP-1 Use in Children and Adolescents: Autonomy, Agency and Stigma	Dr Nanette Ryan
4.40pm – 5.10pm	Panel discussion on Justice and Access of GLP-1 drugs in Children and Adolescents	Prof Peter Singer & All speakers Moderated by Prof Julian Savulescu
5.10pm – 5.50pm	Q & A	Moderated by Assoc. Prof Chan Mei Yoke
5.55pm – 6.00pm	Closing Remarks	Emeritus Professor Roy Joseph

Speakers

Adj A/Prof Cindy Ho is a paediatrician specialising in endocrinology. She looks after children with problems in growth, puberty and hormonal abnormalities such as diabetes, thyroid diseases, long term effects of cancer treatment and osteoporosis.

Adj A/Prof Ho did her undergraduate medical training in the National University of Singapore and obtained her Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of surgery with Honours (MBBS, Hons) in 2004. She received many awards for academic excellence throughout her medical studies. She obtained her Master of Medicine (Paediatrics) and Membership of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (MRCPCH) in 2009 and achieved Specialist Accreditation for Paediatric Medicine in 2012.

Adj A/Prof Ho is an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS and is part of the Faculty (Paediatrics) team of the NUHS Residency Programme. She is very passionate about teaching and is actively involved in the teaching, training and assessment of medical undergraduates, postgraduate paediatric doctors and nursing colleagues. She is also involved in the education sub-committee for the Asia Pacific Paediatric endocrine society (APPES) and has been invited to speak at various fellow school and conferences.

Adj A/Prof Ho is a member of the Paediatric Ethics and Advocacy Centre (PEACe) in the hospital. She also spearheads the NUH Turner Syndrome support group and contributes articles to newsletters, newspapers and magazines whenever she can.

Dr Keri McCrickerd is a behavioural scientist and Chartered Psychologist with over 15 years of experience leading interdisciplinary research and translational initiatives at the intersection of health behaviour, psychology, nutrition, early childhood development. Her work focuses on designing, implementing, and evaluating data-informed strategies that promote child health and development, with particular emphasis on caregiving environments across diverse contexts.

She currently serve as Deputy Director of the Centre for Holistic Initiatives for Learning and Development (CHILD) at the National University of Singapore, where she provides strategic and operational leadership for transdisciplinary teams working across academia, healthcare, and community partners.

Dr Nanette Ryan is a research fellow at CBmE, and a member of the Paediatrics Ethics and Advocacy Committee (PEACe) that operates within the National University Children’s Medical Institute, Singapore. Her primary research interests lie at the intersection of ethics and childhood development.
She held previous appointments at Singapore Management University, Singapore, Monash University, Australia, Georgetown University, USA, and Western University, Canada. She was also a visiting scholar at the Institute of Philosophy, Leibniz Universitӓt Hannover, Germany.
She received her PhD in philosophy in December 2022 from Georgetown University.

Panel Member

Peter Singer has been bestowed the tag of “world’s most influential living philosopher” by journalists. He was born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1946, and educated at the University of Melbourne and the University of Oxford. After teaching in England, the United States and Australia, he has, since 1999, been Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics in the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University. He first became well-known internationally after the publication of Animal Liberation in 1975. Some of his other well-known books are: Practical Ethics, The Expanding Circle, How Are We to Live?, Rethinking Life and Death, Pushing Time Away, The Life You Can Save, The Point of View of the Universe (co-authored with Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek), Ethics in the Real World, and Why Vegan?

Moderators

Professor Julian Savulescu is an award-winning ethicist, medical doctor and moral philosopher. He trained in neuroscience, medicine, and philosophy. He is currently and has been Uehiro Chair in Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford since 2002. He currently also holds Chen Su Lan Centennial Professor in Medical Ethics, and Head of the Centre for Biomedical Ethics, at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore (from August 2022).

In 2003, he founded the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics and was responsible for attracting a significant donation from the Uehiro Foundation on Ethics and Education to evolve the Centre into the Uehiro Oxford Institute and to provide scholarships in practical ethics St Cross College, Oxford.

He co-directs the Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities and is Co-PI on ANTITHESES – A Discovery Platform for Transformative Inclusivity in Ethics and Humanities Research funded by Wellcome Trust (2025-2030). He is a Distinguished Visiting Professorial Fellow at Murdoch Children’s Research institute (MCRI) and Distinguished International Visiting Professor in Law at Melbourne Law School since 2017.

He was editor of the BMJ’s Journal of Medical Ethics for over 10 years and achieved the highest impact factor in the journal’s history.
He leads teams of >30 researchers and has held over £23 million in awards and donations under his direct leadership, as part of awards worth over £32 million.
According to Google Scholar, he has an overall h index of 96, with over 38,110 citations in total and 501 publications cited at least 10 times (accurate as of September 2025).

He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences, Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities, Monash University Distinguished Alumnus, received an honorary doctorate from Bucharest.

Associate Professor Chan Mei Yoke MBBS, MMed (Paeds), MRCP, FRCPCH, MBE graduated from the National University of Singapore with a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery. She trained in Paediatrics in Singapore and subspecialised in Paediatric Haematology/Oncology in Royal Marsden Hospital and Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, United Kingdom. She has an interest in Paediatric Palliative Care and helped set up a comprehensive paediatric palliative care service in KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital (KKH) in Singapore in 2004. She also has a keen interest in medical ethics due to the nature of her work and obtained a Masters in Bioethics from Harvard University, USA in 2022.
She is currently a Senior Consultant in Paediatric Haematology/Oncology and is the Chair of the Hospital Clinical Ethics Committee in KKH.

Contact

For any query, please email to Karen Teo (medtysk@nus.edu.sg)