Hastings Center press release

For immediate release:	Contact: Michael Turton
January 29, 2008	turtonm@thehastingscenter.org
	845-424-4040 ext. 242

Experts debate the best path to health care reform; study raises concerns about clinical trial web sites

New issues of Hastings Center publications provide timely, thought-provoking analysis of issues that matter

(Garrison, NY) Rather than argue for universal health care on the grounds of justice or rights, George Washington University philosopher David DeGrazia advocates a single-payer health insurance system, combined with competitive private delivery, as the morally preferable approach to health care reform because it efficiently meets specific goals. Writing in the January-February issue of the Hastings Center Report, DeGrazia makes a case for such reform on the grounds that it is the most cost-effective way to achieve the agreed upon American goal of affordable universal coverage that maintains both freedom of choice and quality of care. In a set of commentaries, philosopher Paul Menzel offers an endorsement—with a wrinkle—and economist Len M. Nichols of the New America Foundation and ethicist Ezekiel Emanuel of the National Institutes of Health raise objections.

In other articles, Jeff Stryker declares that lethal injection is a multi-site study “gone horribly wrong,” and that the time has come to stop the trial. An essay by Charity Scott, director of the Center for Law, Health and Society at Georgia State University, describes how a newspaper story accidentally illuminated a cultural divide about “the deserving poor,” and philosophers Hilde Lindemann and Marian Verkerk write about a radical Dutch protocol for ending the life of a newborn child that is nonetheless acceptable in the context of Dutch culture and medicine.

In IRB: Ethics & Human Research, an analysis of clinical trial Web sites for diabetes and certain depression studies raises concerns. The report reveals that roughly half of the sites failed to mention study risks or specific details about what the study required on the part of participants--while nearly three-quarters described incentives to participate. Moreover, for-profit entities were more likely to be the sponsors of Web sites that did not appear to provide balanced information.

Another study found that a clinical trials information handbook used during the informed consent process improved individuals’ knowledge about the process, and decreased perceived risk from trial participation. This, in turn, could affect trial enrollment. The book was developed by researchers at the New Mexico Veterans’Affairs Health Care System and the University of New Mexico Hospital.

Learn more about The Hastings Center and its publications at: www.thehastingscenter.org

The Hastings Center is a nonpartisan bioethics research institution dedicated to bioethics and the public interest since 1969. The Center is a pioneer in collaborative interdisciplinary research and dialogue on the ethical and social impact of advances in health care and the life sciences. The Center draws on a worldwide network of experts to frame and examine issues that inform professional practice, public conversation, and social policy.

The Hastings Center is a nonpartisan research institution dedicated to bioethics and the public interest since 1969.

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