Bioethics Forum Essay
After the Supreme Court Decision on Lethal Injection Drug, More Questions
Now that the Supreme Court has ruled that Oklahoma’s substitution of midazolam for sodium thiopental as a sedative in lethal injections does not violate the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual...Read “After the Supreme Court Decision on Lethal Injection Drug, More Questions”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Students and Professors Pay Tribute to John D. Arras
Most of us can easily remember a favorite course that we took in college, but it is much more difficult to recall one lecture that occurred on a single morning...Bioethics Forum Essay
Modern Day Mengeles
“No power in the world will make us deny our duty, or forget even for a moment our historical task of maintaining the freedom of our people.” — Joseph Goebbels...Bioethics Forum Essay
Responding to Ebola: Health Care Professionals’ Obligations to Provide Care
As health care institutions in the United States prepare for Ebola patients, many have adopted the policy that those providing hands-on care should come from a pool of volunteers. Given...Read “Responding to Ebola: Health Care Professionals’ Obligations to Provide Care”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Just Published Hastings Center Report Highlights “Teaching Bioethics”
The topic “teaching bioethics” is highlighted and explored in the newly published issue of theHastings Center Report, which contains a set of essays developed collaboratively by the Presidential Commission for the Study...Read “Just Published Hastings Center Report Highlights “Teaching Bioethics””
Bioethics Forum Essay
The FDA Proposes Roadblocks to Laboratory Diagnostics
The American laboratory industry and its ability to serve patients are being challenged by a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) proposal that will create a new bureaucracy to regulate some of...Read “The FDA Proposes Roadblocks to Laboratory Diagnostics”
Bioethics Forum Essay
The VA Crisis is Fundamentally an Ethics Crisis
The crisis and failure of caregiving that have engulfed the Veterans Health Administration cannot be solved with increased resources or even by hiring more doctors and nurses. Additional resources are...Bioethics Forum Essay
How I Learned Bioethics in Medical School
The director of the medical intensive care unit did not like the idea of having a bioethicist around. But she agreed to the request, and there he was on rounds,...Bioethics Forum Essay
LEGGO the Logo? Why Pharma Logos Belong on CME
Several weeks ago, the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) announced a new rule banning corporate logos from accredited educational materials for physicians. The ACCME sets standards for the...Bioethics Forum Essay
Borderline Disorder: Medical Personnel and Law Enforcement
Some recent news raises serious concerns about the relationship between medical professionals and law enforcement. Not being investigative journalists, we cannot speak to the accuracy of media reports or documents...Read “Borderline Disorder: Medical Personnel and Law Enforcement”
Bioethics Forum Essay
How Bioethicists Can Help Reduce Global Health Inequities
The state of global health is a major concern. Despite advances in medicine and medical care and massive growth of the global economy, health in the world is characterized by...Read “How Bioethicists Can Help Reduce Global Health Inequities”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Romanian Orphans Study: A Bioethicist Responds to Ethical Concerns
Last month, Joseph J. Fins published a commentary on this blog criticizing the ethics of the Bucharest Early Intervention Project (BEIP)–a randomized, controlled trial of Romanian children who had been in orphanages,...Read “Romanian Orphans Study: A Bioethicist Responds to Ethical Concerns”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Bioethics Books in Brief
A lot of new bioethics books come to The Hastings Center. Some of them end up getting reviewed in the Hastings Center Report, but not as many as we’d like. So,...Bioethics Forum Essay
Doctors Googling Patients
In the current issue of the Hastings Center Report, two teams of physicians and ethicists at Penn State consider the ethics of using online research and social networking tools to learn...Bioethics Forum Essay
Why Is Ethics Too Often Playing Catch Up?
The question is as old as the field of bioethics: why does ethics too often not see problems coming and is then forced to play catch-up? Note that I use...Bioethics Forum Essay
After Banning Torture, Psychology Association at a Crossroads
The American Psychological Association (APA) voted at its 2015 meeting to ban psychologists from participating in national security interrogation programs, including torture. The policy change was in response to the public outcry...Read “After Banning Torture, Psychology Association at a Crossroads”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Ethics at the Chocolate Factory
Two women are being trained for work on a factory assembly line. As products arrive on a conveyor belt, their task is to wrap each product and place it back...Bioethics Forum Essay
Ethics, Advocacy, and Euphemisms
Choosing the right words to express what we want to say is a basic part of our communication with other people. Yet we also choose words not just for their...Bioethics Forum Essay
“Beware the Ides of March” 2.0
The ancients looked to omens and portents to recognize signs of impending death. Today we do not rely on the ominous words of soothsayers, interpreting the entrails of chickens, or...Bioethics Forum Essay
Do Documentaries Have to Tell the Truth?
When the Tribeca Film Festival canceled its controversial screening of Vaxxed, a “documentary” (with scare-quotes) alleging a Centers for Disease Control cover-up of the debunked vaccine-autism link, it vindicated what scientists have collectively been saying...Bioethics Forum Essay
Lincoln’s Promise: Congress, Veterans, and Traumatic Brain Injury
Perhaps we were naïve. Our plan was relatively simple: we would chart the legislative evolution of programs for veterans with traumatic brain injuries (TBI) to identify policy gaps for this...Read “Lincoln’s Promise: Congress, Veterans, and Traumatic Brain Injury”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Telemedicine Needs Ethical Guidelines
Telemedicine is becoming more widespread. This is care at a distance, where patient and clinician are connected by information technology that may include video, audio, and monitoring equipment linked by...Bioethics Forum Essay
OrthoKantics
In 2008, The President’s Council on Bioethics turned to Immanuel Kant and his deontological philosophy as a resource for deliberations on contemporary bioethical issues. The report focused on Kant’s understanding...Bioethics Forum Essay
This Doctor Experimented on Slaves: It’s Time to Remove or Redo His Statue
“There is a difference between remembrance of history and reverence of it,” Mayor Mitch Landrieu declared to explain the removal of four Confederate monuments in New Orleans in May. The...Read “This Doctor Experimented on Slaves: It’s Time to Remove or Redo His Statue”
Hastings Center News
Questions About Conscientious Objection in Health Care
In January the Department of Health and Human Services acted to increase enforcement of laws that permit doctors and other health care workers to refuse to provide services such as...Read “Questions About Conscientious Objection in Health Care”
Hastings Center News
Hastings Scholar and Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist on Conscientious Objection
When is it acceptable for health care professionals to refuse to provide a treatment because it violates their conscience? The implications of recent developments in federal and state governments that...Read “Hastings Scholar and Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist on Conscientious Objection”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Should Doctors Treat Family Members?
Many privileges come with having a doctor in the family: appointments squeezed into busy schedules as personal favors, a conspicuous lack of financial strain, an ability to comprehend both treatment...Bioethics Forum Essay
Social Media, Privacy, and Research: A Muddled Landscape
The advent of social media technology has opened many new avenues of research in population health, demographics, psychology, and the social sciences. It is crucial to consider whether researchers conducting...Read “Social Media, Privacy, and Research: A Muddled Landscape”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Newspaper Op-Eds Should Disclose Authors’ Industry Ties
Earlier this month, The Seattle Times published an op-ed by Samuel Browd, medical director of Seattle Children’s Sport Concussion Program, on the risks of brain injury in youth sports. Dr. Browd...Read “Newspaper Op-Eds Should Disclose Authors’ Industry Ties”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Let the Sun Shine into the Medical Ivory Tower
In 2012, I coauthored a case report about the successful use of dietary supplements in treating a case of male infertility in the American Family Physician. Before it was published,...Hastings Center News
Announcing Ethics & Human Research
The Hastings Center is announcing an exciting new direction for its journal on research ethics. Beginning with the January-February 2019 issue, the Center will launch Ethics & Human Research (E&HR),...Bioethics Forum Essay
Should We Edit the Human Germline? Is Consensus Possible or Even Desirable?
I started writing this on my way back to New York from the Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing, held in Hong Kong November 27 to 29, where the...Read “Should We Edit the Human Germline? Is Consensus Possible or Even Desirable?”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Staying in Their Lane: Health Professionals Must Address Gun Violence
In the wake of the recent Twitter fight between the National Rifle Association and U.S. physician groups over whether doctors should speak out about firearm policy issues, we argue that...Read “Staying in Their Lane: Health Professionals Must Address Gun Violence”
Bioethics Forum Essay
#MeToo and Health Research Ethics
As a public health researcher interested in brain injuries in sports, I was searching for peer-reviewed literature that examined cultural pressures that cause athletes to minimize symptoms of potentially serious...Bioethics Forum Essay
Chinese Bioethicists: He Jiankui’s Crime is More than Illegal Medical Practice
Professionals and the public in China first learned of the jail sentence of He Jiankui from the report of Xinhua News Agency. No information, including any interpretation, was provided by the Court. But the reported words of the sentence are so ambiguous as to leave room for different interpretations. We believe that the public has the right to know more than Xinhua News Agency reported.Read “Chinese Bioethicists: He Jiankui’s Crime is More than Illegal Medical Practice”
Bioethics Forum Essay
What’s Wrong with Virginity Testing?
When the rapper T. I. disclosed on a podcast that he takes his 18-year-old daughter to a yearly gynecological examination to ensure that her hymen is still intact, the reaction of most people was condemnation. His obsession with her virginity is creepy, his subjecting her to an invasive procedure that has no medical value is controlling, and his willingness to talk about it publicly displays contempt for her rights to privacy and dignity. Some think that the law should prohibit physicians from performing or supervising virginity examinations. But the law is not the best means for dealing with the problem, and the problem is not simply virginity testing.Bioethics Forum Essay
To Restore Humanity in Health Care, Address Clinician Burnout
Health care in America is at a critical juncture. The number of people who need it continues to grow and costs have skyrocketed. But instead of being a beacon of healing, many health care organizations are beleaguered and overwhelmed. Burnout has become a rallying cry for nurses and doctors because it impedes their ability to uphold the foundational values of their professions and to serve in accordance with them. These realities have eroded the fundamental humanity of health care.Read “To Restore Humanity in Health Care, Address Clinician Burnout”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Clinicians Have a Moral Duty to Care for All Patients–Including Lockdown Protesters
Protesters questioning the ongoing need for lockdown measures aimed at controlling Covid19 are marching to make their concerns known, in some cases with arms and other military paraphernalia. Some ethicists think these protectors should sign a pledge to forego scarce medical care in the name of their political ideas. We disagree.Read “Clinicians Have a Moral Duty to Care for All Patients–Including Lockdown Protesters”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Caring for My First Neo-Nazi Patient
How could I, the grandchild of four Holocaust survivors, be obligated to provide not just satisfactory, but exceptional care to such a morally repugnant character?Page
Should the FDA Have Approved the New Alzheimer’s Drug?
Should Patients Take It? Monday, July 12, 2021 The Food and Drug Administration’s accelerated approval of a new Alzheimer’s drug has created a firestorm of praise and outrage. Dissenters include...Read “Should the FDA Have Approved the New Alzheimer’s Drug?”
Hastings Center News
TRANSCRIPT – Breakthrough or Breakdown: Should the FDA Have Approved the New Alzheimer’s Drug?
[Transcript created by voice recognition] Danielle Pacia, The Hastings Center Hello and welcome to Breakthrough or Breakdown. Should the FDA have approved the new Alzheimer’s drug, a Hastings Center conversation?...Bioethics Forum Essay
Contemporary Circus Draws on Ethics to Support Diversity
Even though the circus exists in the same world as theater and movies, it has been largely exempt from public criticism, apart from accusations of animal cruelty. But under the broad rubric of “contemporary circus,” this familiar entertainment genre is distancing itself from its past and creating a new and vibrant art form. And underlying this transformation is an ethical commitment to social justice, inclusion, and equity.Read “Contemporary Circus Draws on Ethics to Support Diversity”
Hastings Center News
Hastings Center Report Commentary Helps Catalyze Connecticut Action Against Unconsented Intimate Medical Exams
A national survey, described in an essay in the Hastings Center Report, found a widespread practice, often for medical student teaching purposes, of doing pelvic and rectal exams in unconscious...Bioethics Forum Essay
Veterinarians Often Provide Futile Care. Doing So Comes at a Cost
Like medical doctors and nurses, veterinarians experience moral distress and burnout because of the ethical conflicts they face on the job.Read “Veterinarians Often Provide Futile Care. Doing So Comes at a Cost”
Hastings Center News
Overcoming Ableism in Medical and Nursing Education
Equitable health care for all is a bioethical imperative. And discrimination against people with disabilities—ableism—stands in the way of fulfilling that imperative. A new Hastings Center project constitutes the first...Hastings Center News
12 Outstanding Scholars Recognized for Work in Ethics of Disability, Transplantation, Mental Health Care, and Other Areas
The Hastings Center is pleased to announce the election of 12 new fellows. Hastings Center fellows are a group of more than 200 individuals of outstanding accomplishment whose work has...Bioethics Forum Essay
Civil Death: Unethical in 1933 and Today
The rhyme of history is disturbing, especially when played out by the professionals whom we rely on for ethical leadership, not for unethical manipulation of the law.
