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
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
Responding to Zika: Ethical Challenges of Zoonotic Diseases
The World Health Organization will hold an emergency committee meeting on the pandemic reemergence of Zika virus and the explosive increase in reported cases of congenital microcephaly in Brazil possibly linked to...Read “Responding to Zika: Ethical Challenges of Zoonotic Diseases”
Bioethics Forum Essay
The Good of the Body
The December 2015 United Nations meeting on climate change was an historic moment for global efforts to reduce harmful carbon emissions. While it gained the agreement about the future good...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
Belief in a Just World: A Case Study in Public Health Ethics
Why did portraying a married, working, loving, family-oriented, and religious couple with a disabled child bring out consistently negative reactions among the public toward allowing this family access to government-subsidized...Read “Belief in a Just World: A Case Study in Public Health Ethics”
Bioethics Forum Essay
After the Election Bioethics Faces a Rocky Road
Academic bioethics has never been popular with Republicans. Libertarians dislike academic bioethics because it seems too elitist and anti-free market. Religious thinkers worry it is technocratic, soulless and crassly utilitarian....Hastings Center News
What Do We Owe Frail Older People?
A woman juggles caring for her aged father at home and going to work. A volunteer cares for an 83-year-old man who lives alone and wonders why the man’s son...Hastings Center News
Hastings Center Scholar Addresses Implications of CDC Avoiding Seven Words
Vulnerable. Entitlement. Diversity. Transgender. Fetus. Evidence-based. Science-based. Last week, news outlets reported that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had been advised to avoid using these seven words in...Read “Hastings Center Scholar Addresses Implications of CDC Avoiding Seven Words”
Bioethics Forum Essay
After Hurricane Harvey, Injustice in Houston
Hurricane Harvey dissipated in September, but much of the destruction that it wreaked on Texas and Louisiana remains. When addressing residential concerns, disaster relief officials prioritize the newly homeless over...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”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Is it Time to Regulate the Sale of Sugar to Minors?
In “Tackling Obesity and Disease: The Culprit Is Sugar; the Response is Legal Regulation,” published in the Hastings Center Report, Lawrence O. Gostin describes four coordinated interventions that have been...Bioethics Forum Essay
The Only PhD Scientist in Congress Speaks About Truth, Politics, and Human Flourishing
At a time when facts are distorted, disregarded, and ignored in policy making and political discourse, the need in Washington for seekers and defenders of truth has perhaps never been...Read “The Only PhD Scientist in Congress Speaks About Truth, Politics, and Human Flourishing”
Hastings Center News
Should Gene-Edited Mice Be Released to Control Lyme Disease?
Hastings Center research scholar Carolyn P. Neuhaus participated in a panel discussion on Martha’s Vineyard on July 12 to discuss a proposal to release genetically modified mice to curb the...Read “Should Gene-Edited Mice Be Released to Control Lyme Disease?”
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
Immigrant Health and the Moral Scandal of the “Public Charge” Rule
A long-anticipated policy change proposed by the Trump administration that would count the use of many federally-subsidized programs against immigrants currently eligible to use them threatens public health and would...Read “Immigrant Health and the Moral Scandal of the “Public Charge” Rule”
Hastings Center News
New Project: Public Deliberation on Gene Editing in the Wild
With funding from the National Science Foundation, a new Hastings Center project will examine the rationale and challenges of public deliberation on the release of genetically modified insects, mammals, and...Read “New Project: Public Deliberation on Gene Editing in the Wild”
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
Forced from Home: Evicting Immigrants from Public Housing Harms Children’s Health
The federal government's proposed rule to disqualify families from public housing if any member is undocumented will harm children, families, and cities.Read “Forced from Home: Evicting Immigrants from Public Housing Harms Children’s Health”
Bioethics Forum Essay
From Outcry to Solidarity with Migrants: What Is the Good We Can Do?
Another June. Another public outcry about cruelty as policy harming migrants in United States custody. This summer, the photo of a drowned family, Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and his daughter, Valeria, of El Salvador, shocks the conscience. Reporters are documenting the inhumane conditions in a Border Patrol facility where hundreds of children have been held. How should our field respond?Read “From Outcry to Solidarity with Migrants: What Is the Good We Can Do?”
Bioethics Forum Essay
The Public Charge Rule Is a Eugenic Policy
Hastings Center News
Hastings Center’s Rosemary Gibson Honored for Enhancing Health Care Quality
Read “Hastings Center’s Rosemary Gibson Honored for Enhancing Health Care Quality”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Report from China: Ethical Questions on the Response to the Coronavirus
Hastings Center fellows in China discuss ethical questions about the response to the spreading coronavirus.Read “Report from China: Ethical Questions on the Response to the Coronavirus”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Health Care for Obesity and Eating Disorders: What Needs to Change
The theme of National Eating Disorder Awareness (NEDA) week , “Come as you are: Hindsight is 20-20,” is designed to encourage those recovering from eating disorders to reflect on their journeys towards body acceptance. It also affords doctors and other health professionals an opportunity to evaluate how well they are doing to help patients reach this goal.Read “Health Care for Obesity and Eating Disorders: What Needs to Change”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Coronavirus Response Is Insufficient for Vulnerable New Yorkers
Read “Coronavirus Response Is Insufficient for Vulnerable New Yorkers”
Hastings Center News
The Hastings Center Produces Guidance for Ethical Practice in Responding to COVID-19
The Hastings Center has developed a resource for health care institutions and institutional ethics services to support leadership and practice during the novel coronavirus public health emergency and in the care of patients with COVID-19.The Hastings Center convened an expert advisory group to meet the need for a practical resource to support institutional preparedness and supplement public health and clinical practice guidance on COVID-19.Read “The Hastings Center Produces Guidance for Ethical Practice in Responding to COVID-19”
Hastings Center News
America’s Bioethicists and Health Care Leaders: Government Must Use Federal Powers To Fight COVID-19
Nearly 1,400 of the nation’s most prominent bioethicists and health leaders signed an urgent letter to Congress and the White House, imploring the U.S. government to immediately use its federal power and funds to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic as a matter of moral imperative. The petition was developed by Mildred Solomon, president of The Hastings Center, and Lawrence Gostin, a Hastings Fellow and director of the O’Neill Center for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University.Bioethics Forum Essay
We Need International Medical Graduates to Help Fight Covid-19. Immigration Policies Keep Them Away
Bioethics Forum Essay
The Price of Going Back to Work Too Soon
Bioethics Forum Essay
U.S. and Canada: Being Good Neighbors in the Pandemic
Canada has a fraction of the number of cases of Covid-19 as the U.S. Canadians feel vulnerable. But Canadians and Americans need to find ways to build and maintain trust within and across our borders.Read “U.S. and Canada: Being Good Neighbors in the Pandemic”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Ethics and Evidence in the Search for a Vaccine and Treatments for Covid-19
In the rush to find a Covid-19 vaccine and one or more drugs to treat the deadly disease, concerns are being raised that ethical standards for conducting human clinical trials and the evidentiary standards for determining whether interventions are safe and effective, might be loosened.Read “Ethics and Evidence in the Search for a Vaccine and Treatments for Covid-19”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Show Me Your Passport: Ethical Concerns About Covid-19 Antibody Testing as Key to Reopening Public Life
Around the world, governments are looking for safe ways to lift unprecedented restrictions on public activities to curb the spread of Covid-19. So-called immunity passports could be key to the effort to selectively ease restrictions for people presumed to be immune to the virus. But there are scientific and ethical questions to be worked out before they can be deployed. .Bioethics Forum Essay
Beyond the Covid Crisis—A New Social Contract with Public Health
Covid-19 is teaching us the stern lesson that economic well-being and health justice are two sides of the same coin. To weather pandemics and restore the social contact that economic life demands, we need to sign a new social contract with public health.Read “Beyond the Covid Crisis—A New Social Contract with Public Health”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Individual Freedom or Public Health? A False Choice in the Covid Era
When scientists first suggested population-wide social distancing as the only feasible way to suppress Covid-19, they were the first to admit it may not work in a free society. We are now months into placing mass restrictions on human behavior to suppress a virus that lacks an effective vaccine or treatment. Now is the time to ask: is this the authoritarian nightmare many feared, or will freedom and democracy survive Covid-19?Read “Individual Freedom or Public Health? A False Choice in the Covid Era”
Bioethics Forum Essay
After the Surge: Prioritizing the Backlog of Delayed Hospital Procedures
The rewards of social distancing are beginning to accrue in former hotspots such as Seattle, the New York metropolitan area, and the San Francisco Bay Area, where the number of new Covid-19 cases requiring hospitalization is declining. Assuming the rewards hold in the face of pressures to reopen the economy, hospitals will now face challenges of reopening their own nonpandemic services for patients whose elective surgeries and other procedures were postponed. Which patients should get priority?Read “After the Surge: Prioritizing the Backlog of Delayed Hospital Procedures”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Social-Change Games Can Help Us Understand the Public Health Choices We Face
Before there was the Covid-19 pandemic, there was Pandemic. This tabletop game, in which players collaborate to fight disease outbreaks, debuted in 2007. Expansions feature weaponized pathogens, historic pandemics, zoonotic diseases, and vaccine development races. Game mechanics modelled on pandemic vectors provide multiple narratives: battle, quest, detection, discovery. There is satisfaction in playing “against” disease–and winning. Real pandemic is not as tidy as a game. But can games support understanding about the societal challenges we now face? Yes.Read “Social-Change Games Can Help Us Understand the Public Health Choices We Face”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Pandemic Language
Bioethics Forum Essay
Lawsuits of Last Resort: Employees Fight for Safe Workplaces during Covid-19
As more workplaces open up, a seldom-used legal action is being taken against employers charged with inadequately protecting employees from the coronavirus: public nuisance lawsuits.Read “Lawsuits of Last Resort: Employees Fight for Safe Workplaces during Covid-19”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Are Physicians Hypocrites for Supporting Black Lives Matter Protests and Opposing Anti-Lockdown Protests? An Ethical Analysis
Physicians have been vocal in condemning the anti-lockdown protests while endorsing and even participating in the Black Lives Matter protests. This has led to criticism of the medical community for being inconsistent and hypocritical. What does an ethical analysis reveal?Page
Public Trust in Science
HASTINGS CONVERSATIONS: A SERIES Dr. Anthony Fauci explored the ethical issues raised by the erosion of trust in science in a new virtual discussion hosted by The Hastings Center. The...Bioethics Forum Essay
Resisting Public Health Measures, Then and Now
One of the most surprising aspects of the Covid-19 pandemic for those of us who teach the history of public health is how unwilling many Americans have been to adopt health measures to protect others. Over the Thanksgiving holiday, tens of millions of Americans traveled, despite the fact that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urged them to stay home and the overall death rate from the coronavirus is approaching 300,000. Should recent events make us revisit aspects of the history of public health? And how can these stories inform future public health efforts during pandemics?Bioethics Forum Essay
Motivated Ignorance: A Challenge for Science Communication and Democracy
Many people are deeply interested in the political process and awash in relevant information., but nevertheless often grossly misinformed, holding confident but unfounded opinions at odds with widely accessible evidence The recent riot at Capitol Hill is just one illustration–albeit a horrifying one–of such misinformation and its potential consequences. The anti-vaccine movement is another example.Read “Motivated Ignorance: A Challenge for Science Communication and Democracy”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Science in the Biden White House: Eric Lander, Alondra Nelson, and the Legacy of Lewis Thomas
Science has replaced populism in the White House. For the first time, the president's science advisor will be elevated to cabinet rank. There are other good omens, as well.Read “Science in the Biden White House: Eric Lander, Alondra Nelson, and the Legacy of Lewis Thomas”
Page
Advancing Social Justice, Health Equity, and Community
TRANSCRIPT: February 9, 2021 Hello, good afternoon. If you’re on the East Coast and welcome to the annual Daniel Callahan lecture, advancing social justice, health, equity and Community. We are...Read “Advancing Social Justice, Health Equity, and Community”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Bruce Springsteen: The Latest Celebrity DWI
It was especially disappointing to read about Bruce Springsteen’s recent arrest for suspicion of driving while intoxicated (DWI). Here's hoping the famous rocker will use his arrest to refocus attention on a risky and dangerous behavior that is thoroughly preventable.Page
Transcript | Vaccine Access, Vaccine Hesitancy: Challenges to Herd Immunity
A HASTINGS CENTER CONVERSATION WITH RHEA BOYD, MAYA GOLDENBERG, AND MILDRED SOLOMON The Hastings Center hosted “Vaccine Access, Vaccine Hesitancy: Challenges to Herd Immunity,” an online discussion of the ethical issues related...Read “Transcript | Vaccine Access, Vaccine Hesitancy: Challenges to Herd Immunity”
Bioethics Forum Essay
C.D.C.’s Latest Mask Guidance: Science, Politics, and Public Health
The C.D.C.'s latest policy guidance that people who have been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus virus no longer need to wear face masks indoors gets the science right, but policymaking wrong.Read “C.D.C.’s Latest Mask Guidance: Science, Politics, and Public Health”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Rugged American Individualism is a Myth, and It’s Killing Us
The American myth of rugged individualism, which often means “pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps,” is outdated, was never completely accurate. It is on full display during the coronavirus pandemic, contributing to cases and deaths.Read “Rugged American Individualism is a Myth, and It’s Killing Us”
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?...Hastings Center News
To Improve Health Equity, Look at Politics
Daniel Dawes, a key figure in shaping the Affordable Care Act, urged the audience at last month’s health care summit to look upstream and focus on the political and structural...Hastings Center News
“Hard to Hear” About Racism in Medical Education
“You have to embed structural practices in health professions education to dismantle racism in medicine,“ said Priya Garg, associate dean of medical education at Boston University School of Medicine, at...Bioethics Forum Essay
Treating Gun Violence as a Public Health Threat: Not Exactly What We Meant
This week, the United States saw two momentous public health events: one million deaths attributed to Covid and the 198th mass shooting of the year. Both the pandemic and gun shootings are threats to public health that are not being adequately addressed.Read “Treating Gun Violence as a Public Health Threat: Not Exactly What We Meant”
From Bioethics Briefings
Climate Change
Framing the Issue No issue demands greater care in balancing benefits and risks than responding to the threat of global climate change. Data indicate that global surface temperatures have risen...Bioethics Forum Essay
Public Health Officials and Gun Rights Advocates Must Work Together
In rural Virginia, where I live, there is strong support for the right to own and carry guns. For more than a decade, I have shared public health, mental health, and other scientific findings with the leadership of a statewide Second Amendment rights advocacy group, especially regarding the leading number of deaths by firearms: suicide. We do not agree on what firearms laws and policies might be or do to prevent suicides, but we have sustained our conversations and respectfully learned from each other’s point of view. Such conversations are hard to have.Read “Public Health Officials and Gun Rights Advocates Must Work Together”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Philanthropy is Not Enough: Oil and Gas Giants Must Consider Medical Ethics
Given the well-known environmental and health risks of oil and gas drilling, oil and gas giants that enter developing nations routinely offset these risks with charitable investments. Are these investments sufficient? Do the funds go where they are needed? Answering this question raises ethical issues that need greater attention.Read “Philanthropy is Not Enough: Oil and Gas Giants Must Consider Medical Ethics”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Should Ethicists Be at the Table in Public Health Policy Deliberations?
In a recent article in The New England Journal of Medicine, Ezekiel Emanuel and colleagues clearly illustrate the relevance of ethical considerations to policy deliberations concerning public health emergencies. But do ethicists belong at the table?Read “Should Ethicists Be at the Table in Public Health Policy Deliberations?”
Hastings Center News
Rebuilding Trust in Health Care and Science
While confidence in many institutions has been declining for decades, the Covid-19 pandemic exposed the breakdown in trust in health care and science. A new Hastings Center special report on...Hastings Center News
Would Causing Extinction Ever Be the Right Thing to Do?
Hastings Center research director Gregory Kaebnick sat down with graphic journalist Deb Lucke to discuss the ethics of deliberate extinction—the use of genetic technologies to sacrifice certain harmful species for...Read “Would Causing Extinction Ever Be the Right Thing to Do?”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Bioethics Must Address War as a Public Health Crisis
Today’s wars kill far more civilians than soldiers. Bioethics must address war not just as an individual tragedy but as a public health disaster.Bioethics Forum Essay
How Bioethicists Can Respond to the Moment by Learning from the Past
History is informative in considering how bioethicists should respond to serious new threats to public health and well-being.Read “How Bioethicists Can Respond to the Moment by Learning from the Past”
