Bioethics Forum Essay
Responding to Ebola: Fostering Transparency and Inclusivity
Media reports indicate that seven individuals have received ZMapp to date, two of whom have died. The first recipients were two American health care workers from Liberia who were treated...Read “Responding to Ebola: Fostering Transparency and Inclusivity”
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
The Ethical Imperialism of Moral Science
In December, the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues released a 200-page report, Moral Science: Protecting Participants in Human Subjects in Research. Continuing a decades-old tradition, the report treats...Page
Ethics & Human Research
Ethics & Human Research (formerly IRB: Ethics & Human Research) aims to foster critical analysis of issues in science and health care that have implications for human biomedical and behavioral...Bioethics Forum Essay
Human Challenge Studies for Covid-19 Vaccine: Questions about Benefits and Risks
Experts in infectious disease and public health warn that the Covid-19 pandemic will be with us until there is an effective vaccine, possibly 12 to 18 months in the future. This situation has given rise to calls for human challenge studies, in which healthy volunteers are injected with an experimental vaccine and then infected with the disease to test the vaccine’s efficacy. Is this ethically justifiable?Read “Human Challenge Studies for Covid-19 Vaccine: Questions about Benefits and Risks”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Accepting the Challenge: Covid Vaccine Challenge Trials Can Be Ethically Justified
The Covid-19 pandemic is unlikely to end until there is a safe, effective, and widely distributed vaccine. How soon can researchers achieve this goal? The answer largely depends on which strategies researchers are willing to adopt. One potential strategy is to conduct human challenge studies, in which researchers give an experimental vaccine to healthy volunteers and then test—or “challenge”—the vaccine by purposely exposing volunteers to the virus. Although a growing number of voices are calling on researchers to employ this strategy, the proposal is generating a heated debate about the ethics of such research.Read “Accepting the Challenge: Covid Vaccine Challenge Trials Can Be Ethically Justified”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Fair Compensation for Rare Vaccine Harms
As multiple Covid vaccine candidates enter clinical trials and hopefully move closer to approval, one important unanswered question is how to compensate the rare cases of serious vaccine harm.COVID-19
Could the Common Cold Help Stop Covid-19? We Need to Know–Now.
In an essay published in Scientific American, we call for immediate and intensive research into the possibility that exposure to one of the coronaviruses that cause the common cold could decrease the severity of Covid-19, and could be leveraged to expand what’s been called “pre-existing” immunity to the disease by deliberate transmission of common cold coronaviruses. Here, we expand on our proposal.Read “Could the Common Cold Help Stop Covid-19? We Need to Know–Now.”
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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
Human Embryo Research Beyond 14 Days? International Perspectives
In late May, an international organization eliminated a 40-year prohibition against human embryo research beyond 14 days. The legal and scientific consequences will vary around the world.Read “Human Embryo Research Beyond 14 Days? International Perspectives”
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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?...Hastings Center News
Ethical and Policy Guidance for Translational Xenotransplantation Clinical Trials
Xenotransplantation is a novel experimental treatment that involves transplanting organs from nonhuman animals into humans to reduce the organ shortage—a public health problem. A new four-year research study, supported by...Read “Ethical and Policy Guidance for Translational Xenotransplantation Clinical Trials”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Studying Covid Vaccines in the Youngest Kids
Children have suffered both physical and mental illness during the pandemic. Nearly 200 children in the United States have died. Acute mental health crises increased during the pandemic. Getting children immunized is the best way to get back to normal. We suggest an option that would permit children under 5 to be vaccinated without waiting until traditional prospective randomized trials can be completed.Bioethics Forum Essay
Research Ethics Meets the New Marketplace
A bill for $476 for inquiring about participating in a medical research study? This is no joke.Bioethics Forum Essay
Oncology, Bioethics, and War
Like many other Ukrainians, I woke up on February 24 from the sounds of explosions. I had some difficult decisions to make. I treat cancer patients.Bioethics Forum Essay
Clicking ‘Accept’ Is Not Informed Consent
A recent Science article published the results of an experiment conducted on 20 million LinkedIn users over five years involving the “People You May Know” algorithm. None of these people knew they were part of an experiment, nor did they consent to participate.Page
Should We Change “Chimeric” Human-Animal Research?
January 10, 2023 SPECIAL REPORT: Creating Chimeric Animals: Seeking Clarity on Ethics and Oversight TRANSCRIPT: Should We Change “Chimeric” Human-Animal Research? Crossing species boundaries by inserting human cells into (nonhuman)...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
ChatGPT Just Makes Stuff Up: A Conversation on a Controversial Topic
I am currently writing up the results of a retrospective chart review of patients’ consent or refusal for medical students to perform pelvic exams on them when they’re under anesthesia and sedated. I asked ChatGPT to summarize the ethical issues and tell me what sources it used to generate its response.Read “ChatGPT Just Makes Stuff Up: A Conversation on a Controversial Topic”
Hastings Center News
Global Team Recommends Ethical Framework for Human Research in Commercial Spaceflight
The first ethical framework for conducting human research on commercial spaceflight was proposed today in an article in Science by an international team that included Hastings Center president Vardit Ravitsky. Ravitsky’s contribution focused on promoting diversity among the researchers and participants, which is essential to ensuring the research benefits society at large.Read “Global Team Recommends Ethical Framework for Human Research in Commercial Spaceflight”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Race, Research, and Bioethics: The Chapatis Studies
New inquiry examines ethics of 1960's experiments involving Punjabi immigrants in the United Kingdom and radioactive chapatis.Bioethics Forum Essay
The Neuralink Patient Behind the Musk
The sole virtue of Elon Musk’s report on X, formerly known as Twitter, of the first in-human brain implant by his company, Neuralink, is its brevity: “The first human received...Hastings Center News
AI Code of Conduct Draft is Released; Submit Your Comments
A draft code of conduct for artificial intelligence in health, health care, and biomedical was released on April 8 by the National Academy of Medicine’s AI Code of Conduct initiative;...Read “AI Code of Conduct Draft is Released; Submit Your Comments”