Bioethics Forum EssayMedical Privacy for Royalty and the Rest of Us “What’s happening with my son?” a woman on the other end of the phone asked me. I wasn’t sure what to say. I was training to be a psychiatrist, and...Read Medical Privacy for Royalty and the Rest of UsBioethics Forum EssayUnexpected Lessons from the Anatomy LabWe put on navy blue scrubs, plastic aprons, goggles, and gloves and walked into the anatomical dissection rooms for the first time.Three other first-year medical students and I gathered around...Read Unexpected Lessons from the Anatomy LabBioethics Forum EssayGivers Beware: Medical Charities and Deceptive Fundraising On a bright Sunday morning in New York’s Central Park, as October leaves bid a variegated farewell to green, nascent golds and auburns yielded for a few short hours to...Read Givers Beware: Medical Charities and Deceptive FundraisingBioethics Forum EssayWhy Hospitals Should Go GreenerConventional wisdom: Making environmentally friendly changes is a luxury that most hospitals can’t afford. Evidence: Making environmentally friendly changes can save hospitals a lot of money – and save the...Read Why Hospitals Should Go GreenerBioethics Forum EssayDeepwater Horizon Explosion: Challenges for BioethicsOn November 15, the Department of Justice announced that BP Exploration and Production Inc. agreed to plead guilty to 11 counts of felony manslaughter, one count of felony obstruction of...Read Deepwater Horizon Explosion: Challenges for BioethicsBioethics Forum EssayEthically Impossible: New Educational Tools By now the story of Susan Reverby’s discovery of John Cutler’s papers is well known. In 2010, she revealed details of the Guatemala studies from the U. S. Public Health...Read Ethically Impossible: New Educational ToolsBioethics Forum EssayWhen Cutting Mental Health Spending Means Passing the BuckIt’s no secret that community-based mental health and substance use treatment services are underfunded, but less widely known is the extent of the problem. Since 2009, the height of the...Read When Cutting Mental Health Spending Means Passing the BuckBioethics Forum EssayEthics and the StormI teach a seminar on ethics in health care in the newly-launched Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) program at Yale. My students include advanced practice registered nurses (nurse practitioners), senior...Read Ethics and the StormBioethics Forum EssayThe Choice BazaarSome years ago I wrote a book on abortion that espoused women’s right to choose abortion and was later cited in Roe v. Wade. That should have made me popular with...Read The Choice BazaarBioethics Forum EssayYour Brain in the CourtroomOn Monday, New America Foundation in Washington, DC held a thought-provoking event, My Brain Made Me Do It, which explored the role of neuroscience in understanding human behavior, particularly that...Read Your Brain in the CourtroomBioethics Forum EssayTime to Change FDA’s Discriminatory Blood Donation PolicyA recent flurry of articles in the mainstream media (The Atlantic,CNN, Huffington Post) reflects yet another wave of protest against the Food and Drug Administration’s blood donation policy, which prohibits men who...Read Time to Change FDA’s Discriminatory Blood Donation PolicyBioethics Forum EssayHealth Care for Undocumented Immigrants: A Family IssueIn a presidential campaign riven with disagreement about nearly everything to do with health care, there is a notable area of bipartisan accord: both parties support improving children’s health and...Read Health Care for Undocumented Immigrants: A Family IssueBioethics Forum EssayFor a Survivor, it’s Not Easy Being PinkI am a breast cancer survivor and I am not a fan of the huge “pink” industry that has developed around breast cancer. We have ribbons, pins, and bands. We...Read For a Survivor, it’s Not Easy Being PinkBioethics Forum EssayThe Presidential Bioethics Debate 2012With the first presidential debate beginning tonight and the race entering the final stretch, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are making their final policy pitches to the American public. While...Read The Presidential Bioethics Debate 2012Bioethics Forum EssaySyria’s War Against MedicineOn Monday, the Global Post published Inside Syria: One Hospital’s Story, which offers a glimpse into an emergency room in Aleppo, Syria, flooded with wounded Syrians. “I didn’t see this amount of blood...Read Syria’s War Against MedicineBioethics Forum EssayTake Our Poll: The Facebook Effect on Organ DonationBlair and Alfred Sadler reported here a few weeks ago on the effect of Facebook’s feature, introduced last spring, that enables users to link to their local organ donation registries and share their...Read Take Our Poll: The Facebook Effect on Organ DonationBioethics Forum EssayConscientious Objection and Undocumented Migrants in SpainFor decades, all undocumented migrants in Spain have had access health care, but that changed drastically on September 1, when a new law went into effect that provides coverage to...Read Conscientious Objection and Undocumented Migrants in SpainBioethics Forum EssayRitual Circumcision: Ban Metzitzah b’pehMale newborn circumcision has been much in the news of late. In Germany, the procedure was criminalized in the Cologne Regional Court, and on August 21 the firstmohel(Jewish traditional practitioner)...Read Ritual Circumcision: Ban Metzitzah b’pehBioethics Forum EssayThe Flip-flop over ForeskinThe American Academy of Pediatricians recently released a statement saying that the health benefits of circumcision outweighed the risks. This pronouncement contradicts the Academy’s earlier ruling, just thirteen years ago in 1999, which...Read The Flip-flop over ForeskinBioethics Forum EssayCan Social Media Increase Transplant Donation and Save Lives?While at the National Institutes of Health in 1967 and 1968, we were involved in the design and drafting of the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act, in partnership with the Commissioners...Read Can Social Media Increase Transplant Donation and Save Lives?Bioethics Forum EssayRobot and Frank, and Maybe MeIf movies are one window into the soul of America, “Robot and Frank” has some funny/sad things to say about our current approach to aging. Frank (Frank Langella, as charismatic...Read Robot and Frank, and Maybe MeBioethics Forum EssayLow-T, High Profit?An unusually lengthy and undoubtedly expensive 90-second commercial for Androgel aired during men’s swimming and volleyball events in NBC’s coverage of the Olympics. The ad touts Androgel 1.62%, a more concentrated formulation...Read Low-T, High Profit?Bioethics Forum Essay“End of Life,” Value Judgments, and Ending LivesIt may be more than just discrimination at work. As is to be expected, once people start reflecting on an essay as important and provocative as Bill Peace’s“Comfort Care as...Read “End of Life,” Value Judgments, and Ending LivesBioethics Forum EssayDisability Discrimination: The Author RespondsI suspect most people with a disability fear even the most routine hospitalization. We do not fear any of the commonplace indignities those without a disability worry about when hospitalized....Read Disability Discrimination: The Author RespondsBioethics Forum EssayResearch Bias Compromises Chimpanzee Protection EffortsIn December 2011, a landmark Institute of Medicine (IOM) report concluded that advances in science and medicine “have rendered chimpanzees largely unnecessary as research subjects.” Yet a recent search on the U.S....Read Research Bias Compromises Chimpanzee Protection EffortsBioethics Forum EssayDisability Discrimination: A Doctor’s ViewThis is the third commentary about “Comfort Care as Denial of Personhood,” a powerful essay in the July-August Hastings Center Reportthat describes a chilling encounter between a physician and a seriously ill disabled patient. The author,...Read Disability Discrimination: A Doctor’s ViewBioethics Forum EssayDisability Discrimination: Risky Business for “Consenting” AdultsThis is the second commentary about “Comfort Care as Denial of Personhood,” a powerful essay in the July-August Hastings Center Report that describes a chilling encounter between a physician and a seriously ill disabled patient. The...Read Disability Discrimination: Risky Business for “Consenting” AdultsBioethics Forum EssayDisability DiscriminationA powerful essay in the July-August Hastings Center Report describes a chilling encounter between a physician and a seriously ill disabled patient. The author, William J. Peace, who has been paralyzed from...Read Disability DiscriminationBioethics Forum EssayHealth Care Reform: How to FailI write this in the last days of the run-up to the Supreme Court decision on the Affordable Care Act. If it comes down against the ACA in some important...Read Health Care Reform: How to FailBioethics Forum EssayElectronic Health Records: Balancing Progress and PrivacyRegardless of the fate of the Affordable Care Act, it has set in motion a drive toward greater use of information technology, particularly with regard to electronic health records (EHRs)....Read Electronic Health Records: Balancing Progress and PrivacyBioethics Forum EssayThe Minimalist as Maximalist: Food Ethics and Workers’ RightsMark Bittman, the New York Times food writer who created the no-fail “minimalist” recipes affixed to many a locavore refrigerator door, is an ethical maximalist. In his 1994 book, Thick and Thin:Moral Argument...Read The Minimalist as Maximalist: Food Ethics and Workers’ RightsBioethics Forum EssayThe Tough-Minded and the Tender-MindedSome people are addicted to crossword puzzles, others to new shoes, and still others to collecting baseball statistics. One of my addictions is that of comparing policy arguments in very...Read The Tough-Minded and the Tender-MindedBioethics Forum EssayThe Difficult Child of Medical ProgressThe most seemingly sensible diagnosis of our health care cost problem over the years has been to reduce or eliminate waste and inefficiency. Of late that interest has greatly accelerated....Read The Difficult Child of Medical ProgressBioethics Forum Essay“You Can Refuse This”I recently landed in a New York City hospital due to complications from diverticulitis coupled with a severe allergic reaction to an antibiotic that I was taking to treat the...Read “You Can Refuse This”Bioethics Forum EssayAnthrax Vaccine Trials for Children: Precautionary or Premature?Last Thursday, the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues met in Washington, DC to assess the ethics of a clinical trial on anthrax vaccines for children. Secretary of Health and...Read Anthrax Vaccine Trials for Children: Precautionary or Premature?Bioethics Forum Essay“Doing Bioethics” in PakistanIn my seven years as head of the Center of Biomedical Ethics and Culture (CBEC) at the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation (SIUT) in Karachi I am often asked...Read “Doing Bioethics” in PakistanBioethics Forum EssayArizona’s Ultrasound Mandate, Abortion, and the War on WomenEager to join the ongoing “war on women” and seize the opportunity to roll back women’s reproductive rights, Arizona Republican Governor Jan Brewer signed into law the Women’s Health and Safety...Read Arizona’s Ultrasound Mandate, Abortion, and the War on WomenBioethics Forum EssayNurse Practitioners: One Answer to the Nation’s Primary Care ShortageI was teaching a group of nursing students at a major New York City hospital a few months ago when one young student came to me, pale and perspiring. She...Read Nurse Practitioners: One Answer to the Nation’s Primary Care ShortageBioethics Forum EssayMedicine as a Weapon in Syria and BeyondA recent editorial in The Lancet issued a dire warning to the international medical community: medicine is a weapon of war in Syria. It is just the latest in a series of...Read Medicine as a Weapon in Syria and BeyondBioethics Forum EssayThe Ethical Imperialism of Moral ScienceIn 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...Read The Ethical Imperialism of Moral Science