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The Hastings Center for Bioethics — Health, Science, and Technology Ethics
Read “The Hastings Center for Bioethics — Health, Science, and Technology Ethics”
From Bioethics Briefings
Abortion
A central philosophical question in the abortion debate concerns the moral status of the embryo and fetus. If the fetus is a person, with the same right to life as any human being who has been born, it would seem that very few, if any, abortions could be justified, because it is not morally permissible to kill children because they are unwanted or illegitimate or disabled. However, the morality of abortion is not settled so straightforwardly. Even if one accepts the argument that the fetus is a person, it does not automatically follow that it has a right to the use of the pregnant woman’s body. Thus, the morality of abortion depends not only on the moral status of the fetus, but also on whether the pregnant woman has an obligation to continue to gestate the fetus.Page
Our Mission
The Hastings Center for Bioethics addresses social and ethical issues in health care, science, and technology. We study each of them through a common lens, a lens that asks us to...Page
Our Approach
The Hastings Center examines major questions that advances in biomedical technologies pose to society. Should we edit the human germline? How should we derive benefits from synthetic biology and prevent...Page
Our Research
The Hastings Center for Bioethics helps frame and examine critical bioethics issues facing professional practice and public policy. Our researchers include a staff of leading bioethics scholars and a worldwide...Page
Who We Are
The Hastings Center for Bioethics is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization created from multiple disciplines, including philosophy, law, political science, and education. The Hastings Center for Bioethics was critical to establishing...Page
Campus
Based in a 19th century, nationally-listed Victorian former residence overlooking the Hudson River, our beautiful retreat-like setting is served by the latest digital networking technology allowing global webcasts, teleconferences and...Page
For The Media
Please direct media queries to:Susan Gilbert, communications directorgilberts@thehastingscenter.org845-424-4040, ext. 244 Hastings Center News:Read the News Archive About the Hastings Center for Bioethics:The Hastings Center for Bioethics is a nonpartisan ethics...Page
Hastings Center Report
The Hastings Center Report explores the ethical, legal, and social issues in medicine, health care, public health, and the life sciences. Six issues of the pioneering bioethics journal are published...Page
Our Issues
We have identified five broad areas where the national and global community face serious challenges. These categories have some overlap and do not cover every research project Hastings will undertake,...Page
Publications
From Bioethics Briefings
Biobanks: DNA and Research
Framing the Issue With recent advances in molecular biology, human biospecimens have become enormously valuable for medical researchers. Biospecimens such as blood, surgical tissue, saliva, and urine contain genetic material...Page
Our Team
VISITING SCHOLARS
Bioethics Careers & Education
Here you will find career and educational opportunities in the field of bioethics. See also materials for high school bioethics curricula.Page
Jobs & Fellowships
Interested in posting a bioethics job or fellowship opportunity? Please submit your listing here. (Be sure to include a link.) Visit our Jobs at The Hastings Center page. Postdoctoral Fellowship / Lecturer...Page
Books by Hastings Scholars
Research projects at the Center often lead to books. In addition, Center scholars write independently on a variety of topics. Here is a selection of books. Human Flourishing in an...Page
Terms of Use
This Website (“Website”) is an online information and communications service provided by The Hastings Center (“The Center,” “we” or “our”). Please carefully read the following Terms of Use before using...Page
Hastings Bioethics Forum
Hastings Bioethics Forum publishes commentaries on topical issues in bioethics. Susan Gilbert, Editor. For questions about contributing, contact gilberts@thehastingscenter.org. Essays are the opinions of the authors, not of The Hastings Center...From Bioethics Briefings
Brain Injury: Neuroscience and Neuroethics
Framing the Issue The national conversation over Terri Schiavo illustrated how questions about severe brain injury became central to the past decade’s most convulsive bioethics debate. As is well appreciated...Page
Robert S. Morison Library
The Robert S. Morison Library of the Hastings Center supports the research interests of Hastings, its Fellows, the visiting scholars program, and the general public (by appointment). Established in 1970,...Page
Current Projects
The Human Life Span A Housing Lens for Policy Ideas on Aging The Hastings Center Guidelines for Decisions on Life-Sustaining Treatment and Care Near the End of Life, Third Edition...Page
Selected Past Projects
The Human Life Span Dementia and the Ethics of Choosing When to Die Care Transitions in Aging Societies: Singapore Casebook, 2nd Edition Ethical Decision-Making for Newborn Genetic Screening Genetic Ties...Page
Scholars
Hastings scholars come from a wide range of disciplines, including philosophy, social psychology, law, political science, education, and theology. Their research takes on some of the most difficult dilemmas and...Page
Staff
Advancement Ryan Sauder, Chief Strategy and Advancement Officer Susan Gilbert, Director of Communications Julie Chibbaro, Digital Communications Manager Chelsea Lopez, Manager of Advancement Services and Engagement Siofra Vizzi, Manager of...Page
Board
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Advisory Council
The advisory council’s purpose is to provide guidance about how best to ensure the impact of our work, particularly our impact in the public square. Eli Adashi, MD, MS, CPE...Page
Fellows
Hastings Center Fellows are elected individuals whose work has informed scholarship and public understanding of complex ethical issues in health, health care, life sciences research, and the environment. They are...Page
Collaborations
The Hastings Center collaborates with leading researchers and institutions around the world. These partnerships are essential to the work that we do. They take a variety of forms, including research,...Page
Programs for Students and Visiting Scholars
The Hastings Center offers several programs for students and visiting scholars. For more information about any of these programs, please contact programs@thehastingscenter.org. Please include the name of the program of...Page
Hastings Center Cunniff-Dixon Physician and Nursing Awards
The Hastings Center Cunniff-Dixon Physician and Nursing awards recognize physicians and nurses practicing in the United States who give exemplary care to patients at the end of life. The Hastings...Read “Hastings Center Cunniff-Dixon Physician and Nursing Awards”
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The Bioethics Founders’ Award
The Bioethics Founders’ Award is presented annually to individuals from any country who have made substantial, sustained contributions to bioethics that have advanced thinking and practice in medicine, the life...Page
Our Public Engagement
The Hastings Center is committed to creating more informed, more meaningful dialogue in the public square. Our goal is to ensure better understanding of what is at stake as changes...Page
Our Financials
Detailed financial information can be found in our annual reports. A copy of the Center’s Form 990 may be obtained from The Hastings Center for Bioethics at 21 Malcolm Gordon...From Bioethics Briefings
Why a Bioethics Briefing Book?
I arrived at The Hastings Center for my first tour of duty in the fall of 1979, and it did not take long to realize that the Center was working...From Bioethics Briefings
Bioethics and Policy—A History
The word “ethics” makes many people nervous. It can connote religious or ideological dogmatism, hard-nosed rules about right and wrong. Or it can mean an endless quest to determine just...Expert Contributor
Adrienne Asch, PhD
Expert Contributor
Rebecca Marmor
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Bonnie Steinbock
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Sidney Callahan, PhD
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Henry T. Greely
From Bioethics Briefings
Clinical Trials
Framing the Issue Clinical research with human participants utilizes a systematic approach to help understand human health and illness in order to find safe and effective ways to prevent, diagnose,...Expert Contributor
Christine Grady, RN, PhD
Expert Contributor
Christopher Thomas Scott
Expert Contributor
Irving L. Weissman, MD
From Bioethics Briefings
Conflict of Interest in Biomedical Research and Clinical Practice
Framing the Issue Conflict of interest is a broad term to describe situations where professional judgement risks being compromised by secondary interests. Research and clinical care both involve judgment about...Read “Conflict of Interest in Biomedical Research and Clinical Practice”
Expert Contributor
Sheldon Krimsky, PhD
Expert Contributor
Eric G. Campbell, PhD
From Bioethics Briefings
Conscience Clauses, Health Care Providers, and Parents
Framing the Issue Conscientious objection in health care is the refusal of a health care professional to provide or participate in the delivery of a legal, medically appropriate health care...Read “Conscience Clauses, Health Care Providers, and Parents”
Expert Contributor
Kenneth Kipnis, PhD
Expert Contributor
Benjamin Levi, MD, PhD
From Bioethics Briefings
Disaster Planning and Public Health
Framing the Issue Disasters happen. Coping with them and recovering and rebuilding afterward are nothing new. Systematic, evidence-based advance planning and preparedness are more novel, however, and seeing disasters as...Expert Contributor
John D. Arras, PhD
From Bioethics Briefings
Law Enforcement and Genetic Data
Framing the Issue https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nC8rd6onHts Watch “Law Enforcement and Genetic Data: A Discussion for Journalists” with writer Sarah Zhang at The Atlantic, Ellen Wright Clayton, an internationally recognized leader in the...Expert Contributor
Eric T. Juengst, PhD
Expert Contributor
Mark Rothstein, JD
From Bioethics Briefings
End-of-Life Care
Framing the Issue End-of-life care and its many dilemmas capture public attention when they make national news, often involving a family seeking a court order to remove life support from...Expert Contributor
Alan Meisel
Expert Contributor
Kathy Cerminara, JD, LLM, JSD
From Bioethics Briefings
Enhancing Humans
Framing the Issue When Guttenberg invented the printing press, making the written word accessible to the masses, he could have hardly envisioned today’s world where the entirety of human knowledge...Expert Contributor
Mark S. Frankel
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Cristina J. Kapustij
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Theodore Friedmann, MD
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Nancy Press, PhD
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Ellen Wright Clayton
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Barbara Koenig
Our Team
Nancy Berlinger
Nancy Berlinger is a senior research scholar at The Hastings Center for Bioethics and a Hastings Center fellow. Her training is in the humanities. Her current scholarship and empirical research...Our Team
Gregory E. Kaebnick
Gregory E. Kaebnick explores questions about the values at stake in developing and using biotechnologies and, particularly, in questions about the value given to nature and human nature. He is...Our Team
Karen J. Maschke
Karen Maschke has expertise on the ethical, regulatory and policy issues involving the development, assessment, and use of new biomedical technologies. She is the editor-in-chief of The Hastings Center for Bioethics’s...Our Team
Thomas H. Murray
Thomas H. Murray was president of The Hastings Center for Bioethics from 1999 to 2012. He was formerly the director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics in the School of...Our Team
Erik Parens
Erik Parens is a senior research scholar at The Hastings Center for Bioethics and Director of the Center’s Initiative in Bioethics and the Humanities. He has taught bioethics as an...Our Team
Susan Gilbert
Susan Gilbert is the director of communications of The Hastings Center and editor of Hastings Bioethics Forum. Before joining The Hastings Center in 2007, she was an editorial consultant and...Our Team
Laura Haupt
Laura Haupt, with Gregory Kaebnick, edits the Hastings Center Report. She is also a consulting editor for Ethics & Human Research. From 2013 until 2024, she was the managing editor...Our Team
Nora Porter
Nora Porter has been the Center’s art director for the past 20 years. She is responsible for the design of the Center’s publications, promotional and development materials, and website graphics....Our Team
Siofra Vizzi
Siofra Vizzi joined the Hastings Center in 2010 as the development assistant and became manager of individual giving and special events in 2016. She also serves as the in-house photographer...Our Team
Jodi Fernandes
Jodi Fernandes has been with The Hastings Center since 1998 in administrative support roles that have spanned various departments including research, development, and finance, in addition to having primary responsibilities...Our Team
Cathy Meisterich
Cathy Meisterich joined The Hastings Center as chief financial officer in 2006 and was given the additional role of chief operating officer in 2007. Previously, Meisterich was executive vice president,...Our Team
Lin Tarrant
Lin Tarrant joined the Hastings Center in 2008. She has worked in the not-for-profit sector for over 25 years including Direct Mail Manager at Guiding Eyes for the Blind and...Our Team
Mildred Z. Solomon
Mildred Solomon has an international reputation for her research on, and advocacy for, wiser health care and science policy. She was President of The Hastings Center from 2012 to June...Our Team
Harriet S. Rabb
Harriet Rabb is the Vice President and General Counsel at The Rockefeller University. She became the first woman dean in the history of Columbia Law School when she was named...Our Team
Joseph J. Fins
Joseph J. Fins, M.D., D. Hum. Litt. (hc), M.A.C.P., F.R.C.P., is The E. William Davis, Jr. M.D. Professor of Medical Ethics and chief of the Division of Medical Ethics at...Our Team
Blair L. Sadler
Blair L Sadler is a senior fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), and a member of the faculty at the University of California San Diego’s Rady School of...From Bioethics Briefings
Environment, Ethics, and Human Health
Framing the Issue Many of the most challenging ethical questions of our time address interactions between human health and the environment: How can we balance protection for the environment with...Expert Contributor
David B. Resnik
Expert Contributor
Christopher J. Portier
From Bioethics Briefings
Family Caregiving
Framing the Issue Families have always taken care of their ill and disabled relatives. Why should it be any different now? This disarmingly simple question often opens a policy discussion...Expert Contributor
Carol Levine
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Lynn Friss Feinberg, MSW
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Myra Glajchen, DSW
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Robert Cook-Deegan, MD
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Arti K. Rai, JD
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Timothy Caulfield, LLM
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Mary Ann Baily
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Norman Daniels, PhD
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Marc Roberts, PhD
From Bioethics Briefings
Pandemics: The Ethics of Mandatory and Voluntary Interventions
[This chapter is adapted from “Influenza Pandemic,” by Alexandra Minna Stern and Howard Markel, in From Birth to Death and Bench to Clinic: The Hastings Center Bioethics Briefing Book for...Read “Pandemics: The Ethics of Mandatory and Voluntary Interventions”
Expert Contributor
Alexandra Minna Stern, PhD
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Howard Markel, MD, PhD
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Matthew Herder, LLB, LLM, JSM
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Philip G. Peters, Jr., JD
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Donald M. Berwick, MD
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Benedetto Vitiello, MD
From Bioethics Briefings
Research in Resource-Poor Countries
Framing the Issue In the 1990s, the term “the 10/90 gap” was used to refer to the gross inequity that only about 10% of global spending on health research was...Expert Contributor
Voo Teck Chuan
Voo Teck Chuan, PhD, is head of the SingHealth Office of Ethics in Healthcare and an advisor to SingHealth Duke-NUS Medical Humanities Institute in Singapore.Expert Contributor
Jacqueline Chin
Expert Contributor
Alastair V. Campbell, ThD
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Evan Michelson, MA, MA
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Ronald Sandler, PhD
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David Guston, PhD
From Bioethics Briefings
Nature, Human Nature, and Biotechnology
Framing the Issue From genetically modified foods to assisted reproduction to gene drives, an increasing number of social debates feature moral views about nature—claims, that is, that a naturally occurring...Expert Contributor
Allen Buchanan, PhD
From Bioethics Briefings
Neonatal Care
Framing the Issue Approximately 380,000 babies, or 9.6%, are born prematurely (before 37 weeks gestation) in the United States each year. This is a significant reduction since 2007, when the...Expert Contributor
Joel Frader, MD, MA
From Bioethics Briefings
Newborn Screening
Framing the Issue State newborn screening programs test nearly all infants born in the United States for selected inherited and congenital conditions that may cause disability or death. Screening is...Expert Contributor
Jeffrey R. Botkin, MD, MPH
From Bioethics Briefings
Organ Transplantation
Framing the Issue Every day about 17 people in the United States die waiting for organ transplants. The deaths are especially tragic since many might be prevented if more organs...Expert Contributor
Arthur Caplan
Expert Contributor
James F. Childress, PhD
Expert Contributor
Anne-Marie Laberge, MD, MPH, PHD
Expert Contributor
Wylie Burke, MD, PhD
From Bioethics Briefings
Medical Aid-in-Dying
Framing the Issue The question of whether severely ill suffering patients are entitled to a physician’s help to end their suffering by ending their lives has been debated since antiquity....Expert Contributor
Jane Greenlaw, RN, JD
Expert Contributor
Timothy E. Quill
From Bioethics Briefings
Public Health Ethics and Law
Framing the Issue The role of public health is to assure the conditions needed to promote and protect people’s health. These conditions include various economic, social, and environmental factors...Expert Contributor
Lawrence O. Gostin
Expert Contributor
Erika Blacksher, PhD
From Bioethics Briefings
Quality Improvement Methods in Health Care
Framing the Issue The American health care system has serious problems with quality and safety. One effective way to attack these problems is through the methods of quality improvement (QI)....Expert Contributor
Joanne Lynn, MD
Expert Contributor
Nancy Dubler
Expert Contributor
Robert J. Levine, MD
From Bioethics Briefings
Sports Enhancement
Framing the Issue Spring in America brings flowers, sweet warm breezes, and the thwack of a bat striking a baseball. The Mitchell Report, an early Christmas present to baseball fans...Expert Contributor
Don Catlin, MD
From Bioethics Briefings
Stem Cells
Framing the Issue Stem cells are undifferentiated cells that have the capacity to renew themselves and to specialize into various cell types, such as blood, muscle, and nerve cells. Embryonic...Expert Contributor
Insoo Hyun
Expert Contributor
George Q. Daley, MD, PhD
Expert Contributor
M. William Lensch, PhD
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Bernard Lo, MD
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Michele S. Garfinkel, PhD
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Drew Endy, PhD
Expert Contributor
Gerald L. Epstein, PhD
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Robert M. Friedman, PhD
From Bioethics Briefings
Torture: The Bioethics Perspective
Framing the Issue Torture occupies an odd position in that it is universally illegal and widely practiced. Despite many studies showing its inefficacy, more than half of the world’s nations...Expert Contributor
Steven H. Miles
Expert Contributor
Nancy Gibbs
Bioethics Forum Essay
DarkCo Petroceuticals, Angelic Solar Panels, and the SUPPORT Study
As the author of the article that claimed “vindication” for the SUPPORT study, I would like to respond to Professor Latham’s insightful interpretation of the issues in the case. Like Professor Latham, I will...Read “DarkCo Petroceuticals, Angelic Solar Panels, and the SUPPORT Study”
Bioethics Forum Essay
The SUPPORT Study Case: Not Vindication
Last week’s New England Journal of Medicine featured, and had an editorial about, a short opinion piece by John Lantos about the recent decision in Looney v. Moore. In that case, a Federal District judge dismissed the...Bioethics Forum Essay
The Medical Humanity of Oliver Sacks: In His Own Words
We science-medicine-poetry junkies, along with a sizeable portion of the world’s population, are mourning the death of Oliver Sacks, the neurologist and author who died last Sunday from metastasized melanoma. And as...Read “The Medical Humanity of Oliver Sacks: In His Own Words”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Are Arguments about GMO Safety Really About Something Else?
The scientific consensus that food containing genetically modified organisms is safe seems ever stronger, yet the social controversy about GMOs seems only to grow as well. “Unhealthy Fixation,” a long article published...Read “Are Arguments about GMO Safety Really About Something Else?”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Banning Abortion for Down Syndrome: Legal or Ethical Justification?
The Ohio legislature is expected to approve a bill this fall that would make it illegal for doctors to perform an abortion if the reason the woman wants a termination...Read “Banning Abortion for Down Syndrome: Legal or Ethical Justification?”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Ethics, Optics, and Medicine as Work: Backstage at Planned Parenthood
Two days after a hidden camera video of Planned Parenthood’s senior director of medical services was released, the president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Cecile Richards, apologized for Dr....Read “Ethics, Optics, and Medicine as Work: Backstage at Planned Parenthood”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Reasonable Regulation of Surrogate Motherhood
This month France’s highest court granted legal recognition to children born to surrogates. Previously, surrogate children were deprived of any legal connection to their parents, or any civil status in...Bioethics Forum Essay
Beyond the “Silver Tsunami”: Toward an Ethic for Aging Societies
I spent last week in Singapore, where an excellent breakfast of noodles and teah o ais limau (Malaysian-style iced tea with lemon) costs about $2 and is served at an open-air hawker...Read “Beyond the “Silver Tsunami”: Toward an Ethic for Aging Societies”
Bioethics Forum Essay
On a Radioactive Pig and Pope Francis
“If you look through the red-tinted glass, you will see the radioactive pig,” said the director of animal laboratories at my university–let’s call her Susan–near the start of my tour...Bioethics Forum Essay
From Jackie and Me: A Plea for Opt-Out Organ Donation
Three weeks ago, my dear friend Jackie, a internationally recognized bioethicist in her fifties who lives in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, went to bed with what she thought was a bad case of...Read “From Jackie and Me: A Plea for Opt-Out Organ Donation”
Bioethics Forum Essay
California’s Strides in Providing Health Care for Undocumented Immigrants
I had just turned 5 in November 1994 when my fellow Californians voted to pass Proposition 187 in a draconian attempt to restrict undocumented immigrants from receiving health care, education, and other...Read “California’s Strides in Providing Health Care for Undocumented Immigrants”
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
Supreme Court Decision in King v Burwell: Backstory and Next Steps
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) relies on three primary strategies for expanding health insurance coverage. First, it regulates the insurance market to prevent practices that made it difficult or...Read “Supreme Court Decision in King v Burwell: Backstory and Next Steps”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Rats Have Empathy, But What About the Scientists Who Experiment on Them?
Decades of experiments have shown that rats are smart individuals that feel pain and pleasure, care about one another, can read others’ emotions, and will help unfamiliar rats even at a cost...Read “Rats Have Empathy, But What About the Scientists Who Experiment on Them?”
Bioethics Forum Essay
When Words Matter: Medical Education and the Care of Transgender Patients
I was only there to learn how to place IV lines. But as my anesthesia attending and I gathered our needles, tourniquet, and gauze, I noticed that our patient, whom...Read “When Words Matter: Medical Education and the Care of Transgender Patients”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Why College Students Use Cognitive Enhancers: It’s Not Only about Grades
As the school year winds down, it’s safe to assume that many college students used stimulants such as Ritalin and Adderall to get through finals. While the students may have been motivated...Read “Why College Students Use Cognitive Enhancers: It’s Not Only about Grades”
Bioethics Forum Essay
New in Skin Care: Natural and GMO
At the end of April, the biotech firm Amyris announced that it was launching its own line of skin emollient under the brand name Biossance. The product is based on...Bioethics Forum Essay
Sacred versus Synthetic? Nature Preservationism and Biotechnology
One of the long-term contributions of Earth Day is that it offers a regular, semi-official reminder that a sense of the sacred is a vital part of environmentalism. The spirit...Read “Sacred versus Synthetic? Nature Preservationism and Biotechnology”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Federal Recommendations on Use of Cognitive Enhancers
The idea that we can get better grades at school and advance our careers by taking drugs that improve concentration and other brain functions is at once controversial and tempting....Read “Federal Recommendations on Use of Cognitive Enhancers”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Sex, Consent, and Dementia
A 78-year‐old Iowa man, Henry Rayhons, has been charged with third‐degree felony sexual abuse for having sex with his wife, who had severe Alzheimer’s, in her nursing home on May 23,...Bioethics Forum Essay
Suing for Justice? More on the U.S. STD Studies in Guatemala
On April 1, a $1 billion lawsuit was filed by three law firms based in the United States and Venezuela against Johns Hopkins University, the Rockefeller Foundation, and Bristol-Myers Squibb on...Read “Suing for Justice? More on the U.S. STD Studies in Guatemala”
Bioethics Forum Essay
A Moratorium on Gene Editing?
An article in the New York Times last week suggests that the genetic engineering of humans is only just around the corner. A recently developed gene editing tool known as...Bioethics Forum Essay
DNA Phenotyping and Baby’s First Portrait
Some researchers are at work generating images of people’s faces by relying on DNA samples alone, in a process known as DNA phenotyping.The process involves linking genetic traits and their typical...Bioethics Forum Essay
The Drug that Cried “Feminism”
Branded as “The Little Pink Pill” and “Female Viagra,” flibanserin, Sprout Pharmaceuticals’ only drug, was recently resubmitted to the Food and Drug Administration for approval for hypoactive sexual desire disorder...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
New York City’s Compromise on Dangerous Circumcision Practice Leaves Infants at Risk
I would guess that most Americans, even Jewish Americans, had never heard of metzitzah b’peh until the recent controversy between ultra-Orthodox Jews and the New York City Department of Health....Read “New York City’s Compromise on Dangerous Circumcision Practice Leaves Infants at Risk”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Cognition Enhancement and Technological Unemployment
One objection to the development of cognitive enhancers is that they are likely to benefit mainly people who can afford to buy them, and that they would put everyone else...Bioethics Forum Essay
Lessons from Ebola: Presidential Bioethics Commission Releases Recommendations on Preparedness for Public Health Emergencies
This week the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues released a brief, Ethics and Ebola: Public Health Planning and Response,to the administration and the public on ethical preparedness for...Bioethics Forum Essay
Measles, Vaccination, and the Tragedy of the Commons
After having been virtually eliminated in the United States in the year 2000, measles have made a comeback, with nearly 150 cases in 17 states and nearly 30 confirmed cases of the...Bioethics Forum Essay
Vaccine Exemptions and the Church-State Problem
The current measles outbreak has brought public attention to the ease with which vaccine exemptions are available. As the media continually inform us, 48 states allow for religious exemptions, while...Bioethics Forum Essay
GM Mosquitoes: Risks and Emotions
For several years, a British company called Oxitec has been proposing a strategy for controlling a species of mosquito, Aedes aegypti, that humans have accidentally carried from Africa to other...Bioethics Forum Essay
Altering Nature to Preserve It
Perhaps the biggest challenge in talking about something like de-extinction is simply being clear on what it is you’re really talking about. Emerging technologies can be surrounded with so much...Bioethics Forum Essay
Controlling the End Game of Dementia
In her New York Times article of January 20, “Complexities of Choosing an End Game for Dementia”, Paula Span reviewed the use of advance directives to withhold food and water as a way...Bioethics Forum Essay
Have a Miscarriage and Go to Jail? Potential Consequences of Personhood Amendments
When she was 18, Carmen Guadalupe Vasquez Aldana was sentenced to 30 years in jail. Her crime was delivering a stillborn baby. She was suspected of having had an abortion....Read “Have a Miscarriage and Go to Jail? Potential Consequences of Personhood Amendments”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Don’t Categorically Refuse CPR to Ebola Patients
Recently it has been argued that cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) should, as a matter of policy, not be offered to persons with Ebola disease. Such a categorical restriction of CPR based...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
OHRP’s Dangerous Draft Guidance
In October, the federal Office for Human Research Protections issued a “Draft Guidance on Disclosing Reasonably Foreseeable Risks in Research Evaluating Standards of Care.” It follows the controversy that erupted in 2013...Bioethics Forum Essay
Two Cheers for Choosing Wisely
The Choosing Wisely campaign is one of the most exciting experiments in health care in quite a while. If it lives up to its potential, Choosing Wisely could prevent some of the...Bioethics Forum Essay
Trapper’s Care in the Animal ER and Frank Talk about Costs
“The capacity for suffering and enjoying things is a prerequisite for having interests at all, a condition that must be satisfied before we can speak of interests in any meaningful...Read “Trapper’s Care in the Animal ER and Frank Talk about Costs”
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
Responding to Ebola: Misplaced Police Powers
A number of states have recently adopted mandatory quarantine measures, including New York and New Jersey, for any individual entering the United States who had direct contact with someone infected with Ebola. This...Page
Directions
By Car The Hastings Center is located in Garrison, New York, on Route 9D which runs north-south along the east bank of the Hudson River. Center access is via Malcolm...Page
Children and Families
Human beings have long sought to control their reproduction and shape their children’s futures. Our power to do this is greater than ever before, and prompts difficult questions about the...Page
Science and the Self
Advances in genetics, epigenetics, neuroscience, psychology, and computer science are giving us a better understanding of who we are and why we function as we do. Science now enables us...Page
Health and Health Care
Efforts to enhance health care delivery systems and improve population health inevitably raise ethical issues. As health care costs rise worldwide, governments debate whether—and how—they can make health care more...Page
Aging, Chronic Conditions, and End of Life
Many ethical issues in medical care result from astounding leaps in life expectancy achieved during the 20th century. Effective public health measures, treatment of once-fatal infectious diseases, and a wide...Expert Contributor
Nick Diamond
Expert Contributor
Carl D’Angio, MD
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David Magnus, PhD
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Bray Patrick-Lake, MFS
Expert Contributor
Jon Tyson, MD
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Benjamin Wilfond, MD
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Dena S. Davis
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research assistant at The Hastings Center
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Lainie Friedman Ross
Bioethics Forum Essay
Responding to Ebola: The Question of Quarantine
Dr. Craig Spencer, the first person in New York confirmed to have Ebola, is a clearly dedicated and selfless physician who worked for Doctors Without Borders in West Africa helping...Expert Contributor
Karyn L. Boyar
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Stephen R. Latham, JD, PhD
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Sarah Greene
Sarah Greene is a publishing entrepreneur and is currently president and CEO of the nonprofit Rapid Science. She is also a co-founder of the Society (and Journal) of Participatory Medicine....Expert Contributor
Katie Watson, JD
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Stephen F. Eisenman
Stephen F. Eisenman is professor of art history and president of the faculty senate at Northwestern University. He is the author of nine books including The Cry of Nature –...Expert Contributor
Hilde Lindemann, PhD
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Jacob Perrin, MA
Jacob Perrin, MA, is a medical student at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and intern for the Hastings Center’s Undocumented Patients project and the Clinical Ethics Network of...Expert Contributor
Lillian Ringel, JD, MS
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Stephanie Holmquist
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Michael K. Gusmano
Michael K. Gusmano, PhD, is the Iacocca Chair, Professor of Health Policy and Associate Dean for Academic Programs at the College of Health for Lehigh University, where he also serves...Expert Contributor
Alka Chandna, PhD
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Colleen Farrell
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Sue Dessayer Porter
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Susan M. Reverby
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Timothy F. Murphy
Timothy F. Murphy is a professor of philosophy in the biomedical sciences at the University of Illinois College of Medicine and the author most recently of Ethics, Sexual Orientation, and...Our Team
Alessandra Hirsch
Alessandra Hirsch, M.S., is the project manager at PharmedOut, a Georgetown University Medical Center project that advances evidence- based prescribing and educates health care professionals about pharmaceutical marketing practices.Our Team
Rebecca Holliman
Rebecca Holliman is a graduate student in Biomedical Science Policy at Georgetown and a volunteer staff member at PharmedOut.Our Team
Adriane Fugh-Berman
Adriane Fugh-Berman, M.D., is the director of PharmedOut, a Georgetown University Medical Center project that advances evidence- based prescribing and educates health care professionals about pharmaceutical marketing practices.Expert Contributor
Elizabeth Reis
Elizabeth Reis is professor and chair of the women’s and gender studies department at the University of Oregon.Expert Contributor
Michele Loi
Michele Loi is post-doctoral researcher at the Research Centre for the Humanities of the University of Minho (CEHUM) in Braga, Portugal.Expert Contributor
Elizabeth Fenton
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Katharine Browne
Katharine Browne is a postdoctoral fellow at Novel Tech Ethics at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada.Expert Contributor
Susan M. Wolf
Susan M. Wolf is McKnight Presidential Professor of Law, Medicine & Public Policy at the University of Minnesota, and a Faculty Member in the University’s Center for Bioethics.Expert Contributor
Paul T. Menzel
Paul T. Menzel, PhD, is professor of philosophy emeritus at Pacific Lutheran University.Expert Contributor
M. Colette Chandler-Cramer, P.A.C.
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Bertha Alvarez Manninen
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Paul J Edelson, MD
Paul J Edelson, MD, is an epidemiologist and infectious disease specialist on the faculty of Columbia University, with a particular interest in the ethical issues of emerging infectious diseases.Bioethics Forum Essay
Responding to Ebola: Questions about Resuscitation
While details of the deaths of patients in Dallas and Madrid from Ebola are not public, their passing prompts questions about resuscitation in individuals infected with the virus. To date,...Bioethics Forum Essay
New York City’s Innovative Approach to Helping Unaccompanied Minors
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio recently announced a plan to connect unaccompanied minors who have arrived in the city from Central America with public education and health care through the...Read “New York City’s Innovative Approach to Helping Unaccompanied Minors”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Synthetic Biology: A Study in Reinvention
An article in the October issue of Discover Magazine has a great line from Drew Endy, a bioengineer at Stanford University who has become one of the foremost public figures in the field of...Expert Contributor
Mohini Banerjee
Bioethics Forum Essay
Responding to Ebola: Retrofitting Governance Systems
In a recent New York Times op-ed, David Brooks observes that governance, in the form of multilateral organizing, is missing from the response to the Ebola epidemic in West Africa. Unfortunately, global...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””
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Hillary Wicai Viers
Bioethics Forum Essay
Responding to Ebola: Organizational Ethics, Frontline Perspectives
Beyond crucial questions of fair access to scarce supplies of the experimental drug ZMapp and to other potentially effective drugs to treat Ebola, commentators from bioethics, public health, journalism, and...Read “Responding to Ebola: Organizational Ethics, Frontline Perspectives”
Bioethics Forum Essay
FDA Proposal for Regulating Laboratory Diagnostics Could Improve Patient Care
Wendy Chung’s commentary last month about the FDA’s proposed draft guidance for the regulation of laboratory-developed tests (LDTs) is heavily critical of the agency’s plans. Professor Chung argues that the FDA’s involvement...Read “FDA Proposal for Regulating Laboratory Diagnostics Could Improve Patient Care”
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Rachel Sachs
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”
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Keymanthri Moodley
Keymanthri Moodley is director of the Centre for Medical Ethics and Law at Stellenbosch University in Cape Town, South Africa, where she is also an associate professor in the department...Bioethics Forum Essay
Responding to Ebola: Selected Commentaries on Key Ethical Questions
The Ebola outbreak in West Africa is the largest and deadliest on record, and the crisis is evolving rapidly. More than 2,200 people have been infected in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea, and...Read “Responding to Ebola: Selected Commentaries on Key Ethical Questions”
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”
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Wendy Chung, MD, PhD
Wendy Chung, MD, PhD, is an associate professor of pediatrics at Columbia University Medical Center. A version of this commentary originally appeared on the website of the Center for Research...Bioethics Forum Essay
More French Paradoxes
Death is hard to deal with anywhere, but France has some contradictory ways of providing end-of-life care, as two recent articles discuss. On the lighter side, Agence France-Presse reports on...Bioethics Forum Essay
Facebook’s Emotion Experiment: Implications for Research Ethics
Several aspects of a recently published experiment conducted by Facebook have received wide media attention, but the study also raises issues of significance for the ethical review of research more generally. In...Read “Facebook’s Emotion Experiment: Implications for Research Ethics”
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Robert Klitzman
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Paul S. Appelbaum
Bioethics Forum Essay
Nature Isn’t What It Used To Be
Is the end in sight for wilderness? A recent opinion piece in the New York Times, by the science journalist Christopher Solomon, says it is. “There’s a heresy echoing through America’s woods and...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...Expert Contributor
Evelyne Shuster
Bioethics Forum Essay
Hobby Lobby Decision Likely to Increase Health Care Inequity
The Supreme Court’s ruling in Burwell, Secretary of Health and Human Services, et al. v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., et al., could undermine a central goal of the Patient Protection and...Read “Hobby Lobby Decision Likely to Increase Health Care Inequity”
Bioethics Forum Essay
What Do We Owe to Child Migrants?
From October 1, 2013, through June 15, 2014, more than 52,000 child migrants crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in South Texas, overwhelming the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol and the Department of Homeland...Expert Contributor
Rachel Fabi
Rachel Fabi, PhD, HEC-C, is an associate professor and vice chair for Education in the Center for Bioethics and Humanities at SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, New York. She...Bioethics Forum Essay
Chronicling the Tuskegee Syphilis Study Through Art
I was born in the John A. Andrew Memorial Hospital in 1974 where the Tuskegee Syphilis Study took place. I have had a lifelong curiosity about the ethics of the study and...Expert Contributor
Obiora N. Anekwe, Ed.D, M.S.
Obiora N. Anekwe, Ed.D, M.S., is a recent graduate of Columbia University’s Master of Science in Bioethics program. He is a New York City Teaching Fellow.Bioethics Forum Essay
A Medical Student’s Call for Action Against Research Misconduct
Is research misconduct and abuse the norm in the University of Minnesota’s Department of Psychiatry? A recent investigative report from KMSP News in the Twin Cities suggests that the answer may well...Read “A Medical Student’s Call for Action Against Research Misconduct”
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Eden Almasude
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,...Expert Contributor
Barron H. Lerner
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...Expert Contributor
Nicole Dubowitz
Nicole Dubowitz is the project manager for PharmedOut, a Georgetown University Medical Center project that advances evidence-based prescribing and educates health care professionals about pharmaceutical marketing practices.Expert Contributor
Maggie Infeld, M.D.
Bioethics Forum Essay
The Latest Challenge to Health Privacy: Health Care Consolidation
The American health care industry is undergoing a transformation in several respects, including the substantial integration and consolidation of health care providers. Three of the leading ways in which this...Read “The Latest Challenge to Health Privacy: Health Care Consolidation”
Bioethics Forum Essay
A Decade’s Worth of Gene-Environment Interaction Studies, in Hindsight
In the early 2000s, Avshalom Caspi, Terrie Moffitt, and their colleagues published two papers (here and here), which suggested that we could finally begin to tell rather simple but evidence-based stories about...Read “A Decade’s Worth of Gene-Environment Interaction Studies, in Hindsight”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Genetic Testing in Torts Litigation – Justice or Injustice?
Genetic testing to identify the susceptibility of individuals to developing specific disorders or to confirm diagnoses is becoming increasingly common in clinical settings, where it raises a string of ethical...Read “Genetic Testing in Torts Litigation – Justice or Injustice?”
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Maya Sabatello, LLB, PhD
Maya Sabatello, LLB, PhD, is a postdoctoral research fellow at Columbia University’s Center on Research of Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications of Psychiatric, Neurologic and Behavioral Genetics, and an instructor...Bioethics Forum Essay
Despite the Risks, and Because of Them, the FDA Should Permit Recycling Medical Implants
It is hard to quibble with the fact that Dr. Daniel Mascarenhas is breaking the law. It is also hard to quibble with the fact that he is a hero. The...Read “Despite the Risks, and Because of Them, the FDA Should Permit Recycling Medical Implants”
Bioethics Forum Essay
What Role Should Bioethics Play in Global Health?
I appreciate Dr. Benatar’s essay on the role of bioethics in confronting the challenges of global health inequities. His article aptly catalogues the contributing factors–both specific to health and otherwise–that weigh heavily...Bioethics Forum Essay
A Blood Test to Predict Alzheimer’s Disease: What’s the Elephant in the Room?
I recently gave a talk about Alzheimer’s disease and asked people to imagine two individuals, Manny and Sue. Manny died at 85; he was showing signs of age but living...Read “A Blood Test to Predict Alzheimer’s Disease: What’s the Elephant in the Room?”
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”
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Dien Ho, PhD
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Kenneth A. Richman, PhD
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Mark Bigney, MA
Bioethics Forum Essay
Synthetic Chromosomes
A team of scientists announced this week that it had successfully created one of the sixteen chromosomes found in yeast cells, marking a meaningful step forward in that part of...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”
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Solomon R. Benatar
Solomon R. Benatar, a Hastings Center Fellow, is an emeritus professor of medicine at the University of Cape Town, a visiting scholar at the Joint Centre for Bioethics at the...Bioethics Forum Essay
New York’s Measles Outbreak: Take Off Your Shoes and Roll Up Your Sleeve
Today’s New York Times reported a rare outbreak of measles in New York City. Because the disease was mostly eradicated by 2000, most clinicians were baffled by the high fevers, rash, and respiratory...Read “New York’s Measles Outbreak: Take Off Your Shoes and Roll Up Your Sleeve”
Bioethics Forum Essay
What’s at Stake with Genetically Modified Organisms
A remarkable set of essays appeared recently in Grist, a nonprofit dedicated to “dishing out environmental news and commentary,” about the warring claims over genetically modified organisms. In the inaugural piece last...Bioethics Forum Essay
Truvada: No Substitute for Responsible Sex
A new debate is surging through the gay male population in the United States: should gay men take a drug that can reduce their risk of contracting HIV? The drug...Expert Contributor
Richard M. Weinmeyer, JD, MPhil
Richard M. Weinmeyer, JD, MPhil is a senior research associate with the American Medical Association’s Ethics Group. The viewpoints expressed in this article are those of the author and do...Bioethics Forum Essay
De-Extinction: Could Technology Save Nature?
This past November, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature declared the western black rhinoceros of Africa, last seen in 2006, officially extinct. It also concluded that most other...Bioethics Forum Essay
Bioethics and the Dogma of “Brain Death”
Two cases involving “brain death” have received considerable public attention, including commentary by several well-known bioethicists. In commenting on these cases the bioethicists have stated, in no uncertain terms, that...Expert Contributor
Robert D. Truog, M.D.
Robert D. Truog, M.D., is a professor of medical ethics, anesthesiology, and pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and a senior associate in critical care medicine at Children’s Hospital, Boston. The...Expert Contributor
Franklin G. Miller
Bioethics Forum Essay
Orphans to History: A Response to the Bucharest Early Intervention Project Investigators
I appreciate the thoughtful responses to my essay on the ethics of the Bucharest Early Intervention Project (BEIP), from its investigators, Drs. Fox, Zeanah and Nelson and from Dr. Millum, one of the bioethicists...Read “Orphans to History: A Response to the Bucharest Early Intervention Project Investigators”
Bioethics Forum Essay
“Health Care as Hospitality”: Organizational Ethics in a Migrant Health Clinic
Geylang is the red-light district of Singapore, east of the city center. It would be easy, and wrong, to describe Geylang as a different world from the skyscrapers and malls...Read ““Health Care as Hospitality”: Organizational Ethics in a Migrant Health Clinic”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Genetic Information Is Not Always Benign
Ethicists and others have been concerned that the disclosure of genetic information to patients might have negative consequences. The suspicion has been that negative effects, say, becoming depressed, are particularly...Bioethics Forum Essay
New Recommendations for Research with Human Subjects Who Lack Consent Capacity
The New York State Task Force on Life and the Law released its Report and Recommendations for Research with Human Subjects Who Lack Consent Capacity today, which analyzes the ethical and legal implications...Read “New Recommendations for Research with Human Subjects Who Lack Consent Capacity”
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Valerie Gutmann Koch
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Susie A. Han
Bioethics Forum Essay
Rounding Up Scientific Journals
Scientific journal publishing reached a low point in November, when the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology retracted a study by Gilles-Eric Séralini and colleagues at Caen University in France. The study, published in...Expert Contributor
Thomas G. Sherman, PhD
Thomas G. Sherman PhD are associate professors in the Department of Pharmacology and Physiology at Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC). Dr. Sherman chairs the Graduate Advisory Committee at GUMC and...Bioethics Forum Essay
An ICU Nurse Discusses Brain Death
Brain death is an immensely challenging concept to grasp, even for health care providers. The patients look like any other patient in the intensive care unit; they have vital signs,...Expert Contributor
Aimee Milliken
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The Football Players Health Study at Harvard University, Law and Ethics Initiative
Hastings Investigator: Sarah McGraw Principal Investigators, Law and Ethics Initiative: I. Glenn Cohen and Holly Fernandez Lynch, Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School Funder: Contract between the National...Read “The Football Players Health Study at Harvard University, Law and Ethics Initiative”
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Values in Emerging Technology Impact Assessment
Principal Investigator: Gregory Kaebnick Co-investigators: Michael Gusmano, Karen Maschke Funder: National Science Foundation Project Background There is near-universal agreement that the development and application of potentially powerful emerging technologies should be grounded on...Page
Multiple Births Following Fertility Treatment: Causes, Consequences, and Opportunities for Change
Hastings Center Investigators: Josephine Johnston and Michael K. Gusmano Co-Investigator: Pasquale Patrizio, director, Yale Fertility Center Funder: March of Dimes Since 1980, the number of twin births in the United States has increased 76 percent and...Page
Sequencing of Newborn Blood Spot DNA to Improve and Expand Newborn Screening
Hastings Investigators: Erik Parens and Josephine Johnston NSIGHT Project Principal Investigator: Barbara Koenig, University of California, San Francisco Funder: Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and...Read “Sequencing of Newborn Blood Spot DNA to Improve and Expand Newborn Screening”
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Evaluating Patient Health Outcomes in Rare Diseases
Hastings Investigator: Sarah McGraw Subcontract from Brigham and Women’s Hospital The purpose of this project was to plan and carry out a symposium and write a journal supplement on research methods...Page
Use of Whole-Exome Sequencing to Guide the Care of Cancer Patients
Hastings Investigator: Sarah McGraw, subcontract to Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Funder: National Institutes of Health The overarching goal of this project is to define and disseminate an evidence-based paradigm for the rational...Read “Use of Whole-Exome Sequencing to Guide the Care of Cancer Patients”
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Returning Individual Genetic Results to Participants in Cohort Studies
Project Launched: September 2009 Hastings Investigators: Sarah McGraw and Debbie Sellers Subcontract to Dana Farber Cancer Institute The goals of the project are to evaluate whether the characteristics of genetic tests that have...Read “Returning Individual Genetic Results to Participants in Cohort Studies”
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The Bioethics Project: A Research Program for High School Students
Principal Investigators: Josephine Johnston, The Hastings Center; Karen Rezach, Ethics Institute at Kent Place School Funder: Anonymous donor The Hastings Center and the Ethics Institute at Kent Place School have developed a program...Read “The Bioethics Project: A Research Program for High School Students”
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Undocumented Patients: Access to Health Care and the Ethics of the Safety Net
Project Codirectors: Nancy Berlinger (more about Nancy’s work with migrants) and Michael K. Gusmano Funders: Overbrook Foundation Domestic Human Rights Program, The Robert Sterling Clark Foundation Efforts to address the health care...Read “Undocumented Patients: Access to Health Care and the Ethics of the Safety Net”
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The Hastings Center Guidelines on End-of-Life Care
Project Director: Nancy Berlinger Project Consultants: Bruce Jennings and Susan Wolf Funders: The Albert Sussman Charitable Remainder Annuity Trust and the Patrick and Catherine Weldon Donaghue Medical Research Foundation; additional support was provided by the...Page
Improving End-of-Life Care in the Hospital
Investigators: Nancy Berlinger and Mildred Solomon, The Hastings Center; Howard Epstein, Society of Hospital Medicine Funder: The Milbank Foundation, the Donaghue Foundation Hospitalists – physicians specializing in the general medical care of...Page
Advancing Collaborative Genetic Research: Ethical and Policy Challenges
Hastings Investigator: Karen Maschke Principal Investigator: Suzanne Rivera, Department of Bioethics, Case Western Reserve University Funder: National Human Genome Research Institute Collaborative multi-institutional genetic research is essential to advancing genetic...Read “Advancing Collaborative Genetic Research: Ethical and Policy Challenges”
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Center for Research on the Ethical, Legal and Social Implications of Psychiatric, Neurologic and Behavioral Genetics
Hastings Investigators: Erik Parens and Josephine Johnston Principal Investigator: Paul Appelbaum, Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons Funder: National Human Genome Research Institute Project Website: braingenethics.cumc.columbia.edu...Page
The Role of Values in Impact Assessment
Principal Investigator: Gregory Kaebnick Hastings Investigators: Michael Gusmano and Karen Maschke Funder: National Science Foundation This project contributes to discussion of a problem in the governance of emerging technologies: what governance tools...Page
The Chaplain’s Role in Pediatric Palliative Care: Mapping Model Programs
Principal Investigators: Nancy Berlinger, The Hastings Center George Fitchett, Rush University Medical Center Investigators: Wendy Cadge, Brandeis University Erin Flanagan-Klygis, Rush University Medical Center Funder: Texas Children’s Hospital It is difficult for...Read “The Chaplain’s Role in Pediatric Palliative Care: Mapping Model Programs”
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Ways To Give
Advances in health, science, and technology raise profound ethical questions. Facts alone will not provide answers. Today more than ever, we need to identify the values at stake, listen to...Page
Special Reports
Special Reports to the Hastings Center Report are one venue in which the Center publishes the results of its research projects. Reports may be single-authored or collections of essays prepared...Page
Professional Chaplains and Health Care Quality Improvement
Project launched in March 2007 Download Can We Measure Good Chaplaincy?, an essay set featured in Hastings Center Report (Nov-Dec 2008). Download Professional Chaplains and Health Care Quality Improvement, Summary of Activities...Read “Professional Chaplains and Health Care Quality Improvement”
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Ensuring Ethical Conduct of Quality Improvement Activities in Health Care
Principal Investigator: Mary Ann Baily Funder: The Commonwealth Fund This project researched policy options for ethical oversight of quality improvement activities in health care. Quality improvement (QI) refers to a broad range...Read “Ensuring Ethical Conduct of Quality Improvement Activities in Health Care”
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Pharmacological Treatment of Emotional and Behavioral Disturbances in Children
Principal Investigator: Erik Parens, and Josephine Johnston Funders: National Institute of Mental Health, The Hastings Center’s Fund for Families and Children The purpose of this project was to produce an integrated analysis in...Read “Pharmacological Treatment of Emotional and Behavioral Disturbances in Children”
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Appeals to Nature in Debates about Biotechnology and the Environment
Principal Investigator: Gregory E. Kaebnick Funder: National Endowment for the Humanities Kaebnick led a comparative study of how ideas about nature are invoked in contemporary moral and policy debates about medical biotechnology, agricultural...Read “Appeals to Nature in Debates about Biotechnology and the Environment”
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Surgically Shaping Children
Principal Investigator: Erik Parens Funder: National Endowment for the Humanities A child with a noticeable facial anomaly, short limbs due to achondroplasia, unusual-looking genitals, or some other norm-challenging feature may suffer as...Page
Promoting Patient Safety: An Ethical Basis for Policy Deliberation
Hastings Investigators: Nancy Berlinger and Mary Ann Baily Funder: Donaghue Foundation This project explored the ethical basis of patient safety reform proposals and aimed to promote ethically informed policy discussions at the...Read “Promoting Patient Safety: An Ethical Basis for Policy Deliberation”
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Reprogenetics: A Blueprint for Meaningful Moral Debate and Responsible Public Policy
Project launched in July 2000 Lead Investigators: Lori Knowles and Erik Parens Funder: The Greenwall Foundation, with additional funding from The Overbrook Foundation Purpose Evaluate and compare regulatory approaches in the United States and...Read “Reprogenetics: A Blueprint for Meaningful Moral Debate and Responsible Public Policy”
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Public Perceptions of Agricultural Biotechnology
Center project staff: Thomas H. Murray, Lori P. Knowles, Daniel Callahan Funder: The Rockefeller Foundation Proponents tout agricultural biotechnology as the next step in the evolution of agricultural efficiency. Producers and supports offer...Page
HIDE: Homeland Security, Biometric Identification and Personal Detection Ethics
Principal Investigator: Emilio Mordini, Center for Science, Society and Citizenship, Rome Hastings Center Principal Investigators: Thomas Murray and Karen Maschke Funder: European Commission This project established a platform for an international dialogue on controversial ethical and...Read “HIDE: Homeland Security, Biometric Identification and Personal Detection Ethics”
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The Uses and Misuses of Neuroimaging Technologies
Principal Investigators: Erik Parens and Josephine Johnston Funder: The Dana Foundation Brain imaging technologies such as SPECT, PET, and MRI play an increasingly important role in the study of human psychology, from normal cognition...Page
From Assisted Reproduction to Stem Cells: The Hastings Center Bioethics Briefing Book
Project launched in January 2008 Principal Investigator: Mary Crowley Funders: The Greenwall Foundation and The Lounsbery Foundation Purpose To provide campaigns, journalists, and policymakers with a ready reference on about three dozen issues in...Read “From Assisted Reproduction to Stem Cells: The Hastings Center Bioethics Briefing Book”
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Law & Ethics of Drug Addiction Genetics Research (LEDGER)
Hastings Investigator: Karen J. Maschke Funder: National Institute of Drug Abuse This project examined and elucidated the ethical, legal, and social implications of genetic information about drug addiction and the use of...Read “Law & Ethics of Drug Addiction Genetics Research (LEDGER)”
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Cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid (caBIG™)
Hastings Investigator: Karen Maschke Funder: National Cancer Institute under a contract with Booz Allen Hamilton, the Project Management Office for the caBIG™ program The need to accelerate the translation of basic research...Page
Ethics Capacity Building In Haiti
Principal Investigator: Karen J. Maschke Funder: The John E. Fogarty International Center for Advanced Study in the Health Sciences Difficult issues emerged in Haiti and other resource-constrained countries concerning HIV clinical trials...Page
Hospice Access & Values
Principal Investigators: Bruce Jennings and Mary Ann Baily Funders: The Nathan Cummings Foundation and The Arthur Vining Davis Foundation The Hastings Center and the National Hospice Work Group, in association with the...Page
Ethical, Conceptual & Scientific Issues in the Use of Performance-Enhancing Technologies in Sports
Principal Investigators: Thomas H. Murray, Erik Parens, Angela Wasunna Funder: U.S. Anti-Doping Agency This project examined the rationales offered for classifying certain technologies that enhance athletic performance as either ethically justifiable and thus...Page
Intellectual Property Rights in Pharmaceuticals and Biological Materials
Principal Investigators: Josephine Johnston and Angela Wasunna Funder: Sasakawa Peace Foundation This project explored the impact of intellectual property law, policy, and practice on access to current and possible future health benefits....Read “Intellectual Property Rights in Pharmaceuticals and Biological Materials”
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Ethics of Medical Research with Animals: Science, Values, and Alternatives
Project launched in June 2011 Principal Investigators: Thomas H. Murray, Gregory Kaebnick, and Susan Gilbert Funder:The Esther A. and Joseph Klingenstein Fund Project background Research involving animals has been a cornerstone of medical progress...Read “Ethics of Medical Research with Animals: Science, Values, and Alternatives”
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Ethics, Genetics, and the Future of Sport: The Implications of Genetic Modification and Genetic Selection
Project launched in June 2005 Principal Investigator: Thomas H. Murray Funder: United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) Purpose The project had four basic aims: Develop a realistic assessment of the likely time horizon...Page
Medicine and the Market
Principal Investigators: Daniel Callahan and Angela Wasunna Funders: The Rockefeller Foundation and the Pettus-Crowe Foundation Is the institution of medicine compatible with market values? Driven by that fundamental question, this project examined,...Page
Ethical Decisionmaking for Newborn Genetic Screening
Project launched in September 2002 Center project staff: Thomas H. Murray, Mary Ann Baily Funded by: National Human Genome Research Institute Background New screening technologies and new knowledge about the origin and treatment...Page
Ethical Issues in the Management of Financial Conflicts of Interest in Biomedical Research
Hastings Investigators: Thomas H. Murray, Daniel Callahan, Mary Ann Baily, Angela Wasunna, and Josephine Johnston. Funder: The Donaghue Foundation This Center project examined concerns that arise in managing financial conflicts of interest in biomedical...Read “Ethical Issues in the Management of Financial Conflicts of Interest in Biomedical Research”
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HIV/AIDS in East Africa: Legal, Ethical, and Human Rights Challenges
Hastings Investigators: Angela Wasunna, Daniel Callahan, and Mary Ann Baily Funders: The Overbrook Foundation, The John Lloyd Foundation, and the Pettus-Crowe Foundation The aim of this project was to ensure that health care providers...Read “HIV/AIDS in East Africa: Legal, Ethical, and Human Rights Challenges”
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Genetic Ties and the Future of the Family
Project launched in July 2001 Lead Investigators:Mark Rothstein (of the Health Law and Policy Institute at the University of Louisville), Mary Anderlik Majumder (now of Baylor College of Medicine), Thomas H....Page
Cracking Your Genetic Code: A WGBH/NOVA Production in Association with The Hastings Center
Project launched in March 2011 Principle Investigators: Mary Crowley, The Hastings Center, and Laurie Donnelley, WGBH Boston Funder: The Greenwall Foundation and National Institutes of Health Purpose The Hastings Center has collaborated...Read “Cracking Your Genetic Code: A WGBH/NOVA Production in Association with The Hastings Center”
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Connecting Values With American Health Care Reform
Principal Investigators: Mary Crowley, Gregory Kaebnick, and Thomas Murray Funder: Adelson Family Foundation, Cranaleith Foundation When the Obama administration announced its intention to reform the American health care system, The Hastings Center launched a...Page
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There are a number of graduate programs to help students and professionals understand the moral problems that arise in medicine and the life sciences. This searchable database from the Association...Our Team
Shonni Silverberg
Dr. Silverberg is a Professor in the Department of Medicine at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. She graduated from Cornell University Medical College and completed Internal Medicine...Page
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The Hastings Center is committed to strengthening the field of bioethics nationally and globally. We accomplish this goal by publishing journals (the Hastings Center Report and Ethics & Human Research),...Page
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Please support our work. Founded over 50 years ago, The Hastings Center for Bioethics is the only independent bioethics research institute in the nation. That status—and our ability to identify...Page
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Authors’ Instructions IRB: Ethics & Human Research is a peer-reviewed journal that publishes scholarly articles offering insight on issues of critical importance to research with human subjects, including findings and analysis...Page
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Hastings Center Report Press Kit
Latest Issue Access content from the latest issue and archives here. Editors Gregory E. Kaebnick, Editor kaebnickg@thehastingscenter.org 845-424-4040, ext. 227 Laura Haupt, Managing Editor hauptl@thehastingscenter.org 845-424-4040, ext. 212 Nora Porter, Art Director portern@thehastingscenter.org...Bioethics Forum Essay
Bloomberg, Nannying, and the Symbolic Value of Food Choice
I mostly agree with Lawrence Gostin’s paean to outgoing New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg in the Hastings Center Report. Like Gostin, I see Bloomberg as a public health innovator...Read “Bloomberg, Nannying, and the Symbolic Value of Food Choice”
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Anne Barnhill
Bioethics Forum Essay
Bloomberg’s Health Legacy: What Inflames Consumer Passions in the Food Wars?
After the Hastings Center Report published my essay on Mayor Bloomberg’s health legacy — with its key ideas spread through the popular media (here and here) — vitriolic messages streamed...Read “Bloomberg’s Health Legacy: What Inflames Consumer Passions in the Food Wars?”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Canada Confronts its Own “Tuskegee” Studies
Last summer’s revelations that malnourished Aboriginals in Canada served as unwitting and unprotected subjects in nutritional experiments in the 1940s and 1950s brought a sharp reaction–though the research took place...Expert Contributor
Miriam Shuchman
Bioethics Forum Essay
U.K.’s Landmark Case on Withholding Treatment Affirms the Importance of Patients’ Values
Family Lose Right-to-Life Case at U.K.’s Highest Court.” “Judges ‘Right’ to Allow Man to Die.” “Widow Loses ‘Withdrawn Treatment’ Case.” These were the headlines on a recent Supreme Court decision...Read “U.K.’s Landmark Case on Withholding Treatment Affirms the Importance of Patients’ Values”
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Celia Kitzinger
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Jenny Kitzinger
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”
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Joseph Millum
Bioethics Forum Essay
Why Health Plan Cancellations Do Not Mean Failure for ACA
On November 14, President Obama announced that he would delay by one year the implementation of requirements imposed by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act(ACA) that would have led...Read “Why Health Plan Cancellations Do Not Mean Failure for ACA”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Romanian Orphans Study: Investigators Respond to Ethical Questions
We appreciate having an opportunity to respond to the commentary on the Bucharest Early Intervention Project (BEIP) by Joseph Fins. We respect his status as a leading bioethics authority, although we are...Read “Romanian Orphans Study: Investigators Respond to Ethical Questions”
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Nathan A. Foxis
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Charles H. Zeanah
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Charles A. Nelson
Bioethics Forum Essay
In Search of Sterility
In the November-December issue of the Hastings Center Report I wrote about voluntary sterilization for childfree women. The article came about through my inability to get sterilized as a childfree woman. I...Expert Contributor
Cristina Richie
Cristina Richie is a doctoral student in theological ethics at Boston College and a former visiting scholar at The Hastings CenterBioethics 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
The Push for Data Transparency and Implications for Research
Some of the most hotly debated questions making the rounds these days include who should interpret, distribute, review, and receive data, and with good reason. From WikiLeaks to National Security...Read “The Push for Data Transparency and Implications for Research”
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Joan Rachlin, JD, MPH
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Avery Avrakotos
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Elisa Hurley, PhD
Bioethics Forum Essay
Getting By with a Little Help from Your Friends
If the mutilated body of one of your research subjects is discovered in a blood-soaked bathroom, who should investigate the death? If you want to be cleared of blame, it’s...Expert Contributor
Carl Elliott
Carl Elliott, a Hastings Center Fellow, is a professor at the Center for Bioethics at the University of Minnesota. His most recent book is White Coat, Black Hat: Adventures on...Bioethics Forum Essay
Romanian Orphans: A Reconsideration of the Ethics of the Bucharest Early Intervention Project
Recently I had a Susan Reverby moment. Reverby is the Wellesley historian best known for unearthing the revelations of the Guatemalan syphilis and gonorrhea studies conducted by the United States Public Health...Read “Romanian Orphans: A Reconsideration of the Ethics of the Bucharest Early Intervention Project”
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
New Bioethics Education Resources: Read about Them Here; Find Them When the Government Shutdown Is Over
The Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues recently announced its release of new, free materials for bioethics education. The educational materials were available for download on the commission’s...Page
Rights Come to Mind: Brain Injury, Ethics and the Struggle for Consciousness
Joseph J. Fins (Cambridge University Press, 2015) Hastings Center Fellow and Board member Joseph J. Fins, MD, tells the sobering story of one family’s struggle with severe brain injury and...Read “Rights Come to Mind: Brain Injury, Ethics and the Struggle for Consciousness”
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Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Bioethical Issues
Edited by Gregory E. Kaebnick (McGraw-Hill, 2020) This collection, designed for use in the classroom, includes current controversial issues in a debate-style format designed to stimulate student interest and develop critical thinking skills....Page
Regulating Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis in the United States: The Limits of Unlimited Selection
Michelle Bayefsky and Bruce Jennings (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015) During medically assisted reproduction, preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) can be used to select some embryos for use and to discard others based...Page
Shaping Our Selves: On Technology, Flourishing, and a Habit of Thinking
Erik Parens (Oxford University Press, 2014) When bioethicists debate the use of technologies like surgery and pharmacology to shape our selves, they are, ultimately, debating what it means for human...Read “Shaping Our Selves: On Technology, Flourishing, and a Habit of Thinking”
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Synthetic Biology and Morality: Artificial Life and the Bounds of Nature
Edited by Gregory E. Kaebnick and Thomas H. Murray (MIT Press, 2013) Synthetic biology, which aims to design and build organisms that serve human needs, has potential applications that range...Read “Synthetic Biology and Morality: Artificial Life and the Bounds of Nature”
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The Hastings Center Guidelines for Decisions on Life-Sustaining Treatment and Care Near the End of Life
By Nancy Berlinger, Bruce Jennings, Susan M. Wolf (Oxford University Press, 2013) This major new work updates and significantly expands The Hastings Center’s 1987 Guidelines on the Termination of Life-Sustaining...Page
Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Bioethical Issues
Edited by Gregory E. Kaebnick (McGraw-Hill, 2013) This volume features 20 pairs of brief and accessible essays that stake out contrasting positions on a wide range of issues, including the role...Page
In Search of the Good: A Life in Bioethics
By Daniel Callahan (MIT Press, 2012) Daniel Callahan helped invent the field of bioethics more than forty years ago when he decided to use his training in philosophy to grapple...Page
The Roots of Bioethics
Daniel Callahan (Oxford University Press, 2012) Daniel Callahan, whose cofounding of The Hastings Center in 1969 was one of the most important milestones in the history of bioethics, has written...Page
The Physician Assistant: An Illustrated History
By Thomas E. Piemme, MD; Alfred M. Sadler, Jr., MD; Reginald D. Carter, PhD, PA; Ruth Ballweg, MPA, PA-C (Acacia Publishing, 2013) This is a concise history of the people,...Page
The Ideal of Nature
Edited by Gregory E. Kaebnick (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011) Going back at least to the writings of John Stuart Mill and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, people have argued for and against maintaining...Page
Transforming the Healthcare Experience Through the Arts
Blair L. Sadler and Annette Ridenour (Aesthetics, Inc., 2009) With compelling human stories, research-based evidence, and pragmatic advice, Transforming the Healthcare Experience through the Arts takes readers inside the process...Read “Transforming the Healthcare Experience Through the Arts”
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Humans in Nature: The World as We Find It and the World as We Create It
Gregory E. Kaebnick (Oxford University Press, 2013) Contemporary debates over issues as wide-ranging as the protection of wildernesses and endangered species, the spread of genetically modified organisms, the emergence of...Read “Humans in Nature: The World as We Find It and the World as We Create It”
Bioethics Forum Essay
“Poverty Impedes Cognitive Function” – Reason to Help, or Blame, the Poor?
“’The lower the caste,’ said Mr. Foster, ‘the shorter the oxygen.’ The first organ affected was the brain. After that the skeleton.” In Brave New World cognitive ability is carefully and intentionally...Read ““Poverty Impedes Cognitive Function” – Reason to Help, or Blame, the Poor?”
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Performance-Enhancing Technologies in Sports
Edited by Thomas H. Murray, Karen J. Maschke, and Angela A. Wasunna (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009) This book brings together an interdisciplinary group of experts in bioethics, sports, law, and...Page
Health Care Quality Improvement: Ethical and Regulatory Issues
Edited by Bruce Jennings, Mary Ann Baily, Melissa Bottrell, and Joanne Lynn This collection of original papers provides in-depth discussions of important ethical and regulatory aspects of quality improvement (QI). How...Read “Health Care Quality Improvement: Ethical and Regulatory Issues”
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Medicine and the Market: Equity v. Choice
Dan Callahan and Angela Wasunna (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006) This book is the first to examine and analyze the international debate over the place of market ideas and practices in...Page
Surgically Shaping Children: Technology, Ethics and the Pursuit of Normality
Edited by Erik Parens (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006) At a time when medical technologies make it ever easier to enhance our minds and bodies, a debate has arisen about whether...Read “Surgically Shaping Children: Technology, Ethics and the Pursuit of Normality”
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Wrestling with Behavioral Genetics: Science, Ethics, and Public Conversation
Edited by Erik Parens, Audrey Chapman, and Nancy Press (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005) Hardly a month goes by without a media report proclaiming that researchers have discovered the gene for...Read “Wrestling with Behavioral Genetics: Science, Ethics, and Public Conversation”
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Genetic Ties and the Family: The Impact of Paternity Testing on Parents and Children
Edited by Mark A. Rothstein, Thomas H. Murray, Gregory E. Kaebnick, and Mary Anderlik Majumder (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005) Genetic Ties and the Family brings together experts in history, law,...Read “Genetic Ties and the Family: The Impact of Paternity Testing on Parents and Children”
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After Harm: Medical Error and the Ethics of Forgiveness
Nancy Berlinger (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005) Medical error is a leading problem of health care in the United States. Each year, more patients die as a result of medical...Read “After Harm: Medical Error and the Ethics of Forgiveness”
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Living With Grief: Ethical Dilemmas at the End of Life
Edited by Bruce Jennings, Kenneth J. Doka, and Charles Corr (Hospice Foundation of America, Living with Grief Series, 2005) Written and edited by some of the nation’s leading authorities on ethics...Read “Living With Grief: Ethical Dilemmas at the End of Life”
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What Price Better Health: Hazards of the Research Imperative
Daniel Callahan (University of California Press, 2005) The idea that there is an absolute moral obligation to pursue medical research is deeply imbedded in American cultural and American health care....Read “What Price Better Health: Hazards of the Research Imperative”
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The Worth of a Child
Thomas H. Murray (University of California Press, 1996) What do children mean to their parents, and how far do parental obligations go? What, from the beginning of life to its...Page
Accountability: Patient Safety and Policy Reform, Hastings Center Studies in Ethics Series
Edited by Virginia A. Sharpe Georgetown University Press, September 2004 Purchase this book at amazon.com According to a recent Institute of Medicine report, as many as 98,000 Americans die each...Read “Accountability: Patient Safety and Policy Reform, Hastings Center Studies in Ethics Series”
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The Ethics of Hospital Trustees, Hastings Center Studies in Ethics Series
By Bruce Jennings, Virginia A. Sharpe, Bradford H. Gray, Alan R. Fleischman Georgetown University Press, June 2004 Purchase this book at amazon.com Deriving from a research project conducted by The...Read “The Ethics of Hospital Trustees, Hastings Center Studies in Ethics Series”
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The Role of Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Accommodating Pluralism
Daniel Callahan (Georgetown University Press, 2004) Alternative and complementary medicine are widely embraced in American society, estimated to be used by 40% of the population. Moreover, the more educated people...Read “The Role of Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Accommodating Pluralism”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Charging Smokers Higher Health Insurance Rates: Is it Ethical?
Smoking-related illnesses cost the United States hundreds of billions of dollars a year in health care expenditures and lost productivity, and claim hundreds of thousands of lives.” Given the enormous...Read “Charging Smokers Higher Health Insurance Rates: Is it Ethical?”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Support for Returning Results of Alzheimer’s Disease Biomarker Research
This used to be a purely academic question: If you could know, years before you had symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease, that you were likely to develop it–and there was no...Read “Support for Returning Results of Alzheimer’s Disease Biomarker Research”
Bioethics Forum Essay
The Supreme Court and the Fight Against AIDS
The salience of the Constitution’s spending clause to the public’s health is not often appreciated–empowering the federal government to “provide for the common Defense and general Welfare.” But the power...Page
The Cultures of Caregiving: Conflict and Common Ground among Families, Health Professionals, and Policy Makers
By Carol Levine and Thomas H. Murray (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004) As the population ages and the health care system focuses on cost-containment, family caregivers have become the frontline...Page
Hastings Center Report Submission Guidelines
General Manuscript Submission and Review The Hastings Center Report takes a broad understanding of bioethics. We welcome manuscript submissions that address social and ethical issues in health care, the life sciences, and...Bioethics Forum Essay
As Chimp Research is Phased Out, Will Other Animal Research Decline?
The institution of animal experimentation is a house of cards, and a stiff wind is blowing at last. At a meeting last month about federal funding for science, former National...Read “As Chimp Research is Phased Out, Will Other Animal Research Decline?”
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Justin Goodman
Justin Goodman is the director of the laboratory investigations department at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). He is also an adjunct instructor of sociology at Marymount University...Bioethics Forum Essay
“Undocumented Doctors” and the Health of the Dreamers
Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine’s recent announcement that it would accept applications from Dreamers – young undocumented immigrants eligible for Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals (DACA)status – is an innovative and welcome...Read ““Undocumented Doctors” and the Health of the Dreamers”
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The Genetics of Intelligence
Editors: Erik Parens and Paul S. Appelbaum A team of researchers approached the Center for Talented Youth at Johns Hopkins University with a request for access to records concerning participants...Page
Synthetic Future: Can We Create What We Want Out of Synthetic Biology?
Editors: Gregory E. Kaebnick, Michael K. Gusmano, and Thomas H. Murray How should we think about synthetic biology—about the potential benefits and risks of these applications as well as the...Read “Synthetic Future: Can We Create What We Want Out of Synthetic Biology?”
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LGBT Bioethics: Visibility, Disparities, and Dialogue
Editors: Tia Powell and Mary Beth Foglia Medicine and law have served in the past as society’s enforcement arm toward sexual minorities, in ways that robbed many people of their...Read “LGBT Bioethics: Visibility, Disparities, and Dialogue”
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The Intersection of Research Fraud and Human Subjects Research: A Regulatory Review
Editors: Barbara E. Bierer and Mark Barnes The uncertain relationship between the two sets of federal regulations for research on human subjects has long posed a vexing regulatory problem. One...Read “The Intersection of Research Fraud and Human Subjects Research: A Regulatory Review”
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Interpreting Neuroimages: An Introduction to the Technology and Its Limits
Editors: Josephine Johnston and Erik Parens Neuroimages—depictions of the structure of the brain and of changes that occur within the brain as people have sensations, thoughts, and feelings—are increasingly important...Read “Interpreting Neuroimages: An Introduction to the Technology and Its Limits”
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Narrative Ethics: The Role of Stories in Bioethics
Editor: Martha Montello What “narrative ethics” means and how it changes clinical ethics practice has been controversial. Its proponents are agreed, however, that it is an alternative approach to “doing...Page
Ethical Oversight of Learning Health Care Systems
Editors: Mildred Z. Solomon and Ann C. Bonham The Institute of Medicine has called on health care leaders to transform their health systems into “learning health care systems,” in which...Page
Troubled Children: Diagnosing, Treating, and Attending to Context
Editors: Erik Parens and Josephine Johnston More and more children in the United States receive psychiatric diagnoses and psychotropic medications—this is not news. With those increased rates of diagnosis and...Read “Troubled Children: Diagnosing, Treating, and Attending to Context”
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Good Health Care by Design
Extra large private hospital rooms with plenty of natural light and artwork may seem like unaffordable luxuries, but new research shows that these and other architecture and design features can...Page
Personalized Medicine: Will It Work? Where Will It Take Us?
Personalized medicine—the customization of medical treatment to an individual’s genetic profile—aims to both improve outcomes and control costs. But there are many ethical hurdles, ranging from the regulation of direct-to-consumer...Read “Personalized Medicine: Will It Work? Where Will It Take Us?”
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Sports and the Search for Fairness
Cheating evolves constantly. Many athletes have been banned from the Olympics and other major events for taking banned substances. Gene doping is on the horizon. Questions have arisen about which...Page
Would Better Medical Evidence Lead to Better Health Care?
Fewer than half of medical interventions are supported by scientific evidence. These essays examine the hopes that the recent push for comparative effectiveness research will improve medical care, the fears...Read “Would Better Medical Evidence Lead to Better Health Care?”
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The Hastings Center at Forty: A Look at Its Founding Four Issues
Marking the fortieth anniversary of The Hastings Center, these essays examine the four core issues that the Center originally identified as its domain. Cofounder Daniel Callahan takes up population control....Read “The Hastings Center at Forty: A Look at Its Founding Four Issues”
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Children’s Bodies, Parents’ Choices
More children than ever are undergoing medical interventions for nonmedical reasons. As parents consent to an increasing variety of procedures, the ethical and legal debate grows louder. These essays visit...Page
Connecting American Values with Health Reform
In this collection of essays, published before the passage of the Affordable Care Act, eleven authors each examine a different foundational value, and what its policy implications are if we...Page
Reassessing Human Subjects Protections
The clinical research landscape is changing rapidly, and the system for overseeing research has failed to keep pace. The mechanisms for protecting human subjects may be too stringent in some...Page
Regulating Reprogenetics
Reproductive technologies, sometimes dubbed “reprogenetics” because they stand at the intersection of assisted reproduction and genetics, can both help people have children and give them greater choice over the kind...Page
The Five People You Meet in a Pandemic—And What They Need from You Today
This bioethics background paper describes ethical decision-making during an influenza pandemic. Download the report for free.Read “The Five People You Meet in a Pandemic—And What They Need from You Today”
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Patents, Biomedical Research, and Treatments: Examining Concerns, Canvassing Solutions
This report examines the debates over patenting biomedical research and treatments, focusing on how those debates play out in the patenting of inventions involving genes and stem cells and the...Read “Patents, Biomedical Research, and Treatments: Examining Concerns, Canvassing Solutions”
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The Ethics of Using QI Methods to Improve Health Care Quality & Safety
This special report from The Hastings Center explores the ethical dimensions of efforts to make health care safer and better through continuous quality improvement (QI) efforts in patient care, with...Read “The Ethics of Using QI Methods to Improve Health Care Quality & Safety”
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Improving End of Life Care: Why Has It Been So Difficult?
This report contains 10 essays that present a synoptic overview of the most important developments in end-of-life decision-making and take stock of their successes or failures. The essays also provide...Read “Improving End of Life Care: Why Has It Been So Difficult?”
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Genetic Differences & Human Identities
This four-part report aims to help readers understand what geneticists believe they have discovered about how genetic differences are related to observed, or “phenotypic,” differences. It also helps readers contemplate...Page
A Global Profession: Medical Values in China and the U.S.
This supplement presents a cross-cultural dialogue about the fundamental professional values of medicine that shape medical practice, teaching, and research in China and the United States. Articles by Chinese and...Read “A Global Profession: Medical Values in China and the U.S.”
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Disability Rights Critique of Prenatal Genetic Testing
Prenatal screening for “disabling” genetic traits seems self-evidently good to some people. But the disability rights movement has criticized such testing as morally problematic and driven by misinformation about what...Read “Disability Rights Critique of Prenatal Genetic Testing”
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What Could Have Saved John Worthy?
This special report, published in 1998, was the result of a Hastings project that explored the structure of health care delivery in the early days of managed care and its...Page
Is Better Always Good? The Enhancement Project
An increasing number of biotechnologies offer ways of “enhancing” people. Examples are cosmetic surgery, gene therapies, performance drugs, and psychopharmacological agents such as antidepressants. This supplement tries to clear the...Page
Promoting Patient Safety: An Ethical Basis for Policy Deliberation
In 2000, the Institute of Medicine reported that as many as 98,000 Americans die each year as the result of medical error. This special report on patient safety seeks to...Read “Promoting Patient Safety: An Ethical Basis for Policy Deliberation”
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Reprogenetics and Public Policy: Reflections and Recommendations
This report discusses how new techniques at the intersection of reproductive medicine and genetics raise complex ethical questions that should not be resolved by a largely unregulated market. Rather, they...Read “Reprogenetics and Public Policy: Reflections and Recommendations”
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Access to Hospice Care: Expanding Boundaries, Overcoming Barriers
This report looks at issues of social justice, access, and public policy in hospice and palliative care. As it examines the issues from the perspectives of social justice and fairness,...Read “Access to Hospice Care: Expanding Boundaries, Overcoming Barriers”
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The Ethics of Hospital Trusteeship
Edited by Bruce Jennings, Virginia A. Sharpe, Bradford H. Gray, and Alan R. Fleischman (Georgetown University Press, 2004) Serving on a hospital’s board of trustees requires confronting a variety of...Bioethics Forum Essay
Dozens of Bioethicists Air Views on SUPPORT Study Controversy
For those following the SUPPORT Study controversy, the New England Journal of Medicine published this week a letter to the editor organized by Ruth Macklin, Alice Dreger, and me, and signed by 45 “physicians,...Read “Dozens of Bioethicists Air Views on SUPPORT Study Controversy”
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Lois Shepherd
Lois Shepherd, J.D., is the Peter A. Wallenborn, Jr. and Dolly F. Wallenborn Professor of Biomedical Ethics, Professor of Public Health Sciences, and Professor of Law at the University of...Bioethics Forum Essay
Sports Concussions and Sandbagging
Sport-related concussions are a significant public health problem, and concussion management is one of the most controversial issues in sports medicine. The latest international consensus statement on concussion in sport advises that...Expert Contributor
L. Syd M. Johnson
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Brad Partridge
Bioethics Forum Essay
Touching History
AIDS in New York: The First Five Years is an exhibit running this summer at The New-York Historical Society, an organization so venerable that its name reflects how the city’s name...Bioethics Forum Essay
SUPPORT Update: OHRP’s Compliance Actions on Hold
In a thoughtful, nuanced letter to the University of Alabama (the home of the Principal Investigator of the SUPPORT study), the Office for Human Research Protection announced that it has “put...Bioethics Forum Essay
Public Citizen: The SUPPORT Study was Even Worse than We Thought
In his April 18 Bioethics Forum article, John Lantos criticized the findings of the Department of Health and Human Services Office for Human Research Protections that the conduct of the Surfactant,...Read “Public Citizen: The SUPPORT Study was Even Worse than We Thought”
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Michael Carome, M.D.
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Sidney Wolfe, M.D.
Bioethics Forum Essay
The SUPPORT Study and the Standard of Care
The clinical research community and a number of prominent bioethicists have swiftly come to the defense of investigators conducting the SUPPORT study, in which approximately 1,300 premature infants were randomly...Bioethics Forum Essay
Public Citizen and Misinformed Consent in Neonatal Intensive Care
Public Citizen, the so-called “citizen’s advocacy group,” continues to criticize the NIH-sponsored clinical trials of oxygen therapy for premature babies. They followed up their April 10th letter with another, on May 8th. ...Read “Public Citizen and Misinformed Consent in Neonatal Intensive Care”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Learning to Talk Like a Doctor
Three years before beginning medical school, I got off a bus in Granada, Spain and met the family I would be living with for four months. My host parents, Carmen...Bioethics Forum Essay
Getting from “is” to “ought” Near the End of Life
There is a saying in ethics: you can’t get an “ought” from an “is.” Descriptions of the world as it is do not reveal truths about the world as it...Bioethics Forum Essay
Is Five Hours Too Short to Say Goodbye? My Dad’s Rapid Autopsy
My sister called: “Get the orange card out of my wallet on the table. We need to call the study people.” In July, we got the news – Dad’s colon...Read “Is Five Hours Too Short to Say Goodbye? My Dad’s Rapid Autopsy”
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Rebecca D. Pentz
Bioethics Forum Essay
Shame and Guilt in Minnesota
Over the past month, a petition asking the governor of Minnesota to investigate a research scandal at the University of Minnesota has been steadily gathering momentum. The scandal in question originated in...Bioethics Forum Essay
OHRP and Public Citizen Are Wrong about Neonatal Research on Oxygen Therapy
On March 7, 2013, the federal Office of Human Research Protections notified the principal investigator of the Surfactant, Positive Pressure, Oxygenation Randomized Trial (SUPPORT) that “the conduct of this study...Read “OHRP and Public Citizen Are Wrong about Neonatal Research on Oxygen Therapy”
Bioethics Forum Essay
What if the Patient is Your Mother?
The problems with end-of-life care are clear enough. Patients and their families/significant others still have trouble talking with one another and their doctors about how they would and would not...Page
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