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BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY
An article in this week’s New York Times revealed new evidence of a disturbingly high risk of dementia among National Football League players. Conducted at the University of Michigan and commissioned by the NFL itself, a not-yet-published study reportedly finds that “players ages 30 through 49 showed a rate of [dementia-related diagnoses] 19 times that… Read more
BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY
Does the NFL Need PETA?
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BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY
What is medicine for? I found this question on my mind recently, not only because I had been discussing it with a group of thoughtful medical students to whom I was teaching the history of medicine, but also because I was shopping for a bra at Bloomingdale’s. On my lunch break, I found myself alongside… Read more
BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY
Medicine Needs a Declaration of Independence from Cosmetic Procedures
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BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY
As a wizened gender rights advocate, I know better than to assume the activists making the most noise are actually representative of “the community” they insist they represent. So, while American transgender activists have lately been fairly unified and very vocal about the need to remove “Gender Identity Disorder” (GID) from the Diagnostic and Statistical… Read more
BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY
How and Why to Take “Gender Identity Disorder” Out of the DSM
Read more
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BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY
Over the past several years, I have served on a couple of panels considering the clinical and ethical challenges posed by pandemic flu. Our concern was the threat posed by the avian variety brewing in China; not once did we discuss an alternative viral vector. Nonetheless, in light of the current fears that pandemic swine… Read more
BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY
When Endemic Disparities Catch the Pandemic Flu: Echoes of Kubler-Ross and Rawls
Read more
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BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY
In the past few weeks, the North American media has been rife with stories about unusual births following fertility treatment. The first was that of Nadya Suleman (christened by the media as Octo-Mom, or Madame Ovary) – a California woman who recently gave birth to octuplets. This case raised a number of challenging ethical questions:… Read more
BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY
Children at all Costs?
Read more
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BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY
Reading an excerpt from the new book Sex and War has got me thinking about the Mormons and California’s Prop 8. Sex and War features a meditation on how biology might help to explain why and how humans kill each other. The battle between the Mormons and the LBGT civil rights movement, now being waged… Read more
BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY
Womb Gay
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BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY
The AMA’s recent apology to black physicians marks another moral milestone in white America’s ritualized confession of its racist past, standing alongside President Clinton’s 1997 apology to the survivors of the American government’s infamous syphilis study of black males. The AMA’s commissioned research panel previously had made a conclusive study of the organization’s racist history,… Read more
BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY
The American Medical Association’s Apology in Context: The Need for Restoration
Read more
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BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” This insight from Margaret Mead functioned as the guiding inspiration for those of us who worked for years as the Intersex Society of North America. A footnote to a recent Hastings Center… Read more
BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY
Footnote to a Footnote: On Roving Medicine
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BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY
“Why don’t you just go through the IRB process to protect yourself?” one of my colleagues asked me (again) the other day. And I sighed (again). My tendency is to respond to this question with what is pretty much the standard objections of my fellow members of the American Historical Assocation, objections reiterated again this… Read more
BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY
The Vulnerable Researcher and the IRB
Read more
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BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY
But not always. And that’s kind of the point. OK, let me back up. Like that bad-for-you ex from whom you just can’t seem to make a clean break, the “news” story about how the feds fund questionable sex studies has come back a-knockin’ at the door. We’re supposed to be totally horrified that our… Read more
BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY
Sex Is Good
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An article in this week’s New York Times revealed new evidence of a disturbingly high risk of dementia among National Football League players. Conducted at the University of Michigan and commissioned by the NFL itself, a not-yet-published study reportedly finds that “players ages 30 through 49 showed a rate of [dementia-related diagnoses] 19 times that… Read more
BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY
Does the NFL Need PETA?
Read more
What is medicine for? I found this question on my mind recently, not only because I had been discussing it with a group of thoughtful medical students to whom I was teaching the history of medicine, but also because I was shopping for a bra at Bloomingdale’s. On my lunch break, I found myself alongside… Read more
BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY
Medicine Needs a Declaration of Independence from Cosmetic Procedures
Read more
As a wizened gender rights advocate, I know better than to assume the activists making the most noise are actually representative of “the community” they insist they represent. So, while American transgender activists have lately been fairly unified and very vocal about the need to remove “Gender Identity Disorder” (GID) from the Diagnostic and Statistical… Read more
BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY
How and Why to Take “Gender Identity Disorder” Out of the DSM
Read more
Over the past several years, I have served on a couple of panels considering the clinical and ethical challenges posed by pandemic flu. Our concern was the threat posed by the avian variety brewing in China; not once did we discuss an alternative viral vector. Nonetheless, in light of the current fears that pandemic swine… Read more
BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY
When Endemic Disparities Catch the Pandemic Flu: Echoes of Kubler-Ross and Rawls
Read more
In the past few weeks, the North American media has been rife with stories about unusual births following fertility treatment. The first was that of Nadya Suleman (christened by the media as Octo-Mom, or Madame Ovary) – a California woman who recently gave birth to octuplets. This case raised a number of challenging ethical questions:… Read more
BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY
Children at all Costs?
Read more
Reading an excerpt from the new book Sex and War has got me thinking about the Mormons and California’s Prop 8. Sex and War features a meditation on how biology might help to explain why and how humans kill each other. The battle between the Mormons and the LBGT civil rights movement, now being waged… Read more
BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY
Womb Gay
Read more
The AMA’s recent apology to black physicians marks another moral milestone in white America’s ritualized confession of its racist past, standing alongside President Clinton’s 1997 apology to the survivors of the American government’s infamous syphilis study of black males. The AMA’s commissioned research panel previously had made a conclusive study of the organization’s racist history,… Read more
BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY
The American Medical Association’s Apology in Context: The Need for Restoration
Read more
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” This insight from Margaret Mead functioned as the guiding inspiration for those of us who worked for years as the Intersex Society of North America. A footnote to a recent Hastings Center… Read more
BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY
Footnote to a Footnote: On Roving Medicine
Read more
“Why don’t you just go through the IRB process to protect yourself?” one of my colleagues asked me (again) the other day. And I sighed (again). My tendency is to respond to this question with what is pretty much the standard objections of my fellow members of the American Historical Assocation, objections reiterated again this… Read more
BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY
The Vulnerable Researcher and the IRB
Read more
But not always. And that’s kind of the point. OK, let me back up. Like that bad-for-you ex from whom you just can’t seem to make a clean break, the “news” story about how the feds fund questionable sex studies has come back a-knockin’ at the door. We’re supposed to be totally horrified that our… Read more
BIOETHICS FORUM ESSAY
