Double-blind randomized clinical trials are the gold standard for answering the scientific question of whether a drug produces any effect, positive or negative, in Covid-19 patients. But is rational for a patient to choose to try a drug such as chloroquine for Covid-19 outside of a trial? Some patients may correctly hold that they have little to lose.

Selected resources from The Hastings Center. Bioethics Briefings: End of Life Care The central philosophical question in end-of-life care is how to make decisions surrounding the numerous choices about what...

Selected resources on from The Hastings Center. Bioethics Briefings: Organ TransplantationThe central philosophical question in organ transplantation is how to ensure a fair and just system for the allocation of...

“Bioethics” has been defined in several different ways. Most broadly, it is the interdisciplinary study of ethical, legal, and social issues arising in the life sciences and health care. Though...

Robert M. Veatch, a bioethics pioneer and the first research associate at The Hastings Center, died on November 9. An overarching theme was his commitment to human rights.

The year 2020 will be remembered as the first year of the coronavirus pandemic. But the pandemic was not alone in creating fear and dismay and raising ethical questions. Think of the rise in antisemitism, police violence against Black people, protests against immigration, and rallies by groups espousing Nazi slogans and symbols. Hate crimes, including murder, are the highest in years, according to the most recent FBI report, and were particularly aimed at Jews and Hispanics. Asian-Americans have been targeted as carriers of the so-called “China virus.”

The Hastings Center is pleased to announce the election of 18 new Fellows. Hastings Center Fellows are a group of individuals of outstanding accomplishment whose work has informed scholarship and/or public...

Edited by Robert D. Truog, Nancy Berlinger, Rachel L. Zacharias, and Mildred Z. Solomon Should death be defined in strictly biological terms — as the body’s failure to maintain integrated functioning...

Defining Death: Organ Transplantation and the 50-Year Legacy of the Harvard Report on Brain Death, the 2018 Harvard Medical School’s Annual Bioethics Conference, took place from April 11 to 13...