Racism and unconscious bias persist in medical research. Given that journalists who write, or aspire to write, about medicine look at journals for story ideas, the editors of those journals have an indispensable role in identifying and eliminating racism in the review and publication of research. What antiracist steps are leading journals taking? What more should be done? What kinds of cues can help journalists recognize racial bias in a research article?

A remarkable experiment raises anew questions about whether brain-death is really death.

In an essay published in Scientific American, we call for immediate and intensive research into the possibility that exposure to one of the coronaviruses that cause the common cold could decrease the severity of Covid-19, and could be leveraged to expand what’s been called “pre-existing” immunity to the disease by deliberate transmission of common cold coronaviruses. Here, we expand on our proposal.

The National Institutes of Health recently announced that it will retire-in-place the remaining 44 chimpanzees at the Alamogordo Primate Facility in Alamogordo, New Mexico, rather than transfer them to a sanctuary as originally planned. NIH’s decision is disappointing for those who believe that the chimpanzees—many of whom have spent decades in research—should experience the freedom and quality of life a sanctuary would provide.

Why do citizen science projects get started, and what are the ethical challenges facing them? These questions underlie “When Citizens Do Science: Stories from Labs, Garages, and Beyond,” published in Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics,  which explores the world of science happening outside the ...

As a public health researcher interested in brain injuries in sports, I was searching for peer-reviewed literature that examined cultural pressures that cause athletes to minimize symptoms of potentially serious injuries when I came across a 1994 article entitled, “A Little Pain Never Hurt Anybody:...

The advent of social media technology has opened many new avenues of research in population health, demographics, psychology, and the social sciences. It is crucial to consider whether researchers conducting observational research using social media need to obtain consent from their research subjects...

Clinical research with prisoners is ethically vital and challenging. Studies investigating novel psychological, behavioral, and pharmacological interventions are imperative for the health and experiences of the people they focus on. Yet clinical research on prisoners also raises considerable ethical ...