There are some people who disagree, but we can take some things as read: there is such a thing as global climate change, it is at least substantially anthropogenic, and there are moral reasons to try to minimise it. With that in mind, how should we think about reproductive technologies? These are techniques whose intent […]
Category: JME
Are FIGO’s Regulations Risking the Lives of Pregnant Women?
Guest post by Douwe Verkuyl The International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) Committee for the Ethical Aspects of Human Reproduction and Women’s Health believes that there is never an indication for a tubal occlusion (TO) to be performed at the time of caesarean section or following a vaginal delivery in cases where this sterilisation has […]
Intentionally Exposing Patients to HIV: When Might it be Ethical?
Guest Post by Bram Wispelwey, Ari Zivotofsky, and Alan Jotkowitz Much has been made of the fact that over the last two decades HIV has transformed from an inevitable, agonising killer into a controllable chronic disease. But have we reached a point where infecting someone with HIV in order to avoid other, potentially worse health outcomes […]
Rescuing the Duty to Rescue
Guest post by Tina Rulli and Joseph Millum It is commonly thought that individuals have a moral duty to rescue others in peril. Bioethicists have leveraged this duty to rescue for a variety of purposes—including to criticize the use of placebo controls in trials in developing countries; to defend duties of researchers to return urgent […]
Multiplex Parenting: in vitro Gametogenesis and the Generations to Come
Guest Post by César Palacios-González, John Harris and Giuseppe Testa; for the full paper, click here. Recent biotechnology breakthroughs suggest that functional human gametes could soon be created in vitro. While the ethical debate on the uses of in vitro generated gametes (IVG) was originally constrained by the fact that they could be derived only from embryonic […]
The Definition of Mental Disorder: Evolving but Dysfunctional?
Guest post by Rachel Bingham In 1973 the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from the official classification of ‘mental disorders’. This was the result of a successful public campaign and changing political views. Yet, if homosexuality could be (wrongly) diagnosed as a mental disorder – using an official classification – what does this say about […]
An Attack of the What-Ifs
Among the comments to the last post, there’s this from Parmenion59: So…if a cure for lung cancer is found, and the study has been funded through money from a tobacco company…the BMJ won’t publish said study? Way to go BMJ. Hmmm. At least on the face of it, this looks like an important point – […]
Biases in Clinical Ethics Consultation
Guest post by Morten Magelssen, Reidar Pedersen, and Reidun Førde Read the full paper here. A difficult case involving a patient in an intensive care unit is brought to a clinical ethics consultant. The ethics consultant argues that intensive care is futile and should be withdrawn. The clinicians are grateful for the advice, and, with […]
Safety First? How the Current Drug Approval System Lets Some Patients Down
Post by Julian Savulescu Cross-posted from the Practical Ethics blog, and relating to this paper in the JME. Andrew Culliford, whose story is featured in the Daily Mail, is one of the estimated 7 in 100,000 people living with Motor Neuron disease, a progressive degenerative disease which attacks muscles, leaving those affected eventually unable even to […]
The Value of Role Reversal
Guest Post by Rebecca Dresser, Washington University in St. Louis Not so long ago, medical researchers had a habit of using themselves as guinea pigs. Many scientists saw self-experimentation as the most ethical way to try out their ideas. By going first, researchers could test their hypotheses and see how novel interventions affected human beings. Today […]