By Felicitas Holzer, Federico Germani, Ivette Ortiz Alcántara, Julian März & Nikola Biller-Andorno Equal access to vaccines has been one of the key ethical challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. Most scholars consider the massive purchase and hoarding of vaccines by high-income countries, especially at the beginning of the pandemic, to be unjust towards vulnerable people […]
Latest articles
Extra-corporeal gestation, or why things still stink
By Giulia Cavaliere. It is once again November and I am once again—three years since writing this piece—thinking about extra-corporeal gestation, the futuristic prospect of supporting foetuses in an artificial uterine environment. Considering that it cannot be the approaching winter months that sparked a wave of fresh thoughts on this technological possibility, what is? A […]
Coney Barrett´s juxtaposition: covid = abortion?
By Ezio Di Nucci. While the left was busy making excuses for vaccine mandates, conservatives saw an opportunity: if autonomy could be sacrificed on the altar of public health, then the modest gains made against patriarchal oppression during the 20th century might no longer be beyond reach, early in the 21st. In December 2021, during […]
Trusted Research Environment – a name to trust?
By Paul Affleck, Jenny Westaway, Maurice Smith and Geoff Schrecker. You don’t have to be a nominative determinist to believe that it matters what things are called. Prompted by Graham et al.’s paper Trust and the Goldacre Review: why trusted research environments are not about trust, we’ve been thinking recently about the best name for […]
“Saviour or Sinner?” Why the case of Justin Stebbing matters
By Johnna Wellesley & Emma Tumilty The suspension of Justin Stebbing has ended and sparked renewed discussion in the media and medical community about the fairness of his case. While criticism of the GMC in general is ongoing and vociferous, a closer look at what was at stake here and what the backlash to it […]
It takes a village to build a good algorithm – particularly in a field as sensitive as patient preferences
By Nikola Biller-Andorno, Andrea Ferrario, Sophie Gloeckler Recently, there has been a lot of talk about how artificial intelligence (AI) is going to boost personalized medicine. And, indeed, the field is developing with amazing speed: Digital twins help predict treatment outcomes based on genomic data, AIs can automatically classify lesions from images of the skin […]
Troubles with trust
By Edwin Jesudason Our doctor says it’s something major, citing deadly-sounding results. We’re panicked. They talk about treatment options and evidence for each; about cherished benefits and gut-churning harms. They calmly seek our choice of treatment and our consent to proceed. Frozen, we don’t know which option to trust. A recent paper by philosophers at […]
Prescribing growth hormone in pediatrics: The collision of history and medical ethics
By Rohan Henry In a 1958 editorial, the first case of growth hormone used as treatment for a medical condition was reported. Since that time, the administered product has changed from being pituitary derived specifically, cadaveric in origin, to recombinant human growth hormone in the United States which occurred in 1985. With this practice shift, […]
The discriminatory consequences of the Dobbs decision
By Claire Gothreau, Joona Räsänen, Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the constitutional right to abortion has sparked intense backlash and condemnation from the American public. In the 100 days since the Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that overturned Roe v. Wade, total abortion bans that criminalize the […]
Collateral damage of the Queen’s funeral: The unethical effects of a snap bank holiday
By David Shaw. The Queen’s funeral took place on 19th September 2022, which was declared a bank holiday. As a result, many NHS services were scaled back: hospital appointments were cancelled, operations were delayed, and GP surgeries closed, with several serious effects on patient care. Many NHS trusts cancelled non-emergency operations on the day of […]