By Cory E. Goldstein, Stephanie N. Dixon, Monica Taljaard, Charles Weijer. As bioethicists and statisticians, we are occasionally invited to consult with a research team planning a pragmatic clinical trial after the research question and a basic outline of objectives and methods have been developed. When the proposed design is a cluster randomized design (in […]
Latest articles
Should liberal states permit the social use of mitochondrial replacement technique? The answer is yes.
By Marco Tang. What is mitochondrial replacement technique (MRT)? It involves obtaining a donor egg, removing the nDNA from the donor egg, transferring the legal mother’s nDNA into the donor egg and fertilizing it with the legal father’s sperm. This procedure enables women with mitochondrial disease to have children without it. What is unique is […]
Do philosophers stand in the way of their own philosophy?
By Matti Häyry. I recently interviewed Peter Singer AI – that is to say, philosopher Peter Singer’s digital representation petersinger.ai, created by Sankalpa Ghose and available online. After the interview with the bot, I asked Peter Singer himself what he thought about the answers. His response revealed an interesting tension. For me, the experience was […]
The GMC must re-evaluate its treatment of climate protesters
By Rammina Yassaie. On 7 January this year, Bristol GP Patrick Hart, was jailed for 12 months for damaging petrol pump screens, which he describes as “an act of care” in protest against continued fossil fuel extraction; the environmental consequences of which are considered to be the greatest health threat of the 21st century. Hart’s […]
The Assisted Dying Debate and the Questions We Aren’t Asking
By Christina Lamb and Daniel Wainstock Judith Butler once wrote, “Precisely because a living being may die, it is necessary to care for that being so that it may live. Only under conditions in which the loss would matter does the value of the life appear.” As the Assisted Dying (AD) debate progresses following its […]
Ethics is the key to demographic change
By J.Y. Lee In the Global North, the fact that aging populations are increasing while birth rates are decreasing has become a point of great alarm in recent years. The average total fertility rate (TFR) across the globe stands at 2.3 births per woman today, compared to 4.9 back in 1950. However, some countries are […]
Do ecological preferences belong to patient autonomy? The answer is yes
By Sabine Salloch Healthcare is being increasingly recognized as a major emitter of greenhouse gases in industrialized societies. It accounts for approximately 5 percent of national carbon budgets. Whereas some countries already adopted national climate strategies targeting at a net-zero healthcare other governments still struggle with finding appropriate pathways. This is not surprising as, on […]
Clinical ethics: looking backwards, thinking forwards
By R Mohindra, S Louw Our paper is primarily an audit of the Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals Clinical Ethics Advisory Group (CEAG). But it has several threads including: The nature of the workflow for the clinical ethics committee including volume and complexity over time; The impact of the relatively recent changes, including principles of approach, […]
Should artificial intelligence guide surrogate decisions in healthcare?
By Marco Annoni. Artificial intelligence (AI) may soon be able to predict which treatments a patient would prefer to receive—or refuse. Among the many applications of AI in healthcare, one of the most promising is its potential to support substitute decision-making. Substitute decisions are required when patients lack the capacity to make informed decisions for […]
To succeed as an innovation hub, we need ground rules for ethical use of AI tools
By Sebastian Porsdam Mann, Brian D Earp and Julian Savulescu. Republished with permission from the Straits Times After a severe bout of Covid-19, a colleague, Sumeeta, found herself facing an unexpected challenge. Despite her intact verbal intelligence and reasoning skills, she suddenly struggled with the mechanics of writing. Constructing grammatical sentences and coherent paragraphs now […]