Guest Post: The deadly business of an unregulated global stem cell industry Tereza Hendl and Tamra Lysaght In our paper, we report on the case of a 75-year old Australian woman who died in December 2013 from complications of an autologous stem cell procedure. This case was tragic and worth reporting to the medical ethics community […]
Latest articles
Family Presence During Resuscitation: Extending Ethical Norms from Pediatrics to Adults
Guest Post: Christine Vincent and Zohar Lederman Paper: Family presence during resuscitation: extending ethical norms from paediatrics to adults Family Presence During Resuscitation is an important ethical issue for discussion within the medical community. Currently, family presence is more commonly accepted in paediatric cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) than adult CPR. However, we argue that this fact is not morally […]
Treatment of Premature Ejaculation: Alleviating Sexual Dysfunction, Disease Mongering, or Both?
By Brian D. Earp / (@briandavidearp) An interesting new paper, “Distress, Disease, Desire: Perspectives on the Medicalization of Premature Ejaculation,” has just been published online at the Journal of Medical Ethics. According to the authors, Ylva Söderfeldt, Adam Droppe, and Tim Ohnhäuser, their aim is to “question the very concept of premature ejaculation and ask whether it […]
Conscientious Objection Accommodation in Healthcare – Clashing Perspectives
by Brian D. Earp / (@briandavidearp) On behalf of the Journal of Medical Ethics, I would like to draw your attention to the current issue, now available online, which is almost entirely dedicated to the vexing question of conscientious objection in healthcare. When, if ever, should a healthcare provider’s personal conviction about the wrongness of some intervention (be it […]
Aid-in-Dying Laws and the Physician’s Duty to Inform
Guest Post: Mara Buchbinder Paper: Aid-in-dying laws and the physician’s duty to inform Why do so many people assume that any clinical communication about aid-in-dying (AID, also known as assisted suicide), where it is legal, ought to be patient-initiated? Physician participants in my ongoing study tend to assume that physicians should wait for patients to initiate […]
So, What is Not to Like about 3D Bioprinting?
Guest Post: Gill Haddow & Niki Vermeulen Paper: 3D bioprint me: a socioethical view of bioprinting human organs and tissues Picture this: It is twenty years’ from now and , one of your organs has stopped functioning properly or even at all. You will not need to wait in the long line of the human […]
Rationing of Antibiotics in the Critically Ill: Not if, but How?
Guest Post: Simon Oczkowski Paper: Antimicrobial stewardship programmes: bedside rationing by another name? The threat posed by antimicrobial resistant organisms (AROs) has long been recognized by the medical community as an emerging problem in public health. Though slow and insidious changes in the ability of bacteria, fungi, parasites, and viruses have real and profound effects on patients around […]
Response to ‘A Matter of Life and Death: Controversy at the Interface Between Clinical and Legal Decision-Making in Prolonged Disorders of Consciousness’
Guest Post: Julian Sheather, British Medical Association Response to: A matter of life and death: controversy at the interface between clinical and legal decision-making in prolonged disorders of consciousness (also available as a blog summary) The law has to work in generalities. The prohibitions it imposes and the liberties it describes are set for all of […]
How to Keep HIV Cure-Related Trials Ethical: The Benefit/Risk Ratio Challenge
Guest Post by Nir Eyal Re: Special Issue of the Journal of Medical Ethics on the ethics and challenges of an HIV cure For most patients with HIV who have access to antiretroviral treatment and use it properly, that treatment works well. But the holy grail of HIV research remains finding a cure. Sometimes that […]
Harm: Could It Sometimes Be a Good Thing?
Guest Post: Patrick Sullivan Response: Hanna Pickard and Steve Pearce, Balancing costs and benefits: a clinical perspective does not support a harm minimization approach for self-injury outside of community settings BBC news recently reported on the approval of plans for facilities to support self-injection rooms to allow drug users to inject safely under supervision in Glasgow. […]