Hot Topics: Global Ethics
by Richard B. Gibson
Ensuring that healthcare resources are made available to those in the greatest need of them – be that individuals, groups, populations, or countries – is not only a matter of public health but also one of ethics.…
Full Article
by Asma Fazal, MD, MRCPI, MHSc
Offering sanctuary to those fleeing conflicts is the most pressing human rights issue in the world today.…
Full Article
by Sweta Dubey MBBS & Siddhesh Zadey BSMS
For the first time in human history, over 3.9 billion people in about ninety countries around the world were contained in lockdowns as of the first week of April.…
Full Article
by Mario Picozzi, MD Ph.D., Federico Nicoli, Ph.D., Paolo Severgnini, MD
The Varese Hospital is located in northern Lombardy and has a total of 582 beds.…
Full Article
by Asma Fazal, M.B.B.S, MRCPI, MHSc
To care for children in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) is not easy because in addition to having an emotionally charged environment with high morbidity and mortality, it has a patient population who is not autonomous.…
Full Article
by Father Marcin Ferdynus
The COVID-19 pandemic is unprecedented in scope and beyond anything we have ever experienced. A global plague of unparalleled proportions resulting in health, economic, social and religious consequences, the pandemic has revealed deficiencies in global and domestic health institutions and systems.
by Laura Specker Sullivan, Ph.D. and Dan Rosen, J.D.
As Fairchild et al. describe in a forthcoming issue of the American Journal of Bioethics, the American debate on social distancing regulations has pitted those protesting unacceptable state limitations on individual rights versus those demanding that individual rights to protection create a government obligation.
by Henri-Corto Stoeklé Ph.D., Asmahane Benmaziane M.D., Philippe Beuzeboc M.D., Christian Hervé, M.D., Ph.D.
In a letter published in The American Journal of Bioethics, we wrote “now really isn’t the time for ethical reflections” in the face of COVID-19.
by Fernando Hellmann, Ph.D., Silvia Cardoso Bittencourt, Ph.D., Fabíola Stolf Brzozowski, Ph.D., Mirelle Finkler, Ph.D., Marta Verdi, Sandra Caponi, Ph.D.
In times of crisis, like the current pandemic of COVID-19, the perception that ethical standards can be relaxed due to the urgent need for solutions is growing, according to Stoeklé and Hervé.
by Katharine Wright & Julian Sheather
Pratt et al. highlight important ways in which solidarity between researchers and communities provides both an ethical underpinning, and an ethical goal, for community engagement in global health research.…
Full ArticleNeeds to Prepare for “Post-COVID-19 Syndrome”
Solidarity and Community Engagement in Global Health Research
The Role of Solidarity in Research in Global Health Emergencies
Bedside Rationing Under Resource Constraints—A National Survey of Ethiopian Physicians’ Use of Criteria for Priority Setting
Clinical Ethicists Awakened: Addressing Two Generations of Clinical Ethics Issues Involving Undocumented Patients
Impartiality and infectious disease: Prioritizing individuals versus the collective in antibiotic prescription
Health Research Priority Setting: The Duties of Individual Funders
Aligning Research Priorities to Improve Equity: A Challenge for Health Funders
The Rescinding of DACA: What Should Healthcare Professionals and Academics Do? (and Why?)
A Question of Social Justice: How Policies of Profit Negate Engagement of Developing World Bioethicists and Undermine Global Bioethics
A big component of vaccine distribution has been utilizing ethics to determine vaccine prioritization. Issac Chotiner of The New Yorker speaks with immunologist Barry Bloom to discuss what goes into making decisions on vaccine distribution.
Full Article“The first year of the Covid-19 pandemic revealed that a country’s wealth would not spare it from the virus. Overconfidence, poor planning and ignored warnings felled the world’s richest nations. But now, money is translating into undeniable advantages.”
Full ArticleThe new COVID-19 variants that have popped up in the United Kingdom and South Africa are the new obstacles to tackle in the pandemic. Will current vaccines be able to measure up against new strains? Scientists are seeking an answer.
Full ArticleWhy is protein structure so important? A recent development with DeepMind AI has made history in determining a protein’s structure. What could this mean for future speed and discovery of drugs? What ethics has to be considered when using AI?
Full ArticleAstraZeneca recently disclosed a key mistake in their vaccine trials. How will this impact the trust and reliability of their results? What ethics needs to be considered regarding this mistake? Can these results now hold up with further testing?
Full Article“Clinicians again face work that’s risky, heart-rending, physically exhausting, and demoralizing, all the elements of burnout. They have seen this before and are frustrated it is happening again.” What effects will this have on healthcare workers?
Full ArticleAlthough facial recognition software proves to be useful in certain scenarios, what happens if this technology falls into the wrong hands. Researchers must recognize that unethical facial recognition practice is fundamentally dangerous.
Full Article“The liquid that many hope could help end the Covid-19 pandemic is stored in a nondescript metal tank in a manufacturing complex owned by Pfizer, one of the world’s biggest drug companies. There is nothing remarkable about the container, which could fit in a walk-in closet, except that its contents could end up in the world’s first authorized Covid-19 vaccine.” All eyes are on these developers as the race towards a COVID-19 vaccine continues. Rates run high and tensions are tough as the world grapples with the pandemic.
Full Article“In the imminent future, patients will start to die because there simply aren’t enough people to care for them. Doctors and nurses will burn out. The most precious resource the U.S. health-care system has in the struggle against COVID-19 isn’t some miracle drug. It’s the expertise of its health-care workers—and they are exhausted.”
Full ArticleRecent news offers compelling evidence that an effective vaccine for #COVID19 is on its way. Although this news provides optimism, many questions are considered. Who gets it first? Could it help quell the pandemic? Questions follow this exciting news.
Full Article