Hot Topics: Health Disparities

Blog Posts (47)

April 24, 2017

BioethicsTV: Henrietta Lacks and “Mary Kills People”

by Craig Klugman, Ph.D.

This past weekend was a bioethics bonanza when it came to cable television. First, HBO premiered its film version of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, seven years after the book’s original publication.…

April 5, 2017

Internet Privacy and Health Portals: Why I Won’t Be Contacting My Doctor Online

by Craig Klugman, Ph.D.

Part of the Affordable Care Act was an effort to increase efficiency in sharing and storing health data through electronic health records.…

March 21, 2017

Intersectionality and the Dangers of White Empathy when Treating Black Patients

by Keisha Ray, Ph.D.

(Originally presented at the 7th International Health Humanities Consortium meeting in Houston, Texas)

I’ve had many odd, seemingly racially motivated experiences with racially uneducated and racially insensitive doctors and nurses.…

March 7, 2017

The Ethics of the New GOP Health Plan – Violating Justice & Solidarity

by Craig Klugman, Ph.D.

Whatever one may think of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), it began with noble intentions. The ACA was built on a philosophy of providing more people not only with access to health insurance but also with assistance to pay for it.…

February 13, 2017

Fallout: From Healthcare Equality to Existential Threat

by Jenji Cassandra Learn

This is the second in a series of personal articles about living as a trans-woman facing insurance denial, discrimination, and medical mistreatment in the current political environment.…

February 3, 2017

Ethics & Society Newsfeed: February 3, 2017

  Politics Betsy DeVos’s ethics review raises further questions for Democrats and watchdogs Betsy DeVos, Trump’s nominee to lead the Education Department, promised to divest from more than 100 entities to avoid potential conflicts of interest with her new job. Questions left unanswered. Donald Trump warned over ‘unprecedented’ plan to appoint cabinet without ethics office … More Ethics & Society Newsfeed: February 3, 2017
January 17, 2017

The Future of Health Insurance May Look A Lot Like Our Past

by Craig Klugman, Ph.D.

This week marks the transition of power from President Obama to President-elect Trump. One issue that has been high on Trump’s list of policy changes is a repeal and replace of the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a.…

December 9, 2016

The National Transgender Study is a Start – But More is Needed to Protect the Sexual Health of Transgender Teens

On Thursday, December 9th, the largest survey of transgender people ever conducted was published by The National Center for Transgender Equality. The anonymous online survey had nearly 28,000 participants and found transgender people are twice as likely to live in poverty and three times more likely to be unemployed, according to an article in TIME … More The National Transgender Study is a Start – But More is Needed to Protect the Sexual Health of Transgender Teens
October 18, 2016

Fordham Study Addresses Health Care of Bisexual Adolescent Girls

For bisexual female adolescents,  proper sexual healthcare is difficult to obtain due to healthcare providers’ judgmental attitudes and assumptions of patient heterosexuality, and lack of opportunities for HIV and sexually transmitted infections (STI) testing. Additionally, youth openness with healthcare providers is restricted due … Continue reading →
October 14, 2016

Ethics & Society Newsfeed: October 14, 2016

Health Care and Bioethics DNA database highlights need for new medical privacy protections Creation of a national repository of genetic information is seen by some as crucial to reducing medical costs and improving people’s healthcare. ‘Big data’ could mean big … Continue reading →

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Published Articles (11)

American Journal of Bioethics: Volume 17 Issue 4 - Apr 2017

Psychiatric Genomics and Mental Health Treatment: Setting the Ethical Agenda Camillia Kong, Michael Dunn & Michael Parker

American Journal of Bioethics: Volume 17 Issue 4 - Apr 2017

Psychiatric Genetics in a Risk Society Nicole Martinez-Martin

American Journal of Bioethics: Volume 16 Issue 11 - Nov 2016

The Ethics of Organ Donor Registration Policies: Nudges and Respect for Autonomy Douglas MacKay & Alexandra Robinson

American Journal of Bioethics: Volume 16 Issue 11 - Nov 2016

Autonomy by Default Cass R. Sunstein

American Journal of Bioethics: Volume 16 Issue 6 - Jun 2016

Clinical Trials Infrastructure as a Quality Improvement Intervention in Low- and Middle-Income Countries Avram Denburg, Carlos Rodriguez-Galindo & Steven Joffe

American Journal of Bioethics: Volume 16 Issue 6 - Jun 2016

The Potential for Infrastructure Benefits and the Responsiveness Requirement David Wendler

American Journal of Bioethics: Volume 15 Issue 3 - Mar 2015

The Social Determinants of Health: Why Should We Care? Adina Preda & Kristin Voigt

American Journal of Bioethics: Volume 14 Issue 7 - Jul 2014

The Principle of Equivalence Reconsidered: Assessing the Relevance of the Principle of Equivalence in Prison Medicine Fabrice Jotterand & Tenzin Wangmo

American Journal of Bioethics: Volume 14 Issue 7 - Jul 2014

Observations on the Nature and Extent of Injustice in the American Prison System Ben A. Rich

American Journal of Bioethics: Volume 14 Issue 5 - May 2014

Ethical Conditions for Transnational Gestational Surrogacy in Asia Darryl Macer

News (106)

July 7, 2017 9:00 am

Ebola outbreak in Africa ends — but gaps in public health leave region vulnerable (Nature)

“The response was good, but it would not be valid to say that this shows that we’re ready for a larger response in a bigger context — that remains to be seen,” says Daniel Bausch, director of the UK Public Health Rapid Support Team, an agency created to fill some of the gaps exposed by the 2014 crisis.

May 15, 2017 9:00 am

Ebola virus disease – Democratic Republic of the Congo (WHO)

On 11 May 2017, the Ministry of Health (MoH) of DRC informed WHO that of the five samples collected from suspected cases, one tested positive by RT-PCR for Ebola virus subtype Zaire at the Institut National de Recherche Biomédicale (INRB) in Kinshasa. Additional specimens are currently being tested and results, including sequencing, are awaited to describe the outbreak.

March 10, 2017 9:00 am

Drugs are killing so many people in West Virginia that the state can’t keep up with the funerals (Washington Post)

Deaths in West Virginia have overwhelmed a state program providing burial assistance for needy families for at least the fifth year in a row, causing the program to be nearly out of money four months before the end of the fiscal year, according to the state’s Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR). Funeral directors in West Virginia say the state’s drug overdose epidemic, the worst in the nation, is partly to blame.

March 1, 2017 9:00 am

Ebola funding surge hides falling investment in other neglected diseases (Nature)

Global funding for research on neglected diseases — which include tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and malaria — is at its lowest level since 2007, according to the annual G-FINDER investment report by Policy Cures Research, a health-policy analysis firm in Sydney, Australia.

February 15, 2017 9:00 am

This stereotype is killing black children (Washington Post)

USA Swimming, the nation’s organizing body for the sport, has some 337,000 members — of whom only 1.3 percent are black. Today, nearly 60 years after the abolishment of Jim Crow laws that kept African Americans from pools and safe swimming places, many children still never get the chance to swim.

February 9, 2017 9:00 am

India scraps funding ties with Gates Foundation on immunization (Reuters)

A group backed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation that works on India’s immunization program will now be funded by the health ministry, a government official said, a move in part prompted by fears foreign donors could influence policy making.

January 17, 2017 9:00 am

The Life of a Disabled Child, From Taunts to Hate Crimes (The New York Times)

Since the days when my mother wouldn’t let my older brother go out to play stickball if I wasn’t with him, there’s been a lot of progress in attitudes toward those we now call developmentally or intellectually challenged.

December 16, 2016 9:00 am

We need to feed a growing planet. Vegetables aren’t the answer. (Washington Post)

If we’re going to feed them and us, responsibly and healthfully, vegetables are not the answer.

December 6, 2016 9:00 am

A new global research agenda for food (Nature)

Poor diets are responsible for more of the global burden of ill health than sex, drugs, alcohol and tobacco combined.

November 30, 2016 9:00 am

Once underfed, Brazil's poor have a new problem: obesity (Washington Post)

Brazil has been bogged down in a recession for more than two years but one business is still growing. Fast food.

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