Hot Topics: Justice
Can algorithms show racial bias? That is the conclusion of a recent article published in Science by Obermeyer, et al., entitled, “Dissecting racial bias in an algorithm used to manage the health of populations.” According to Science, the algorithm’s goal is “to predict complex health needs for the purpose of targeting an intervention that manages those …
Continue reading "Racial Bias in Algorithms?"
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by Craig Klugman, Ph.D.
In late August 2019, BuzzFeed reported that, “The Trump administration wants to enable Customs and Border Protection officials to collect DNA samples from undocumented immigrants in its custody”.…
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by Suzanne van de Vathorst
In 2018, 6126 cases of physician aid in dying (PAD) (4.4% of all deaths) were reported in the Netherlands.…
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by Keisha Ray, Ph.D.
The story of Flint, Michigan’s water crisis, beginning in 2014 is a story that most people are familiar with.…
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by Craig Klugman, Ph.D.
In the 2019 BBC/HBO fictional near-future mini-series Years and Years, people deemed by a totalitarian U.K.…
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by Keisha Ray, Ph.D.
Last week there were two news stories about three individuals who died because they could not afford health care.…
Full ArticleIn November 2018, journalist Julie Brown of the Miami Herald published an important three-part report called “Perversion of Justice,” describing the case of billionaire Jeffrey Epstein. Brown’s reporting strongly indicates that Epstein’s punishment appeared relatively small when compared to the crimes that were actually committed. The report, in part, led to further examination of the case and a …
Continue reading "Jeffrey Epstein & Transhumanism"
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by Keisha Ray, Ph.D.
In May a twitter user posted a picture depicting the muscular system of a female that included milk ducts.…
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by Craig Klugman, Ph.D.
Wednesday and Thursday nights this week saw a gathering of twenty candidates pursuing the Democratic nomination to run for President of the United States in 2020.…
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by Craig Klugman, Ph.D.
A controversy last week erupted out of freshman New York Congressperson Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Instagram Live appearance and follow-up tweet saying that the facilities where the federal government is keeping detained children are “concentration camps.”
The Border Patrol Chief immediately called Ocasio-Cortez’s use of the term, “offensive”.…
Full ArticleYesterday’s Child: How Gene Editing for Enhancement Will Produce Obsolescence—and Why It Matters
Impartiality and infectious disease: Prioritizing individuals versus the collective in antibiotic prescription
Serious Ethical Violations in Medicine: A Statistical and Ethical Analysis of 280 Cases in the United States From 2008–2016
Serious Ethical Violations by Physicians: What’s the Solution?
Physician Sexual Assault: The Moral Imperative for Gender Equity in Medicine
Abusive Doctors: How the Atlanta Newspaper Exposed a System That Tolerates Sexual Misconduct by Physicians
Shrinking Poor White Life Spans: Class, Race, and Health Justice
Performance-Enhancing Drugs, Sport, and the Ideal of Natural Athletic Performance
Ethical Dilemmas in Protecting Susceptible Subpopulations From Environmental Health Risks: Liberty, Utility, Fairness, and Accountability for Reasonableness
Combatting bias and creating more inclusive AI is unlikely to succeed unless developers include those people who have been historically excluded or ignored.
Full ArticleThe specialty of emergency medicine is firmly grounded in social justice and providing access to expert care to everyone who comes in. That means treating anyone, with any condition, at any time. And yet, embedded into emergency department operations is a system that might be perceived as unjust: the concept of triage.
Full ArticleState officials stripped Stuart Copperman of his medical license almost 20 years ago. Armed with a new law, his former patients hope to file civil lawsuits.
Full ArticleA judge in Australia said a couple had left their baby “severely malnourished” on a strict vegan diet. Yet, experts say that, with proper guidance, children can be on a totally plant based diet.
Full ArticleLawyers for the state of Oklahoma urged a judge Monday to find health-care conglomerate Johnson & Johnson culpable for the consequences of the state’s opioid epidemic and assess the company as much as $17.5 billion to help clean up the damage.
Full ArticleAs their minivan rolled north, they felt their nerves kick in — but they kept on driving.
At the wheel: Lija Greenseid, a rule-abiding Minnesota mom steering her Mazda5 on a cross-border drug run.
Her daughter, who is 13, has Type 1 diabetes and needs insulin. In the United States, it can cost hundreds of dollars per vial. In Canada, you can buy it without a prescription for a tenth of that price.
Full ArticleNormally, parents make decisions about their children’s health care. But when it comes to the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases and cancer, kids should have the right to protect themselves. That is why Senate Bill 3899A, which would allow teenagers, in consultation with their physicians, to receive vaccines against HPV (human papilloma virus), ought to become the law in New York.
Full ArticleBecause of rare illness, Louise Moorhouse is on a special diet of pills or foul-tasting shakes. There’s a drug that would allow her to eat like anyone else – she took it for three years during a clinical trial. But the NHS won’t pay for it, reports the BBC’s Deborah Cohen – and the drug company stopped giving it to her once the trial was over.
Full ArticleA decades-old North Carolina law that banned women from having abortions after their 20th week of pregnancy is unconstitutional, a federal judge ruled on Monday.
The 1973 law made some allowances for medical concerns, but a 2015 amendment that narrowed those exemptions prompted abortion rights groups to file a lawsuit in 2016.
Full ArticleFor more than 30 years in Oregon, cases of tetanus in children were almost mythical — studied in textbooks but never seen in person — thanks to the effectiveness of pediatric vaccination programs.
That streak ended in 2017 when an unvaccinated 6-year-old boy arrived at a hospital in the state, experiencing jaw spasms and struggling to breathe, according to a new case study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The child was playing on a farm when he cut his head on something, the report said. His parents cleaned and stitched the wound at home, but alarming symptoms emerged six days later. The boy’s jaw began clenching, and his neck and back were arched — a trademark indication of tetanus called opisthotonus that is caused by involuntary muscle spasms.
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