Hot Topics: Politics
Blog Posts (23)
June 6, 2013
Lung Transplants and the Bandwagon Bioethics
by Craig Klugman, Ph.D.
In case you have not heard, the big bioethics story this week comes out of Philadelphia where a 10-year-old girl with cystic fibrosis is in need of a lung transplant to survive.…
June 4, 2013
Data Aggregation and the Medical Marketplace
Craig Klugman, Ph.D.
Big brother is watching you. And calling you. And selling your medical information to a pharmaceutical corporation.
In the modern age of information as commodity, drugmakers buy database that tell them how much of what drug each doctor prescribes, which patients fill those prescriptions, and whether renewals are filled.…
May 16, 2013
Vermont Passes Physician-Assisted-Suicide
Craig Klugman, Ph.D.
Awaiting the governor’s signature, Vermont is poised to become the fourth state to legalize physician-assisted suicide. While Oregon and Washington legalized physician-aid-in-dying through public referendum and Montana through a court decision, Vermont’s is occurring through the legislative process.…
May 14, 2013
Carbon, Bioethics and Planetary Health
Craig Klugman, Ph.D.
On May 9, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography independently reported measurements of mean concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide levels of nearly 400 parts per million (it was actually 399.89 ppm). For the last 800,000 years, the Earth has not broken 300ppm.…
May 9, 2013
Magical NC Bill Builds Obstacles to Teen Health
Craig Klugman, Ph.D.
If you’re a teen in North Carolina, a new bill before the legislature may make it more difficult for you to get sexually transmitted disease testing and treatment, mental health counseling, pregnancy care or even substance abuse treatment.…
April 16, 2013
Cass Sunstein Takes on the Death Panel Myth
I wrote a while back about some research I conducted with Jason Reifler and Brendan Nyhan on how fact checking influences people’s belief in whether Obamacare created death panels, to decide which old or disabled peoples to kill. Yesterday, Cas...March 27, 2013
Abraham Lincoln on Perspective Taking
I write frequently about the importance of perspective taking in clinician/patient interaction. Seeing the world through other people’s eyes is also a crucial moral and political skill. No surprise then that Abe Lincoln showed great perspective takin...January 22, 2013
Partisan Drift Over the Environment: Are Republicans Wandering Away from their Voters?
There’s a fascinating new analysis available, looking at parallels between the politics of health care and the environment. It is led by Theda Skocpol, a social scientist at Harvard (whose writing about health policy and the Tea Party are wonderful)...December 10, 2012
Political opinions: fast herd or slow ideology?
Sometimes politicians make claims that may seem at odds with the ideological background they represent. Would you agree with your party if they presented a statement that went against their ideological foundation? Put this way, you would probably not, ...October 20, 2011
Food Fight: Industry versus the IOM
If we are what we eat, shouldn’t we know what we are, in fact, eating? This simple idea may be much harder to support than one would guess thanks to lobbying on the part of the food industry, says Arthur Caplan in his MSNBC column today.…
Published Articles (17)
American Journal of Bioethics: Volume 11 Issue 12 - Dec 2011
Personalities, Politics, and Bioethics Summer McGee
American Journal of Bioethics: Volume 11 Issue 12 - Dec 2011
Dead Man Walking?Politics, Sr. Helen Prejean, and the Vocation of the Bioethicist Mark G. Kuczewski
American Journal of Bioethics: Volume 11 Issue 12 - Dec 2011
The Political Satirist as Public Intellectual: The Case of Jon Stewart Kayhan P. Parsi
American Journal of Bioethics: Volume 11 Issue 12 - Dec 2011
William B. Hurlbut: Building a Bridge Over Troubled Stem Cell Waters Wesley J. Smith
American Journal of Bioethics: Volume 11 Issue 12 - Dec 2011
Toward a ?Magenta? Public Bioethics Discourse?Bart Stupak and Health Care Reform Charles Camosy
American Journal of Bioethics: Volume 11 Issue 12 - Dec 2011
Reason Giving: When Public Leaders Ignore Evidence Jennifer Walter
American Journal of Bioethics: Volume 11 Issue 12 - Dec 2011
Sense and Nonsense in the Conservative Critique of Obamacare Stephen Wear
American Journal of Bioethics: Volume 8 Issue 12 - Dec 2008
Review of Ezekiel J. Emanuel. Healthcare Guaranteed: a Simple, Secure Solution for America. Joseph White
American Journal of Bioethics: Volume 8 Issue 10 - Oct 2008
And Health for All? Soren Holm
American Journal of Bioethics: Volume 8 Issue 6 - Jun 2008
Review of K. R. Monroe, R. B. Miller, and J. Tobis. Fundamentals of the Stem Cell Debate: The Scientific, Religious, Ethical and Political Issues. * Review of C. B. Cohen. Renewing the Stuff of Life: Stem Cells, Ethics, and Public Policy. * Review of R. K Insoo Hyun
News (391)
February 7, 2013 1:21 pm
White House defends drone-war killing of Americans (Yahoo)
The White House on Tuesday defended targeted assassinations of Americans thought to consort overseas with terrorists as “necessary,” “ethical” and “wise,” as the Obama administration faced fresh questions about its sharply expanded drone war.
January 18, 2013 11:52 am
White House answers Death Star petition: No (Yahoo News)
Build this Death Star, we will not. That’s the message from the White House in an official response to a petition urging President Barack Obama to build the moon-sized planet-killing space station from Star Wars.
December 14, 2012 6:09 pm
Freedom from Earsplitting Ads: The CALM Act Goes Into Effect (Daily Finance)
After 12 months of waiting for the rules to go into effect, Americans will finally begin to enjoy the benefits of the CALM Act, which takes effect today. Congress passed the law — which requires the FCC to prevent ads from being louder than the programs they accompany.
December 7, 2012 4:25 pm
States Spend Anti-Smoking $$ on Other Things (MedPage Today)
Only 1.8% of the $25.7 billion states will collect from both taxes on cigarettes and the 1998 tobacco settlement — about $460 million — will go to tobacco prevention and treatment programs in 2013.
November 9, 2012 3:36 pm
Ethics in Play, Voters Oust Incumbents Under Scrutiny (New York Times)
In races around the country, an unusually large number of lawmakers facing charges of wrongdoing were unceremoniously ousted from their jobs on Tuesday — which is quite rare, because more than 90 percent of the incumbents seeking re-election to Congress typically return for another term.
July 17, 2012 9:40 am
Synthetic Biology Scorecard Finds Federal Agencies Responding to Presidential Bioethics Commission Report (Market Watch: The Wall Street Journal)
Federal agencies have started taking steps to address the recommendations in a 2010 report from the presidential bioethics commission to improve the governance of synthetic biology research and development, though the government has not fully addressed any of the report recommendations, according to a scorecard tracking the efforts.
April 18, 2012 5:58 pm
The U.S.'s Tragic Role in Guatemala and a Chance to Make Amends (Huffington Post)
In a February 14, 2012 letter to President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton, scores of individuals and organizations (such as the AFL-CIO, Center for Constitutional Rights, CWA, Guatemalan Human Rights Commission, the National Lawyers Guild, the SEIU and the Washington Office on Latin America) implored the U.S. government to withdraw its motion to dismiss the Garcia v. Sebilius case, and to “seek a fair and amicable settement” with the victims of these grisly experiments. Bioethicists also agree that individual victims deserve a remedy for the harm they individually suffered.
April 18, 2012 3:48 pm
Unusual Alliances Form In Nebraska's Prenatal Care Debate (NPR)
In Republican-dominated Nebraska, government leaders often line up together, but lately a political tornado has ripped through this orderly scene. A political showdown over taxpayer funding of prenatal care for illegal immigrants has produced some unusual political splits and alliances in the statehouse of the Cornhusker State.
April 16, 2012 3:39 pm
Stay Awake, Comrades (Science Progress)
Are you losing sleep over America’s competition with China for global dominance? Not to worry. The People’s Liberation Army, or PLA, has a pill that will keep you feeling well, alert and comfortable for 72 hours. So at least while you’re not sleeping you can be productive.
April 12, 2012 11:29 pm
Panel Proposes A New Tax To Pay For Public Health (Capsules: Kaiser Health News Blog)
It may sound counterintuitive, but a panel of experts from the Institute of Medicine has concluded that the best way to slow the nation’s breakneck spending on medical care is to impose a tax on every health care transaction.
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