Hot Topics: Clinical Ethics
Check out the recording of American Journal of Bioethics’ latest webinar on the ethical issues surrounding allocating COVID-19 vaccines. Journal editor David Magnus leads panelists Grace Lee, Kathy Kinlaw, Govind Persad, and Monica Peek in an informative and intriguing conversation.…
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by David Oxman, MD, HEC-C
Vaccines for COVID-19 are becoming available, with the first batches of a highly effective vaccine adminstered this past week.…
Full ArticleWritten by Ben Davies and Joshua Parker “COVID-19: Do not resuscitate orders might have been put in place without consent, watchdog says”. This recent headline followed an investigation by the Care Quality Commission into Do Not Attempt Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation (DNACPR) decisions early in the pandemic. In a recent post, Dominic Wilkinson highlights two misconceptions in […]
Full Articleby Prof Dominic Wilkinson @Neonatalethics Last month, in an emergency hearing, the High court in London heard a case that characterises a familiar problem in medical ethics. A 15 year old adolescent (known as ‘X’) with a long-standing medical condition, Sickle Cell disease, had a very low blood count and required an urgent blood transfusion. […]
Full ArticleWritten by Rebecca Brown During the pandemic, many healthcare services have been reduced. One instance of this is the antenatal care of expectant mothers. Ordinarily, partners of pregnant women are permitted to attend appointments. This includes the 12 week scan: typically the first opportunity expectant parents get to see the developing foetus, to discover […]
Full ArticleBy Charles Foster This is a plea for a self-denying ordinance on the part of philosophers. Ignore Covid-19. It was important that you said what you have said about it, but the job is done. There is nothing more to say. And there are great dangers in continuing to comment. It gives the impression that […]
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by Jonathan H. Chen MD, PhD and Abraham Verghese MD, MACP
The post originally appeared as an editorial in the November 2020 issue of the American Journal of Bioethics.…
Full ArticleWritten by: David Albert Jones Anscombe Bioethics Centre Alberto Giubilini Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities University of Oxford For the purpose of this debate (held online on 12 October 2020), Alberto Giubilini and David Albert Jones each adopted a position on conscientious objection (CO) contrary to […]
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by Mack Lipkin MD & Arthur Caplan, Ph.D.
The President’s doctor recently chose to triangulate himself in an ethical/policy crossfire between his patient’s right to privacy, Medicine’s professional standards requiring honesty, and the public’s need to know whether and to what extent the President’s ability to fulfill his essential duties was compromised.…
Full ArticleBy Dominic Wilkinson @Neonatalethics and Michael Dunn @ethical_mikey In a high court case reported last week, a judge strongly criticised a London hospital’s clinical ethics committee (CEC). The case related to disputed treatment for a gravely ill nine-year old child. There had been a breakdown in the relationship between the clinical team and the child’s […]
Full ArticleSelf-Defeating Codes of Medical Ethics and How to Fix Them: Failures in COVID-19 Response and Beyond
Don’t Blame Hippocrates for Low Enrollment in Clinical Trials
The Social Context of Religion in the Jurisdictions of Bioethics
There’s No Harm in Talking: Re-Establishing the Relationship Between Theological and Secular Bioethics
Planning for the Known Unknown: Machine Learning for Human Healthcare Systems
Ethically Allocating COVID-19 Drugs Via Pre-approval Access and Emergency Use Authorization
The Limits of Individualism: Potential Societal Harms from the EAP for Convalescent Plasma
Ethically Allocating COVID-19 Drugs Via Pre-approval Access and Emergency Use Authorization
Artificial Intelligence in Clinical Neuroscience: Methodological and Ethical Challenges
Mass vaccination reveals barriers to vaccine equity that exist in society. “Vaccine navigators have a role in improving vaccine equity: the challenge of responding to underlying inequalities that create barriers to health and health care.”
Full ArticleAutonomy, a bioethics principle. How does autonomy look in the context of genomic data sharing? “A panel of researchers in Africa says that [little data control] can fuel distrust between researchers and participants, and needs to change.”
Full ArticleWhat will be the possibilities once we know the full human genome? “Challenging as it has been to build, a single end-to-end genome offers researchers limited value without other genomes from diverse individuals against which to compare it.”
Full ArticleWhat are some opinions on the ethics of CRISPR? “Doudna herself recognizes that CRISPR carries with it “great risk….but she warned of the unknown consequences of embryo editing, cautioning researchers to wait to use CRISPR for these ends.”
Full ArticleVaccination is hard. “It’s a debate that gets at fundamental questions about individual liberty, bodily autonomy, and communal obligation.” Check out this interview with Keisha Ray, a bioethicist speaking on the obligations for the COVID vaccine.
Full ArticleA vaccine surge is coming, but also poses many questions to solve. How can we ensure doses are going to those in need? With growing doses available, many factors need to be considered.
Full Article“People experiencing homelessness are especially vulnerable to disease and often live in close quarters. Reaching them for COVID-19 vaccination is crucial, public health officials say, yet also presents some unique challenges.”
Full Article“Though many people with disabilities are more vulnerable to COVID-19, in some U.S. states they fear being left behind in a massive effort to get limited vaccines into the arms of those who need them most.”
Full Article“Working with limited supplies and imperfect scheduling systems, many pharmacists are drowning under a flood of inquiries. Wait lists, where they exist, are getting longer. And even creative solutions are succumbing to the cold realities of the day.”
Full ArticleAre brain-like organoids a future in research? “The findings, published in Science on 11 February, could help scientists to understand the genetic pathways that allowed human brains to evolve.”
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