Hot Topics: Technology
by Adam Omelianchuk, PhD
Consider what the future holds for mental health treatment options. One could authorize an “Internet of Things” to detect mood-changes from an app that monitors one’s social media posts; stress levels from a smartwatch; anxiety symptoms from tapping and scrolling patterns on a touchscreen; signs of cognitive impairment from a speech pattern analysis through anything with a microphone; the benefits of an A.I.…
Full ArticleCOVID The Ethics Of Who Gets The COVID-19 Vaccine And When “We are devoting this entire hour to questions we’re getting about the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccines, including the big question of how different groups of Americans are being prioritized. Now we want to get some perspective on the kind of thinking that goes […]
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by Justin C. Smith
Molldrem and Smith’s thoughtful article “Reassessing the Ethics of Molecular HIV Surveillance in the Era of Cluster Detection and Response: Toward HIV Data Justice,” calls attention to vitally important considerations in the implementation of molecular HIV surveillance (MHS) in HIV cluster detection response (CDR) efforts.…
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by Edwin J. Bernard, Alexander McClelland, Barb Cardell, Cecilia Chung Marco Castro-Bojorquez, Martin French, Devin Hursey, Naina Khanna, Mx Brian Minalga, Andrew Spieldenner, and Sean Strub
As advocates and scholars, including people living with HIV, we have been engaged in a critical debate over molecular HIV surveillance (MHS), as well as its antecedent and future practices.…
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by Arnold R. Eiser, MD MACP
Our healthcare system is failing our most senior citizens by assuming they want and need to receive maximal technological intervention despite modest or minimal benefit to them and the increasing of substantial discomfort to them.…
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by Joyeeta G Dastidar, MD
In New York City, the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic in the country with a quarter of the nation’s cases, hospitals prepared for ventilator shortages.
by Alex Dubov, Ph.D. and Steven Shoptaw, Ph.D.
Introduction
As the world grapples with COVID-19, experts are calling for better identification and isolation of new cases.…
This essay received an honourable mention in the undergraduate category. Written by University of Oxford student, Angelo Ryu. Introduction The scope of modern administration is vast. We expect the state to perform an ever-increasing number of tasks, including the provision of services and the regulation of economic activity. This requires the state to make […]
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by Craig Klugman, Ph.D.
One of the most powerful tools that epidemiologists have for containing an outbreak is contact tracing—finding out all of the people with whom an infected person has had contact during the period when they were potentially shedding the virus.…
Full ArticleThis essay was the winning entry in the undergraduate category of the 6th Annual Oxford Uehiro Prize in Practical Ethics. Written by University of Oxford student, Eric Sheng. In the computer game Red Dead Redemption 2 (henceforward, RDR2), players control a character in a virtual world. Among the characters represented by computer graphics but not […]
Full ArticleHuman Brain Surrogates Research: The Onrushing Ethical Dilemma
Identifying Ethical Considerations for Machine Learning Healthcare Applications
Planning for the Known Unknown: Machine Learning for Human Healthcare Systems
Revising, Correcting, and Transferring Genes
Ethically Problematic Medical Device Representation
Upstream Ethical Mapping of Germline Genome Editing
Artificial Intelligence in Service of Human Needs: Pragmatic First Steps Toward an Ethics for Semi-Autonomous Agents
Superethics Instead of Superintelligence: Know Thyself, and Apply Science Accordingly
Sorry I Didn’t Hear You.” The Ethics of Voice Computing and AI in High Risk Mental Health Populations
Deep Fakes and Memory Malleability: False Memories in the Service of Fake News
Is mRNA a potential future in biotechnology? We have seen mRNA technology used in groundbreaking COVID-19 vaccines distributed all over. Now that we have used this technology in vaccines, what are the possibilities or challenges of future use?
Full Article“The goal is to gain important insights into early human development….. But the research, which was published in two separate papers Wednesday in the journal Nature Portfolio, raises sensitive moral and ethical concerns.”
Full Article“The end of the self-imposed limit could unleash impressive but ethically charged new experiments on extending human development outside the womb.” What are the ethical challenges that would arise from this end to the limit?
Full ArticleMass 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 ArticleHow can bioethics help software in medicine? “Bioethicists can help strengthen ethical, legal, and social analyses that identify the questions to create a good mix of both precautionary and permissive regulation.”
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 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.”
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