Practical medical ethics: Rationing responsibly in an age of austerity Date: June 20th 2018, 2-5pm, includes refreshments Location: Ship Street Centre, Jesus College, Oxford Health professionals face ever expanding possibilities for medical treatment, increasing patient expectations and at the same time intense pressures to reduce healthcare costs. This leads frequently to conflicts between obligations to current patients, and others who might […]
Latest articles
Moving towards a new ethical governance framework for research-clinical hybrid genomic medicine
Authors: Gabrielle Samuel, Sandi Dheensa, Anneke Lucassen, Bobbie Farsides Paper: Towards a national genomics medicine service: the challenges facing clinical-research hybrid practices and the case of the 100 000 genomes project [OPEN ACCESS] The Chief Medical Officers’ 2017 report Generation Genome calls for a move towards integrated research and clinical practice in genomic medicine (i.e., research-clinical […]
Guest Post: Sentient Brains in a Dish? Potential Glimpses of Sentience Will Be Detectable in Future Cerebral Organoids
Authors, Andrea Lavazza *, Marcello Massimini ** (*Centro Universitario Internazionale, Arezzo, Italy; **Department of Biomedical and Clinical Sciences “Luigi Sacco”, University of Milan, Italy; Fondazione Don Carlo Gnocchi, Milan, Italy). Paper: Cerebral organoids: ethical issues and consciousness assessment (http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/medethics-2017-104555) Can we grow a sentient human organism in a dish? The answer may depend on how we evaluate […]
Advance Euthanasia Directives in the Spotlight
Guest Post: David Gibbes Miller, Rebecca Dresser, Scott Y H Kim Paper: Advance euthanasia directives: a controversial case and its ethical implications Dutch law allows advance directives to authorize euthanasia for people who can no longer make a voluntary and well-considered choice to end their lives. People make advance euthanasia directives (AEDs) with the goal of protecting themselves from […]
Harmless Kidney Markets
Guest Post by Adam Shriver Note: this post was originally published at the Practical Ethics Blog Kidney transplants result in improved quality of life and increased longevity compared to dialysis for patients with end-stage renal disease (Evans et al. 1985, Schnuelle et al. 1998, Wolfe et al 1999). In 2014, the national transplant list in […]
Guest Post: Lesbian Motherhood and Mitochondrial Replacement Techniques: Reproductive Freedom and Genetic Kinship
Authors Giulia Cavaliere, Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, King’s College London César Palacios-González, Centre of Medical Law and Ethics, Dickson Poon School od Law, King’s College London Full Paper: Lesbian Motherhood and Mitochondrial Replacement Techniques: Reproductive Freedom and Genetic Kinship [open access] Since the UK parliamentary vote that led to their approval in February […]
CfP: IAB World Congress of Bioethics 2018
The call for papers for this year’s IAB conference is now available here: it’s worth noting that there’s a change of venue, and it’ll now be held in Bengaluru (Bangalore), not Delhi. (The notification of the change of venue is here. Given what’s been on the news recently about pollution levels in Delhi, the alteration […]
Unethical World Medical Association Standards for Placebo Trials?
Guest post by Jeremy Howick Trials show that drugs called ‘interferon alpha’ extend life in people with advanced skin cancer (by a bit). If we invented a new drug to treat advanced skin cancer, most patients would want to know whether the new drug was better than interferon alpha. It would be less useful […]
Surrogacy, Obstetric Risk and the Kardashian Wests
Guest post by Nathan Hodson Kim Kardashian West and her husband Kanye West announced the birth of their third child, named Chicago, last month. Chicago West was born via surrogate. All the significant events of Kardashian West’s life have been documented season by season on Keeping Up With The Kardashians and naturally her surrogacy […]
Organ Donation in Wales: An Early Assessment of Deemed Consent
Andreas Albertsen Department of Political Science, Aarhus University Paper: Deemed Consent: assessing the new opt-out approach to organ procurement in Wales The shortage of organs for transplant continuous to be a sad fact across the globe. People die and suffer, while waiting for organs to become available. This sad state of affairs have sparked a number […]