Guest post by Alka Chandna How many animals are experimented on in laboratories? It’s a simple question, the answer to which provides a basic parameter to help us wrap our heads around the increasingly controversial and ethically harrowing practice of locking animals in cages and conducting harmful procedures on them that are often scary, painful, and […]
Category: Guest Post
The Death of Sidaway: Values, Judgments and Informed Consent
Guest post by Kirsty Keywood (University of Manchester) On 11th March Nadine Montgomery won her case before the UK Supreme Court to gain compensation for the failure of her obstetrician to warn her of risks associated with the vaginal delivery of a large infant – a risk which she would have averted by requesting a […]
Autonomy and the Circumcision Wars
Guest Post by Akim McMath In December of last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released its proposed new recommendations on male circumcision. The verdict? Circumcision provides major benefits with minimal risks. These benefits accrue whether circumcision is performed in infancy or later on in life. Circumcision may even help to stem the […]
Physicians and Euthanasia: What about Psychiatric Illness, Dementia and Weltschmerz?
Guest Post by Eva Bolt In the Netherlands, requests for euthanasia are not uncommon. A physician who grants a request for euthanasia in the Netherlands is not prosecuted if the criteria for due care (described in the Euthanasia Act) are met. An example of one of these criteria is the presence of unbearable suffering without […]
In the Journal: The Ethics of Molecular Memory Modification
Guest post by Katrina Hui What if memories could be enhanced or erased, not through traditional pharmaceuticals, but directly, through manipulation of the molecular processes that govern memory? Several years ago, scientists thought they had found a single molecule believed to be the key to memory editing. This molecule, called protein kinase Mζ (PKMζ), appeared to […]
Growing a Kidney Inside a Pig Using your own DNA: The Ethics of ‘Chimera Organs’
Guest post by David Shaw Imagine that you’re in dire need of a new kidney. You’re near the top of the waiting list, but time is running out and you might not be lucky enough to receive a new organ from a deceased or living donor. But another option is now available: scientists could take […]
Paper Preview: Implementation of a Consent for Chart Review and Contact
Guest post by Irena Druce Our article “Implementation of a Consent for Chart Review and Contact and its Impact in one Clinical Centre” focuses on issues regarding patient health information privacy and recruitment for medical research studies. Research studies are an integral part of the advancement of medical therapies; however, recruitment into research studies can […]
The Ebola Outbreak in Western Africa: Ethical Obligations for Care
Guest post by Aminu Yakubu, Morenike Oluwatoyin Folayan, Nasir Sani-Gwarzo, Patrick Nguku, Kristin Peterson, and Brandon Brown In our article “The Ebola Outbreak in Western Africa: Ethical Obligations for Care” we focus on the health care system’s ability to combat the recent epidemic of Ebola in Western Africa. This is a timely and urgent issue. Many medical ethicists […]
Adrenaline, Information Provision and the Benefits of a Non-Randomised Methodology
Guest Post by Ruth Stirton and Lindsay Stirton, University of Sheffield One of us – Ruth – was on Newsnight on Wednesday the 13th August talking about the PARAMEDIC2 trial. The trial is a double blind, individually randomised, placebo controlled trial of adrenaline v. normal saline injections in cardiac arrest patients treated outside hospital. In simpler terms, if […]
Advance Directives, Critical Interests, and Dementia Research
Guest post by Tom Buller, Illinois State University In my paper, “Advance Directives, Critical Interests, and Dementia Research”, I investigate whether advance directives can be applied in the context of dementia research. Consider, for the sake of argument, the following fictional case. William, a 77-year-old man who has moderate to severe dementia. When he was first […]