Guest Post: Justin Bernstein Paper: The Case Against Libertarian Arguments for Compulsory Vaccination In a recent political controversy, libertarian Senator Rand Paul articulated his opposition to a policy of compulsory vaccination, stating that he was “all for [vaccines],” but that he was “also for freedom.” U.S. opponents of vaccines often object to compulsory vaccination on […]
Category: Guest Post
Breakthrough Immunotherapies Seem Like a Dream Come True for Children with Leukemia
Guest Post: Nancy Jecker, Aaron Wightman, Abby Rosenberg, Doug Diekema Paper: From protection to entitlement: selecting research subjects for early phase clinical trials involving breakthrough therapies A breakthrough therapy to cure cancer in children suffering from acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is a dream for many families. New immunotherapies appear to make this dream a reality. Such […]
The Moral Bioenhancement of Psychopaths
Guest Post: Elvio Baccarini and Luca Malatesti Paper: The Moral Bioenhancement of Psychopaths We argue that the prescription of mandatory moral bioenhancement (from now on MB) of psychopaths is justified because it satisfies the requirement of public reason as elaborated in political philosophy. This is the requirement that a moral or political prescription should be […]
Individually-Randomized Controlled Trials of Vaccines Against the Next Outbreak
Guest Post: Nir Eyal, Marc Lipsitch Paper: Vaccine testing for emerging infections: the case for individual randomisation The humbling experience of international response to Ebola taught the world a thing or two on preparing for Zika and for other emerging infections. Some of those lessons pertain to vaccine development against emerging infections. One lesson was […]
The Deadly Business of an Unregulated Global Stem Cell Market
Guest Post: The deadly business of an unregulated global stem cell industry Tereza Hendl and Tamra Lysaght In our paper, we report on the case of a 75-year old Australian woman who died in December 2013 from complications of an autologous stem cell procedure. This case was tragic and worth reporting to the medical ethics community […]
Family Presence During Resuscitation: Extending Ethical Norms from Pediatrics to Adults
Guest Post: Christine Vincent and Zohar Lederman Paper: Family presence during resuscitation: extending ethical norms from paediatrics to adults Family Presence During Resuscitation is an important ethical issue for discussion within the medical community. Currently, family presence is more commonly accepted in paediatric cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) than adult CPR. However, we argue that this fact is not morally […]
Aid-in-Dying Laws and the Physician’s Duty to Inform
Guest Post: Mara Buchbinder Paper: Aid-in-dying laws and the physician’s duty to inform Why do so many people assume that any clinical communication about aid-in-dying (AID, also known as assisted suicide), where it is legal, ought to be patient-initiated? Physician participants in my ongoing study tend to assume that physicians should wait for patients to initiate […]
So, What is Not to Like about 3D Bioprinting?
Guest Post: Gill Haddow & Niki Vermeulen Paper: 3D bioprint me: a socioethical view of bioprinting human organs and tissues Picture this: It is twenty years’ from now and , one of your organs has stopped functioning properly or even at all. You will not need to wait in the long line of the human […]
Rationing of Antibiotics in the Critically Ill: Not if, but How?
Guest Post: Simon Oczkowski Paper: Antimicrobial stewardship programmes: bedside rationing by another name? The threat posed by antimicrobial resistant organisms (AROs) has long been recognized by the medical community as an emerging problem in public health. Though slow and insidious changes in the ability of bacteria, fungi, parasites, and viruses have real and profound effects on patients around […]
Response to ‘A Matter of Life and Death: Controversy at the Interface Between Clinical and Legal Decision-Making in Prolonged Disorders of Consciousness’
Guest Post: Julian Sheather, British Medical Association Response to: A matter of life and death: controversy at the interface between clinical and legal decision-making in prolonged disorders of consciousness (also available as a blog summary) The law has to work in generalities. The prohibitions it imposes and the liberties it describes are set for all of […]