So…it’s a bit late today, but each Friday we’ll be posting some highlights from the Yale Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics newsletter (AKA “Frimail”), a really fantastic resource for those of us interested in what’s been going on in the bioethics world each week (both in the popular media and in the journals). They also have job and conference announcements, etc. Enjoy!
Calls for Papers & Nominations
Miscellaneous
- Check out SuchThatCast, a philosopher’s podcast run by Professor Johnny Hartz Søraker of the University of Twente, Netherlands, featuring interviews with philosophers who focus on issues in technology.
- Over at the Hastings Center’s Bioethics Forum, Dena Davis has a post on banning ritual circumcision, Elizabeth Reis on the “flip-flop over foreskin,” and Blair and Alfred Sadler, Jr., on social media and organ donation.
In the News
Korn, Melissa. Managing Mental Health at Work. Wall Street Journal. 28 August 2012.
John Binns, a partner in the consulting practice at U.K.-based Deloitte LLP, assumed his career “would be finished” after he took a two-month leave in 2007 to treat a severe bout of depression. Continue reading…
Lyall, Sarah. At Paralympics, First Thing Judged is Disability. New York Times. 31 August 2012.
LONDON — Anthony Dawson, who has cerebral palsy and little muscle function on his right side, rode for South Africa in the first round of the equestrian dressage competition at the Paralympics on Thursday, guiding his horse through an intricately choreographed series of movements. Continue reading…
Miller, Christian and Zwerdling, Daniel. Purple Hearts Elusive For Traumatic Brain Injuries. NPR. 2 September 2012.
The U.S. Army honors soldiers wounded or killed in combat with the Purple Heart, a powerful symbol designed to recognize their sacrifice and service. Yet Army commanders have routinely denied Purple Hearts to soldiers who have sustained concussions in Iraq, despite regulations that make such wounds eligible for the medal, an investigation by NPR and ProPublica has found. Continue reading…
Chang, Kenneth. Stanford Scientists Cast Doubt on Advantages of Organic Meat and Produce. New York Times. 3 September 2012.
Does an organic strawberry contain more vitamin C than a conventional one? Maybe – or maybe not. Stanford University scientists have weighed in on the “maybe not” side of the debate after an extensive examination of four decades of research comparing organic and conventional foods. Continue reading…
Baker, Al. Lunch Trays Got Too Lean in City’s Fight Against Fat. New York Times. 4 September 2012.
Worried that children were losing the war on obesity, New York City began to slim down its school lunch offerings several years ago, replacing fries with baked potato strips and introducing nonfat chocolate milk, whole grain pasta and salad bars, among other tweaks. In the process, the city also cut calories. So much so, city officials now acknowledge, that it often served children fewer calories than required by the federal government. Continue reading…
Parker-Hope, Tara. Overtreatment is Taking a Harmful Toll. New York Times. 27 August 2012.
When it comes to medical care, many patients and doctors believe more is better. But an epidemic of overtreatment — too many scans, too many blood tests, too many procedures — is costing the nation’s health care system at least $210 billion a year, according to the Institute of Medicine, and taking a human toll in pain, emotional suffering, severe complications and even death. Continue reading…
Rochman, Bonnie. Circumcision: Pediatricians Say Benefits Trump Risks. Time Magazine. 27 August 2012.
The newborn penis has been the subject of more than a little ink lately. San Francisco tried in vain to curtail circumcision. Germany recently ruled that the procedure constitutes “bodily harm.” “Intactivists” rail against circumcision even as most baby boys born in the U.S still get circumcised. Continue reading…
Willett, Megan. Doctor Refuses to Treat 200-Pound Woman Because of Her Weight. Business Insider. 28 August 2012.
Shrewsbury, MA resident Ida Davidson says she was turned away from a new primary care physician. Continue reading…
Knox, Richard. Tax Breaks for Organ Donors Aren’t Boosting Transplant Supplies. NPR. 31 August 2012.
Seventeen states offer tax incentives to people who donate a kidney, a portion of their liver or bone marrow for transplantation. But a study finds these sweeteners aren’t working. Continue reading…
Spiegel, Alix. Can We Learn to Forget Our Memories? NPR. 2 September 2012.
Around 10 years ago, Malcolm MacLeod got interested in forgetting. For most people, the tendency to forget is something we spend our time cursing. Where are my keys? What am I looking for in the refrigerator again? What is that woman’s name? But MacLeod, who works as a memory researcher at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, took a radically different view of forgetting. He wanted to know if it might be possible for people to do it better, to improve their ability to forget, specifically, their ability to intentionally forget their own personal memories. Continue reading…
In the Journals
Haber, Matthew and Bryan Benham. Reframing the Ethical Issues in Part-Human Animal Research: The Unbearable Ontology of Inexorable Moral Confusion. American Journal of Bioethics. August 2012.
Research that involves the creation of animals with human-derived parts opens the door to potentially valuable scientific and therapeutic advances, yet invokes unsettling moral questions. Critics and champions alike stand to gain from clear identification and careful consideration of the strongest ethical objections to this research. A prevailing objection argues that crossing the human/nonhuman species boundary introduces inexorable moral confusion (IMC) that warrants a restriction to this research on precautionary grounds. Though this objection may capture the intuitions of many who find this research unsettling, it relies on mistaken views of both biology and moral standing, ultimately distorting the morally relevant facts. We critically examine IMC, identify mistaken essentialist assumptions, and reframe ethical concerns. The upshot is a stronger line of objection that encourages a more inclusive and productive ethical discourse. Continue reading…
Sofaer, Neema and Daniel Strech. The Need for Systematic Reviews of Reasons. Bioethics. July 2012.
There are many ethical decisions in the practice of health research and care, and in the creation of policy and guidelines. We argue that those charged with making such decisions need a new genre of review. The new genre is an application of the systematic review, which was developed over decades to inform medical decision-makers about what the totality of studies that investigate links between smoking and cancer, for example, implies about whether smoking causes cancer. We argue that there is a need for similarly inclusive and rigorous reviews of reason-based bioethics, which uses reasoning to address ethical questions. After presenting a brief history of the systematic review, we reject the only existing model for writing a systematic review of reason-based bioethics, which holds that such a review should address an ethical question. We argue that such a systematic review may mislead decision-makers when a literature is incomplete, or when there are mutually incompatible but individually reasonable answers to the ethical question. Furthermore, such a review can be written without identifying all the reasons given when the ethical questions are discussed, their alleged implications for the ethical question, and the attitudes taken to the reasons. The reviews we propose address instead the empirical question of which reasons have been given when addressing a specified ethical question, and present such detailed information on the reasons. We argue that this information is likely to improve decision-making, both directly and indirectly, and also the academic literature. We explain the limitations of our alternative model for systematic reviews. Continue reading…
Klitzman, Robert. US IRBs Confronting Research In The Developing World. Developing World Bioethics. August 2012.
US IRBs face ethical and logistical challenges in interpreting and applying principles and regulations in developing countries, given economic and health disparities, and limited contextual knowledge. These IRBs perceive wide variations in developing world IRBs/RECs’ quality, resources and training; and health systems in some countries may have long-standing practices of corruption. These US IRBs often know little of local contexts, regulations and standards of care, and struggle with understandings of other cultures’ differing views of autonomy, and risks and benefits of daily life. US IRBs thus face difficult decisions, including how to interpret principles, how much to pay subjects and how much sustainability to require from researchers. IRB responses and solutions include trying to maintain higher standards for developing world research, obtain cultural expertise, build IRB infrastructure abroad, communicate with foreign IRBs, and ‘negotiate’ for maximum benefits for participants and fearing ‘worst-case scenarios’. Continue reading…
Lo, Bernard. Euthanasia in the Netherlands: what lessons for elsewhere? The Lancet. September 2012.
The Netherlands is one of the few places in the world where euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide are legal under specific circumstances. In The Lancet, Bregje Onwuteaka-Philipsen and colleagues present the findings from their analysis of trends in euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide before and after the 2002 enactment of the euthanasia law in the Netherlands—the most recent rigorously designed, empirical study done in the country to date. By sampling all deaths in the Netherlands, the investigators were able to analyse trends and report some reassuring findings, but they also identified cases that raise ethical concerns. Continue reading…
Opinion
Ars Technica: Shaw, Kate. Federal report condemns animal cognition researcher for misconduct. September 6, 2012.
On Wednesday, the US Office of Research Integrity released a report finding ex-Harvard professor Marc Hauser guilty of research misconduct. A scandal broke last year when Hauser, a major figure in the field of animal cognition research, was accused of questionable research practices and reprimanded by Harvard. The new report investigates several of Hauser’s studies on primate cognition that were funded by the National Institutes of Health over the last several years Continue reading…
Houston Chronicle: Letter to the editor. Health care: no place for politics. September 3, 2012.
Last month, a federal appeals court removed a temporary injunction and ruled that the state of Texas can go forward with removing Planned Parenthood from the Women’s Health Program. This has created confusion for the more than 130,000 Texas women who rely on the program for their basic health care needs. Continue reading…
Los Angeles Times: Editorial. The virtue of vaccines. August 28, 2012.
California is among the 18 states that make it easy for parents to refuse to vaccinate their children who attend public schools. All they have to do is sign a form saying that inoculations run counter to their personal beliefs. Most states require a religious-belief exemption, which results in dramatically higher vaccination rates. Continue reading…
Editorial. The case for organic food. September 5, 2012.
So a new study from Stanford University shows that organic produce probably isn’t any more nutritious than the conventional variety. We doubt the folks at Whole Foods are trembling in their Birkenstocks. We’re not aware of too many people who thought otherwise — it doesn’t make a lot of sense to assume the application of pesticides would have much impact on a fruit’s vitamin content. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t safer to eat. Continue reading…
New York Times: Editorial. Health care where you work. September 2, 2012.
In the scramble to find ways to slow rising health care costs, experts are finding good ideas from organizations that are virtually unknown beyond their hometowns. Continue reading…
Washington Post: Editorial. How is denying health services to the poor a win for women? August 24, 2012.
On Tuesday, a federal appeals court lifted a preliminary injunction against a measure that excludes Planned Parenthood clinics in Texas from receiving state funds. In March, Gov. Rick Perry (R) announced that his state would rather forfeit $35 million in annual federal funding for the Women’s Health Program — a Medicaid waiver program that provides low-income women with contraceptives and cancer screenings — than see any more state tax dollars go to a supposedly pro-abortion organization. Planned Parenthood appealed, but Texas now has the authority to defund the organization. Bottom line: Hundreds of thousands of poor Texas women are likely to be denied a health-care provider because of their state’s ideological zeal. Continue reading…
Events of Interest
- The Right to Be Fat
Tuesday, September 11; 12:30PM
Rudd Center Seminar @ Yale
Time: 12:30 PM
Location: 309 Edwards St, conf room
Speaker: Yofi Tirosh, SJD, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, Tel Aviv University
- Freedom of Choice at the End of Life: Protecting the Patient’s Rights Over Government, Health Care Providers, and Pressure Group Resistance
November 16
New York Law School Events Center
The Diane Abbey Law Center for Children and Families, Justice Action Center, and the New York Law School Law Review present this end of life issues symposium. Currently, over 13 percent of all Americans are over 65 years of age and 2 percent are 85 or over. By 2050, 20 percent of the population will be over 65 and 5 percent will be over 85. 50 percent of the over-85 cohort are unable to perform activities of daily living. Of total Medicare expenditures, 25 percent are for costs in the last 6 months of life. The concept that individuals have the right to choose the manner and time of their death and the right to decline unwanted treatment has been a relatively recent development, as is the law that a person does not lose these rights upon incapacity. However, individual rights are not uniformly recognized in practice and there are many limits on when and how they can be enforced. This conference will address a broad range of issues including impediments to honoring those rights, advance planning tools for person to ensure compliance with their choices and how to enforce them, legislative and decisional developments, surrogate decision making for patients whose wishes are not known, pain management and palliative care, hospice, aid in dying, ethical dilemmas in decision making, medical ineffectiveness of treatment (“futility”), concerns of persons with disabilities, the effect of religion on law and policy, and how the media treats and influences these issues. Contact jac@nyls.edu.
