Medical Ethics Advisor – October 1, 2013
October 1, 2013
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"Neurohype" is one ethical concern with BRAIN initiative
Many ethical considerations will be examined with The Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies initiative, including privacy, moral responsibility for one's actions, stigmatization and discrimination, and ensuring protection of vulnerable populations. -
Give clinicians good reasons to call for ethics consults
Clinicians often under-utilize clinical ethics consults because they believe these to be unhelpful and time-consuming, but bioethicists can counter these misperceptions with education and by building relationships in clinical areas. -
Ethics of judicial intervention in transplant decisions
A court recently ordered that two pediatric patients with cystic fibrosis be allowed to compete on an equal basis with adults for lungs from adult donors, but transplant experts say judicial intervention risks disrupting a system based on public trust. -
Ethical arguments strong for mandatory vaccination
Mandatory influenza vaccinations for health care workers can be ethically justified because the vaccine is reasonablysafe andeffective, voluntary participation has failed, and many people will be harmed if it does not occur, according to bioethicists. -
Bioethicists obliged to help impaired clinicians
Bioethicists can help clinicians who suspect a colleague may be impaired by giving advice on how to proceed and assisting in creating a confidential process. -
Controversy stimulates informed consent debate
Bioethicists disagreed with the U.S. Office for Human Research Protections' position that a large multisite clinical trial failed to obtain proper consent from the parents of enrolled infants. -
Ethics in forefront of move to control medical costs
The need to reduce, avoid, or not to adopt costly treatments which provide very small benefits, and the need to provide everyone with treatments that are very effective and reasonably priced, present ethical challenges.