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The longstanding ethical framework for protecting human volunteers in medical research needs to be replaced because it is outdated and can impede efforts to improve health care quality, according to a Hastings Center Report special report, Ethical Oversight of Learning Health Care Systems.1
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Balancing the therapeutic needs of very sick patients with the demands of rigorous scientific research is a major ethical challenge in stem cell research, according to Mary Devereaux, PhD, director of the biomedical ethics seminars and assistant director of the Research Ethics Program at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD).
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Ethics consults typically involve intensive care unit patients where issues can be thoroughly examined over a lengthy period of time, but what if a provider has minutes instead of days to make a decision?
