NPR; Philosophy Professor Helps To Solve Ethical Problems During Lockdown
"David Chan, a philosophy professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, puzzles over the moral quandaries listeners face during the coronavirus outbreak."
Showing posts with label ethical problems. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ethical problems. Show all posts
Friday, April 24, 2020
Monday, April 8, 2019
Circumcision, patient trackers and torture: my job in medical ethics; The Guardian, April 8, 2019
Julian Sheather, The Guardian; Circumcision, patient trackers and torture: my job in medical ethics
"Monday
Modern healthcare is full of ethical problems. Some are intensely practical, such as whether we can withdraw a feeding tube from a patient in a vegetative state who could go on living for many years, or whether a GP should give a police officer access to patient records following a local rape.
Others are more speculative and future-oriented: will robots become carers, and would that be a bad thing? And then there are the political questions, like whether the Home Office should have access to patient records. My job is to advise the British Medical Association on how we navigate these issues and make sure the theory works in practice for patients and healthcare professionals."
"Monday
Modern healthcare is full of ethical problems. Some are intensely practical, such as whether we can withdraw a feeding tube from a patient in a vegetative state who could go on living for many years, or whether a GP should give a police officer access to patient records following a local rape.
Others are more speculative and future-oriented: will robots become carers, and would that be a bad thing? And then there are the political questions, like whether the Home Office should have access to patient records. My job is to advise the British Medical Association on how we navigate these issues and make sure the theory works in practice for patients and healthcare professionals."
Wednesday, November 28, 2018
'Of course it's not ethical': shock at gene-edited baby claims; The Guardian, November 27, 2018
Suzanne Sataline, The Guardian; 'Of course it's not ethical': shock at gene-edited baby claims
"Scientists have expressed anger and doubt over a Chinese geneticist’s claim to have edited the genes of twin girls before birth, as government agencies ordered investigations into the experiment.
A global outcry started after the genetic scientist He Jiankui claimed in a video posted on YouTube on Monday that he had used the gene-editing tool Crispr-Cas9 to modify a particular gene in two embryos before they were placed in their mother’s womb.
He said the genomes had been altered to disable a gene known as CCR5, blocking the pathway used by the HIV virus to enter cells.
Some scientists at the International Summit on Human Genome Editing, which began on Tuesday in Hong Kong, said they were appalled the scientist had announced his work without following scientific protocols, including publishing his findings in a peer-reviewed journal. Others cited the ethical problems raised by creating essentially enhanced humans."
"Scientists have expressed anger and doubt over a Chinese geneticist’s claim to have edited the genes of twin girls before birth, as government agencies ordered investigations into the experiment.
A global outcry started after the genetic scientist He Jiankui claimed in a video posted on YouTube on Monday that he had used the gene-editing tool Crispr-Cas9 to modify a particular gene in two embryos before they were placed in their mother’s womb.
He said the genomes had been altered to disable a gene known as CCR5, blocking the pathway used by the HIV virus to enter cells.
Some scientists at the International Summit on Human Genome Editing, which began on Tuesday in Hong Kong, said they were appalled the scientist had announced his work without following scientific protocols, including publishing his findings in a peer-reviewed journal. Others cited the ethical problems raised by creating essentially enhanced humans."
Thursday, November 1, 2018
Medicine and ethics: Will we learn to take research scandals seriously?; Star Tribune, October 29, 2018
Carl Elliott, Star Tribune; Medicine and ethics: Will we learn to take research scandals seriously?
"“The Experiments” is a cautionary tale of how the refusal of institutional leaders to look honestly at ethical problems can lead to the deaths of unsuspecting patients. And while the jury is still out as to whether the Karolinska Institute will reform itself, at least the Swedish public and concerned politicians are trying to hold the institution accountable.
That is more than we can claim for Minnesota. As they say in the rehabilitation units: The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem."
"“The Experiments” is a cautionary tale of how the refusal of institutional leaders to look honestly at ethical problems can lead to the deaths of unsuspecting patients. And while the jury is still out as to whether the Karolinska Institute will reform itself, at least the Swedish public and concerned politicians are trying to hold the institution accountable.
That is more than we can claim for Minnesota. As they say in the rehabilitation units: The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem."
Thursday, January 12, 2017
Trump is headed toward an ethics train wreck; Washington Post, 1/12/17
Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post; Trump is headed toward an ethics train wreck:
"Ironically, for someone who ran on changing the way Washington does business, Trump has distinguished himself as the sole example of a president unprepared to comply with bipartisan ethical norms and the text of the Constitution. The question for Republicans is now whether they want to collaborate in an egregious violation of the Constitution and in an arrangement that will inevitably call into question virtually every regulatory action, policy decision and personnel pick the administration makes. (Any senator with judicial aspirations should register complaints loudly and clearly; consent to an unconstitutional arrangement should be a disqualifier for any future judicial post.)
Republicans who opposed Trump predicted that he would intellectually, morally and financially corrupt his party and others around him. Nothing we have seen so far indicates that this prediction was off-base. Voters who want a check on an imperial, amoral president will need to elect Democrats to check Trump if Republicans are not up to the job."
"Ironically, for someone who ran on changing the way Washington does business, Trump has distinguished himself as the sole example of a president unprepared to comply with bipartisan ethical norms and the text of the Constitution. The question for Republicans is now whether they want to collaborate in an egregious violation of the Constitution and in an arrangement that will inevitably call into question virtually every regulatory action, policy decision and personnel pick the administration makes. (Any senator with judicial aspirations should register complaints loudly and clearly; consent to an unconstitutional arrangement should be a disqualifier for any future judicial post.)
Republicans who opposed Trump predicted that he would intellectually, morally and financially corrupt his party and others around him. Nothing we have seen so far indicates that this prediction was off-base. Voters who want a check on an imperial, amoral president will need to elect Democrats to check Trump if Republicans are not up to the job."
Friday, November 18, 2016
From Hate Speech To Fake News: The Content Crisis Facing Mark Zuckerberg; NPR, 11/17/16
Aarti Shahani, NPR; From Hate Speech To Fake News: The Content Crisis Facing Mark Zuckerberg:
"Some in Silicon Valley dismiss the criticisms against Facebook as schadenfreude: Just like taxi drivers don't like Uber, legacy media envies the success of the social platform and enjoys seeing its leadership on the hot seat. A former employee is not so dismissive and says there is a cultural problem, a stubborn blindness at Facebook and other leading Internet companies like Twitter. The source says: "The hardest problems these companies face aren't technological. They are ethical, and there's not as much rigor in how it's done." At a values level, some experts point out, Facebook has to decide if its solution is free speech (the more people post, the more the truth rises), or clear restrictions."
Wednesday, May 27, 2015
The University of Minnesota’s Medical Research Mess; New York Times, 5/26/15
Carl Elliott, New York Times; The University of Minnesota’s Medical Research Mess:
"These days, of course, medical research is not just a scholarly affair. It is also a global, multibillion-dollar business enterprise, powered by the pharmaceutical and medical-device industries. The ethical problem today is not merely that these corporations have plenty of money to grease the wheels of university research. It’s also that researchers themselves are often given powerful financial incentives to do unethical things: pressure vulnerable subjects to enroll in studies, fudge diagnoses to recruit otherwise ineligible subjects and keep subjects in studies even when they are doing poorly. In what other potentially dangerous industry do we rely on an honor code to keep people safe? Imagine if inspectors never actually set foot in meatpacking plants or coal mines, but gave approvals based entirely on paperwork filled out by the owners. With so much money at stake in drug research, research subjects need a full-blown regulatory system. I.R.B.s should be replaced with oversight bodies that are fully independent — both financially and institutionally — of the research they are overseeing. These bodies must have the staffing and the authority to monitor research on the ground. And they must have the power to punish researchers who break the rules and institutions that cover up wrongdoing."
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