-
42Treatment-resistant depression and physician-assisted deathJournal of Medical Ethics 41 (11): 885-886. 2015.
-
42Can Physician-Assisted Suicide Be Regulated Effectively?Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics 24 (3): 225-232. 1996.With breathtalung speed, traditional criminal prohibitions against assisted suicide have been declared unconstitutional in twelve states, including California and New York. This poses great promise and great peril. The promise is that competent terminally ill patients, as a compassionate measure of last resort, will have the option of putting an end to their suffering by physician-assisted suicide. More sigmficant, legally permitting this controversial option may be a catalyst for doctors, healt…Read more
-
41Symposium on equipoise and the ethics of clinical trialsJournal of Medicine and Philosophy 32 (2). 2007.This Article does not have an abstract
-
40The Ethics of Infection Challenges in PrimatesHastings Center Report 46 (4): 20-26. 2016.In the midst of the recent Ebola outbreak, scientific developments involving infection challenge experiments on nonhuman primates (NHPs) sparked hope that successful treatments and vaccines may soon become available. Yet these studies pose a stark ethical quandary. On the one hand, they represent an important step in developing novel therapies and vaccines for Ebola and the Marburg virus, with the potential to save thousands of human lives and to protect whole communities from devastation; on th…Read more
-
40Duty to disclose what? Querying the putative obligation to return research results to participantsJournal of Medical Ethics 34 (3): 210-213. 2008.Many research ethics guidelines now oblige researchers to offer research participants the results of research in which they participated. This practice is intended to uphold respect for persons and ensure that participants are not treated as mere means to an end. Yet some scholars have begun to question a generalised duty to disclose research results, highlighting the potential harms arising from disclosure and questioning the ethical justification for a duty to disclose, especially with respect…Read more
-
39The Patient's WorkCambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 16 (1): 44-52. 2007.In The Healer's Power, Howard Brody placed the concept of power at the heart of medicine's moral discourse. Struck by the absence of “power” in the prevailing vocabulary of medical ethics, yet aware of peripheral allusions to power in the writings of some medical ethicists, he intuited the importance of power from the silence surrounding it. He formulated the problem of the healer's power and its responsible use as “the central ethical problem in medicine.” Through the prism of power he refracte…Read more
-
39A narrative review of the empirical evidence on public attitudes on brain death and vital organ transplantation: the need for better data to inform policyJournal of Medical Ethics 41 (4): 291-296. 2015.
-
39A Normative Justification for Distinguishing the Ethics of Clinical Research from the Ethics of Medical CareJournal of Law, Medicine and Ethics 33 (Fall 2005): 566-74. 2005.In the research ethics literature, there is strong disagreement about the ethical acceptability of placebo-controlled trials, particularly when a tested therapy aims to alleviate a condition for which standard treatment exists. Recently, this disagreement has given rise to debate over the moral appropriateness of the principle of clinical equipoise for medical research. Underlying these debates are two fundamentally different visions of the moral obligations that investigators owe their subjects…Read more
-
36Clinical pragmatism: Bridging theory and practiceKennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 8 (1): 37-42. 1998.: This response to Lynn Jansen's critique of clinical pragmatism concentrates on two themes: (1) contrasting approaches to moral epistemology and (2) the connection between theory and practice in clinical ethics. Particular attention is paid to the status of principles and the role of consensus, with some closing speculations on how Dewey might view the current state of bioethics
-
36The Ethics of Continued Life‐Sustaining Treatment for those Diagnosed as Brain‐deadBioethics 30 (3): 151-158. 2015.Given the long-standing controversy about whether the brain-dead should be considered alive in an irreversible coma or dead despite displaying apparent signs of life, the ethical and policy issues posed when family members insist on continued treatment are not as simple as commentators have claimed. In this article, we consider the kind of policy that should be adopted to manage a family's insistence that their brain-dead loved one continues to receive supportive care. We argue that while it wou…Read more
-
36Incidental Findings in Human Subjects Research: What Do Investigators Owe Research Participants?Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics 36 (2): 271-279. 2008.The use of brain imaging technology as a common tool of research has spawned concern and debate over how investigators should respond to incidental fndings discovered in the course of research. In this article, we argue that investigators have an obligation to respond to incidental fndings in view of their entering into a professional relationship with research participants in which they are granted privileged access to private information with potential relevance to participants' health. We dis…Read more
-
36The Incoherence of Determining Death by Neurological Criteria: A Commentary on Controversies in the Determination of Death, A White Paper by the President's Council on BioethicsKennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 19 (2): 185-193. 2009.In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Incoherence of Determining Death by Neurological Criteria: A Commentary on Controversies in the Determination of Death, A White Paper by the President’s Council on Bioethics*Franklin G. Miller** (bio) and Robert D. Truog (bio)Traditionally the cessation of breathing and heart beat has marked the passage from life to death. Shortly after death was determined, the body became a cold corpse, suitable for burial or cremation. Two tec…Read more
-
36Medical Futility and "Brain Death"Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 60 (3): 400-402. 2018.I’m writing to underscore one point, which should be obvious, but which all too often has been neglected in the literature on medical futility. The futility of an action or an intervention is always relative to some goal. Consider the classical example of futility: carrying water in a sieve. If your goal is to transport a quantity of water without spilling some or all of it, then it is futile to do so by placing it in a sieve. But we can readily imagine children carrying water in the backyard in…Read more
-
34Should a Legal Option of Physician-Assisted Death Include Those Who Are "Tired of Life"?Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 59 (3): 351-363. 2016.Recently, Canada’s National Post described in detail the death by lethal injection of a 94-year-old man, living alone, who had multiple medical problems but was not terminally ill. His son helped find a physician willing to administer lethal medication soon after his father told him he “wasn’t planning on adding another digit” to his age. The physician who complied with the request is a leading advocate for assisted death in Canada, who reportedly has been responsible for more than 30 life-termi…Read more
-
34Do the ‘brain dead’ merely appear to be alive?Journal of Medical Ethics 43 (11): 747-753. 2017.The established view regarding ‘brain death’ in medicine and medical ethics is that patients determined to be dead by neurological criteria are dead in terms of a biological conception of death, not a philosophical conception of personhood, a social construction or a legal fiction. Although such individuals show apparent signs of being alive, in reality they are dead, though this reality is masked by the intervention of medical technology. In this article, we argue that an appeal to the distinct…Read more
-
34A Communitarian Approach to Physician-Assisted DeathCambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 6 (1): 78-87. 1997.The standard argument in favor of the practice of voluntary physician-assisted death, by means of assisted suicide or active euthanasia, rests on liberal, individualistic grounds. It appeals to two moral considerations: (1) personal self-determination—the right to choose the circumstances and timing of death with medical assistance; and (2) individual well-being—relief of intolerable suffering in the face of terminal or incurable, severely debilitating illness. One of the strongest challenges to…Read more
-
34Placebo Effects and the Ethics of Therapeutic Communication: A Pragmatic PerspectiveKennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 26 (1): 79-103. 2016.Doctor–patient communication is a crucial component in any therapeutic encounter. Physicians use words to formulate diagnoses and prognoses, to disclose the risks and benefits of medical interventions, and to explain why, how, and when a therapy will be administered to a patient. Likewise, patients communicate to describe their symptoms, to make sense of their conditions, to report side effects, to explore other therapeutic options, and to share their feelings. Throughout the history of medicine…Read more
-
34Money and Distorted Ethical Judgments about Research: Ethical Assessment of the TeGenero TGN1412 Trial (review)American Journal of Bioethics 7 (2): 76-81. 2007.The recent TeGenero phase I trial of a novel monoclonal antibody in healthy volunteers produced a drastic inflammatory reaction in participants receiving the experimental agent. Commentators on the ethics of the research have focused considerable attention on the role of financial considerations: the for-profit status of the biotechnology company and Contract Research Organization responsible respectively for sponsoring and conducting the trial and the amount of monetary compensation to particip…Read more
-
33By Author BAGHERI, Alireza. Criticism of “BrainKennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 13 (4): 407-09. 2003.
-
33Research and complicity: the case of Julius HallervordenJournal of Medical Ethics 38 (1): 53-56. 2012.The charge of complicity has been raised in debates over the ethics of fetal tissue transplantation and embryonic stem cell research. However, the applicability of the concept of complicity to these types of research is neither clear nor uncontroversial. This article discusses the historical case of Julius Hallervorden, a distinguished German neuropathologist who conducted research on brains of mentally handicapped patients killed in the context of the Nazi ‘euthanasia’ programme. It is argued t…Read more
-
33Clinical Research before Informed ConsentKennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 24 (2): 141-157. 2014.The results of the first randomized controlled trial of a medical treatment were reported in 1947. The antibiotic streptomycin was demonstrated to be dramatically superior to bed rest alone in treating tuberculosis. Looking back on this trial in 1990, A. B. Hill, the distinguished medical statistician who played a prominent role in the use of randomization in this study, made a telling statement about the moral climate of clinical research at the time: "Of course, there were no ethical problems …Read more
-
32Drive effects on instrumental response speed induced by intermittent disagreement in conversationBulletin of the Psychonomic Society 9 (1): 5-7. 1977.
-
31The Ethics of Clinical Trials Research in Severe Mood DisordersBioethics 31 (6): 443-453. 2017.Mood disorders, including major depressive disorder and bipolar disorder, are highly prevalent, frequently disabling, and sometimes deadly. Additional research and more effective medications are desperately needed, but clinical trials research in mood disorders is fraught with ethical issues. Although many authors have discussed these issues, most do so from a theoretical viewpoint. This manuscript uses available empirical data to inform a discussion of the primary ethical issues raised in mood …Read more
-
31Enhancement technologies and professional integrityAmerican Journal of Bioethics 5 (3). 2005.*The opinions expressed are the views of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy of the National Institutes of Health, the Public Health Service, or the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
-
31Mapping the Moral Terrain of Clinical ResearchHastings Center Report 38 (2): 30-42. 2012.Medical research is widely thought to have a fundamentally therapeutic orientation, in spite of the fact that clinical research is thought to be ethically distinct from medical care. We need an entirely new conception of clinical research ethics—one that looks to science instead of the doctor‐patient relationship.
-
30Clarifying the Nocebo Effect and Its Ethical ImplicationsAmerican Journal of Bioethics 12 (3): 30-31. 2012.The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 12, Issue 3, Page 30-31, March 2012.
-
30An apology for socratic bioethicsAmerican Journal of Bioethics 8 (7). 2008.Bioethics is a hybrid discipline. As a theoretical enterprise it stands for untrammeled inquiry and argument. Yet it aims to influence medical practice and policy. In this article we explore tensions between these two dimensions of bioethics and examine the merits and perils of a “Socratic” approach to bioethics that challenges “the conventional wisdom.”.
-
29A Prescription for Ethical LearningHastings Center Report 43 (s1): 28-29. 2013.We argued last year in this journal that extensive integration of research and care is a worthy goal of health system design, and we second the call from Ruth Faden and colleagues to move toward learning health care systems. As they recognize, learning health care systems demand the coordination of research and medical ethics—two sets of normative commitments that have long been considered distinct. In offering a novel ethics framework for such systems, Faden et al. advance the scholarly debate …Read more
Areas of Interest
Applied Ethics |