Baruch Brody

(1943 - 2018)

This paper distinguishes four major types of futility (physiological, imminent demise, lethal condition, and qualitative) that have been advocated in the literature either in a patient dependent or a patient independent fashion. It proposes five criteria (precision, prospective, social acceptability, significant number, and non-agreement) that any definition of futility must satisfy if it is to serve as the basis for unilaterally limiting futile care. It then argues that none of the definitions that have been advocated meet the criteria, primarily because their proponents have not paid sufficient attention to the problematic nature of the data supporting the use of their definitions

There is a growing interest in comparison of international health care data with the hope that such studies will enable individual systems to learn from other systems. Such comparisons, however, presuppose that there exist common criteria for evaluating health care systems. The main thesis of this paper is that these comparative studies are misleading because they employ inappropriate operationalizations of these criteria because the operarionalizations are based upon mistaken global conceptualizations of the criteria in question. The essay provides a methodological critique of what has been done and sets a new agenda for future research

Until a few years ago, the works of Thomas Reid were known only by specialists in the history of philosophy, and, insofar as people did think at all about Reid and his school of common sense philosophy, it was generally thought that Kant had been right in dismissing them as naive thinkers who did not really understand what philosophical skepticism was all about. This attitude about Reid changed very rapidly in recent years. More and more people now realize that Reid was one of the most important British philosophers, and that his works are full of deep insights that have only recently been rediscovered.

Public statements by various international groups emphasize that decisions to undergo genetic screening, either for disease-carrier status or for predisposition-to-disease status, and decisions about the use of the resulting information should be made voluntarily by the party to be screened. For example, the World Medical Association, in its Declaration on the Human Genome Project, says, “One should respect the will of persons screened and their right to decide about participation and about the use of the information obtained.” Giving this principle a name, “voluntarism,” the Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences, in its Declaration of Inuyama, announced that “voluntarism should be the guiding principle in the provision of genetic services.

"When it comes to morality as it is practiced in medicine, Brody makes clear that the ethical issues are never as simple as black and white - that there are myriad factors and fine nuances that can and should challenge decision making as it is commonly practiced in difficult medical cases. In this collection, delving thoughtfully and systematically into methodology, research ethics, clinical ethics, and Jewish medical ethics, he tackles thorny life-and-death questions head-on and fearlessly. He casts a light into all the corners of end-of-life decisions - a field in which he has exemplary credentials - while illuminating a new understanding of morality and ethics." "The introduction outlines much of Brody's approach, defines the terminology used, and contrasts his ethical positions with much of the competing literature, Taking Issue will be invaluable to students and scholars in medical ethics, bioethics, and the philosophy of medicine." "Baruch A. Brody is the Leon Jaworski Professor Biomedical Ethics and director of the Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy at Baylor College of Medicine. He is also a professor of philosophy at Rice University and director of the Ethics program at the Methodist Hospital."--BOOK JACKET.

: Continuing the discussion begun in the March 2006 issue of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, this paper further documents the failure of the United States to adequately consider possible modifications in the traditional robust system of intellectual property rights as applied to biotechnology. It discusses concrete suggestions for alternative disclosure requirements, for exemptions for research tools, and for improved access to clinical advances. In each of these cases, the modifications might be more responsive to the full set of relevant values

I will, in this paper, set out the philosophical foundations and the basic structure of a new theory of justice. I will argue that both these foundations and the theory which is based upon them are intuitively attractive and theoretically sound. Finally, I will argue that both are supported by the fact that they lead to attractive implications such as the following: One can justify at least some governmental redistributive programs which presuppose that those receiving the wealth have a right to it, without being committed to any form of egalitarianism. The justification for these redistributive programs respects property entitlements; it argues, in effect, that property entitlements and rights to some redistribution of wealth presuppose each other, rather than being in conflict with each other. The amount of redistribution to which each indigent person is entitled is directly proportional to the wealth of the society in question and inversely proportional to the number of indigents in the society in question. There are at this stage in the history of Western thought few entirely new ideas in philosophy. Too much has been written about the important issues to allow for entirely new approaches. My theory is no exception to these generalizations, for it draws upon the tradition of John Locke, of the agrarian reforms such as Paine, Spence, and Ogilvie, and of libertarian writers such as Robert Nozick. Nevertheless, I will argue, the resulting theory is a significant advance over the ideas of these earlier writers

: Pharmacogenetics offers the prospect of an era of safer and more effective drugs, as well as more individualized use of drug therapies. Before the benefits of pharmacogenetics can be realized, the ethical issues that arise in research and clinical application of pharmacogenetic technologies must be addressed. The ethical issues raised by pharmacogenetics can be addressed under six headings: regulatory oversight, confidentiality and privacy, informed consent, availability of drugs, access, and clinicians' changing responsibilities in the era of pharmacogenetic medicine. We analyze each of these categories of ethical issues and provide policy approaches for addressing them