Jeanne Taylor

Nancy Scheper-Hughes is one of the most prominent critics of markets in human organs. Unfortunately, Scheper-Hughes rejects the view that markets should be used to solve the current shortage of transplant organs without engaging with the arguments in favour of them. Scheper-Hughes’s rejection of such markets is of especial concern, given her influence over their future, for she holds, among other positions, the status of an adviser to the World Health Organization on issues related to global transplantation. Given her influence, it is important that Scheper-Hughes’s moral condemnation of markets in human organs be subject to critical assessment. Such critical assessment, however, has not generally been forthcoming. A careful examination of Scheper-Hughes’s anti-market stance shows that it is based on serious mischaracterisations of both the pro-market position and the medical and economic realities that underlie it. In this paper, the author will expose and correct these mischaracterisations and, in so doing, show that her objections to markets in human organs are unfounded

The introduction of National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidance on Alzheimer's medication in November 2006 will have a significant effect on the treatment of patients, and is opposed by the Royal College of Psychiatrists and many charities dealing with the elderly. The use of the Quality-Adjusted Life Year (QALY) in the guidance formulation is much debated due to questions of ageism. This article seeks to examine the basis of these accusations and whether NICE can be justified using a utilitarian calculation in a principally egalitarian system such as the NHS