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19Acknowledging Complexity and Reimagining IRBs: A Reply to Discussions of the Protection–Inclusion DilemmaAmerican Journal of Bioethics 23 (9): 1-8. 2023.We are grateful to everyone who took the time to offer such insightful comments with regard to the protection–inclusion dilemma in research oversight. Nearly all respondents agreed that this dilemm...
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18Bioethics, EarlyView.
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11Ensuring the Scientific Value and Feasibility of Clinical Trials: A Qualitative Interview StudyAJOB Empirical Bioethics 14 (2): 99-110. 2023.Background Ethical and scientific principles require that clinical trials address an important question and have the resources needed to complete the study. However, there are no clear standards for review that would ensure that these principles are upheld.Methods We conducted semi-structured interviews with a convenience sample of nineteen experts in clinical trial design, conduct, and/or oversight to elucidate current practice and identify areas of need with respect to ensuring the scientific …Read more
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29Institutional Review Board Use of Outside Experts: A National SurveyAJOB Empirical Bioethics 13 (4): 251-262. 2022.Background Institutional review board (IRB) expertise is necessarily limited by maintaining a manageable board size. IRBs are therefore permitted by regulation to rely on outside experts for review. However, little is known about whether, when, why, and how IRBs use outside experts.Methods We conducted a national survey of U.S. IRBs to characterize utilization of outside experts. Our study uses a descriptive, cross-sectional design to understand how IRBs engage with such experts and to identify …Read more
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37IRBs and the Protection-Inclusion Dilemma: Finding a BalanceAmerican Journal of Bioethics 23 (6): 75-88. 2022.Institutional review boards, tasked with facilitating ethical research, are often pulled in competing directions. In what we call the protection-inclusion dilemma, we acknowledge the tensions IRBs face in aiming to both protect potential research participants from harm and include under-represented populations in research. In this manuscript, we examine the history of protectionism that has dominated research ethics oversight in the United States, as well as two responses to such protectionism: …Read more
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25Allocation of Opportunities to Participate in Clinical Trials during the Covid‐19 Pandemic and Other Public Health EmergenciesHastings Center Report 52 (1): 51-58. 2021.Hastings Center Report, Volume 52, Issue 1, Page 51-58, January/February 2022.
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12On measuring attitudes about payment for researchJournal of Medical Ethics 46 (12): 833-834. 2020.Significant attention has been given both to the ethics of Controlled Human Infection Model research and the ethics of payment for research participation. However, comparatively little attention has been given to the ethics of paying for participation specifically in CHIM research. Grimwade et al should be commended for thoughtfully addressing this topic and especially for the empirical data collection informing their work, which is too often lacking in discussions of payment for research partic…Read more
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13Ethical Challenges in Clinical Research During the COVID-19 PandemicJournal of Bioethical Inquiry 17 (4): 717-722. 2020.The sudden emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic brought global disruption to every aspect of society including healthcare, supply chain, the economy, and social interaction. Among the many emergent considerations were the safety and public health of the public, patients, essential workers, and healthcare professionals. In certain locations, clinical research was halted—or terminated—in deference to the immediate needs of patient care, and clinical trials focusing on the treatment and prevention of…Read more
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73COVID-19 and consent for research: Navigating during a global pandemicClinical Ethics 16 (3): 222-227. 2021.The modern ethical framework demands informed consent for research participation that includes disclosure of material information, as well as alternatives. The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic (COVID-19) results in illness that often involves rapid deterioration. Despite the urgent need to find therapy, obtaining informed consent for COVID-19 research is needed. The current pandemic presents three types of challenges for investigators faced with obtaining inf…Read more
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17The Decision to Enroll in a Clinical Trial Should Be UnencumberedAmerican Journal of Bioethics 20 (9): 23-25. 2020.Volume 20, Issue 9, September 2020, Page 23-25.
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25Social Media as an Ethical Tool for Retention in Clinical TrialsAmerican Journal of Bioethics 19 (6): 62-64. 2019.Volume 19, Issue 6, June 2019, Page 62-64.
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30Mutual Obligations in Research and Withholding Payment From Deceptive ParticipantsAmerican Journal of Bioethics 18 (4): 85-87. 2018.
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42Institutions as an ethical locus of research prioritisationJournal of Medical Ethics 43 (12): 816-818. 2017.Ensuring that clinical trials, once launched, successfully complete and generate useful knowledge is an important and indeed ethically imperative goal, given the risks and burdens borne by research participants. Since there are insufficient willing research participants to power all the trials that are currently undertaken,1 addressing underenrolment will require prioritisation decisions that reduce the number of trials competing for participants. While there are multiple levels at which researc…Read more
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31When clinical trials compete: prioritising study recruitmentJournal of Medical Ethics 43 (12): 803-809. 2017.It is not uncommon for multiple clinical trials at the same institution to recruit concurrently from the same patient population. When the relevant pool of patients is limited, as it often is, trials essentially compete for participants. There is evidence that such a competition is a predictor of low study accrual, with increased competition tied to increased recruitment shortfalls. But there is no consensus on what steps, if any, institutions should take to approach this issue. In this article,…Read more
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46In Particular Circumstances Attempting Unproven Interventions Is Permissible and Even ObligatoryAmerican Journal of Bioethics 15 (4): 53-55. 2015.
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63Frames, Choice-Reversal, and ConsentEthical Theory and Moral Practice 18 (5): 1049-1057. 2015.Recently Jason Hanna has argued that a particular type of susceptibility to framing effects—namely, the tendency to reverse one’s choice between certain logically equivalent frames—invalidates actual tokens of consent. Here I argue that this claim is false: proneness to choice-reversal per se between the relevant types of frames does not invalidate consent
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489The problem of natural evil I: General theistic repliesPhilosophy Compass 4 (3): 533-559. 2009.I examine different strategies involved in stating anti-theistic arguments from natural evil, and consider some theistic replies. There are, traditionally, two main types of arguments from natural evil: those that purport to deduce a contradiction between the existence of natural evil and the existence of God, and those that claim that the existence of certain types or quantities of natural evil significantly lowers the probability that theism is true. After considering peripheral replies, I sta…Read more
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62Nudging, Autonomy, and Valid Consent: Context MattersAmerican Journal of Bioethics 13 (6): 12-13. 2013.No abstract
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33Nonexceptionalism, Research Risks, and Social Media: Response to Open Peer Commentaries on “Using Social Media as a Research Recruitment Tool: Ethical Issues and Recommendations”American Journal of Bioethics 17 (5): 1-3. 2017.
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93Using Social Media as a Research Recruitment Tool: Ethical Issues and RecommendationsAmerican Journal of Bioethics 17 (3): 3-14. 2017.The use of social media as a recruitment tool for research with humans is increasing, and likely to continue to grow. Despite this, to date there has been no specific regulatory guidance and there has been little in the bioethics literature to guide investigators and institutional review boards faced with navigating the ethical issues such use raises. We begin to fill this gap by first defending a nonexceptionalist methodology for assessing social media recruitment; second, examining respect for…Read more
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73When and Why Is Research without Consent Permissible?Hastings Center Report 46 (2): 35-43. 2016.The view that research with competent adults requires valid consent to be ethical perhaps finds its clearest expression in the Nuremberg Code, whose famous first principle asserts that “the voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential.” In a similar vein, the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states that “no one shall be subjected without his free consent to medical or scientific experimentation.” Yet although some formulations of the consent p…Read more
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269The problem of natural evil II: Hybrid repliesPhilosophy Compass 4 (3): 560-574. 2009.I consider two views that combine different elements of general theistic replies to natural evil, those of Peter van Inwagen and William Hasker. I end with a Hasker-style defense – one that, unlike Hasker's, denies the existence of pointless natural evils – and some brief observations on the direction of future debate.
Albany, New York, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Religion |
Meta-Ethics |
Normative Ethics |