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1Lost in translation: can we have a global bioethics without a global moral language?In Wanda Teays, John-Stewart Gordon & Alison Dundes Renteln (eds.), Global Bioethics and Human Rights: Contemporary Issues, Rowman & Littlefield. 2014.
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282Assistive technology, telecare and people with intellectual disabilities: ethical considerationsJournal of Medical Ethics 35 (2): 81-86. 2009.Increasingly, commissioners and providers of services for people with intellectual disabilities are turning to assistive technology and telecare as a potential solution to the problem of the increased demand for services, brought about by an expanding population of people with intellectual disabilities in the context of relatively static or diminishing resources. While there are numerous potential benefits of assistive technology and telecare, both for service providers and service users, there …Read more
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15The concise argumentJournal of Medical Ethics 36 (1): 1-1. 2010.New UK consensus statement on core curriculum in medical ethics and lawThe most important paper in this month’s JME is not a standard paper but the new UK consensus statement on the core curriculum in medical ethics and law for medical students. The first consensus statement was published in the JME in 1998 and has been instrumental in ensuring the embedding of a common standard of teaching in these subjects across UK medical schools. 1 However, even the most hard core moral realist has to accep…Read more
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64Quality improvement in general practice: enabling general practitioners to judge ethical dilemmasJournal of Medical Ethics 36 (3): 184-188. 2010.Quality improvement (QI) is fundamental to maintaining high standards of health care. Significant debate exists concerning the necessity for an ethical approval system for those QI projects that push the boundaries, appearing more similar to research than QI. The authors discuss this issue identifying the core ethical issues in family medicine (FM), drawing upon the fundamental principles of medical ethics, including principles of autonomy, utility, justice and non-maleficence. Recent debate con…Read more
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4Cutting Through the Surface. Philosophical Approaches to Bioethics (edited book)Rodopi. 2009.This book examines the role of philosophy and philosophers in bioethics. Academics often see bioethical studies as too practical while decision makers tend to see them as too theoretical. The purpose of this collection of new essays by an international group of distinguished scholars is to explore the troubled relationship between theory and practice in the ethical assessment of medicine, health care, and new medical and genetic technologies. The book is divided into six parts. In the first part…Read more
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18The ethics of stem cell research: can the disagreements be resolved?Journal of Medical Ethics 34 (12): 831-832. 2008.It is now 10 years ago that human embryonic stem cell research appeared as a major topic of societal concern following significant scientific breakthroughs.1 2 During these 10 years it has become obvious that stem cell research is embedded in a narrative characterised by hope and hype and that it has created heated moral and political debate. Although it would be tempting to try to deconstruct the importance attributed to hope in this story or to unmask the different instigators active in promot…Read more
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30Time to reconsider stem cell ethics--the importance of induced pluripotent cellsJournal of Medical Ethics 34 (2): 63-64. 2008.The discovery of an alternative method of producing induced human stem cells will affect the ethical evaluation of human embryonic stem cell researchOn 20 November 2007 two groups of researchers announced that they had independently managed to produce induced Pluripotent Cells from human adult somatic cells.1 2 The two groups used slightly different procedures, but both approaches involved overexpression of a group of four genes known to be actively expressed in human embryonic stem cells . The …Read more
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76The expressivist objection to prenatal diagnosis: can it be laid to rest?Journal of Medical Ethics 34 (1): 24-25. 2008.Tom Shakespeare’s book Disability rights and wrongs is very rich and interesting and ought to be compulsory reading for anyone interested in the relation between disability and medical ethics.1In my short contribution to this symposium on the book, I will focus on a particular aspect of his discussion of prenatal diagnosis and termination of pregnancy.In chapter 6 of Disability rights and wrongs, a chapter entitled Questioning prenatal diagnosis, the author discusses a wide range of issues conce…Read more
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22Thick as thieves the Norwegian medical association attempts to stifle ethical debateJournal of Medical Ethics 34 (1): 1-1. 2008.In January 2006, one of the major cases of scientific fraud in recent years broke in the media. It was discovered that the Norwegian researcher John Sudbø had falsified the complete set of data on which an article published in the Lancet in 2005 had been based.1 The article had 14 authors, and Professor Jan Helge Solbakk, Professor of Medical Ethics at the University of Oslo, was quoted in Norwegian media as saying that “… also the 13 other co-authors in the research scandal have muck on their h…Read more
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105The concise argumentJournal of Medical Ethics 36 (3): 129-129. 2010.Organ transplantation and donation has been a perennial topic of discussion in medical ethics since transplantation first became possible. In this issue there are two articles discussing ways in which the number of organ donations could be increased in an ethically acceptable way. De Wispelaere and Stirton identify the de facto ‘family veto’ as one major problem in cadaveric organ donation . They suggest that one way of overcoming this problem would be through a specific advance commitment devic…Read more
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25Medicine and the market equity v. choiceJournal of Medical Ethics 33 (8): 496-496. 2007.In this book, the authors’ aim is to assess the evidence for the positive effects of market practices in healthcare and to provide an ethical evaluation of these market practices. It is clear from the beginning that the authors are not setting up a simple, and thereby false, dichotomy between market provision and equity in …
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5The concise argumentJournal of Medical Ethics 37 (2): 65-65. 2011.Is research fraud deliberate? Is research fraud / serious misconduct in medicine deliberate or inadvertent? This is clearly an important question and one that is subject to a lot of controversy. Many researchers seem to believe that fraud is always either the result of some kind of psychiatric condition, or just at one extreme of a spectrum of inadvertent error. How do we find out? We could ask fraudulent researchers, but would probably not get honest answers. The ingenious study by Steen publis…Read more
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23Attitudes towards clinical research among cancer trial participants and non-participants: an interview study using a Grounded Theory approachJournal of Medical Ethics 33 (4): 234-240. 2007.The attitudes of women patients with cancer were explored when they were invited to participate in one of three randomised trials that included chemotherapy at two university centres and a satellite centre. Fourteen patients participating in and 15 patients declining trials were interviewed. Analysis was based on the constant comparative method. Most patients voiced positive attitudes towards clinical research, believing that trials are necessary for further medical development, and most spontan…Read more
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20The WMA on medical ethics--some critical commentsJournal of Medical Ethics 32 (3): 161-162. 2006.Because the WMA’s new manual contains a partially partisan view of what constitutes medical ethics, if used for teaching it needs to be balanced by other materialsThe recent publication of the World Medical Association’s Medical Ethics Manual should be welcomed since it gives people all over the world, or at least those people who are on the internet and who have a reasonable printer, access to an introduction to medical ethics that can be used as the basis for an introductory course in medical …Read more
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22The Law and Ethics of Medical Research: International Bioethics and Human RightsJournal of Medical Ethics 32 (4): 246-246. 2006.
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35Self inflicted harm--NICE in ethical self destruct mode?Journal of Medical Ethics 32 (3): 125-126. 2006.Some very bad old arguments need removing from NICE’s latest reportLet me begin this editorial by reassuring readers that the journal does not hold any deep seated grudge against the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence . However, because the pronouncements of NICE are of great importance to the future of health care in England, and to a lesser extent in the other nations of the United Kingdom, and because NICE is often held up as a model for other countries to follow we feel th…Read more
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31High hopes and automatic escalators: a critique of some new arguments in bioethicsJournal of Medical Ethics 33 (1): 1-4. 2007.Two protechnology arguments, the “hopeful principle” and the “automatic escalator”, often used in bioethics, are identified and critically analysed in this paper. It is shown that the hopeful principle is closely related to the problematic precautionary principle, and the automatic escalator argument has close affinities to the often criticised empirical slippery slope argument. The hopeful principle is shown to be really hopeless as an argument, and automatic escalator arguments often lead nowh…Read more
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6Can politics be taken out of the (English) NHS?Journal of Medical Ethics 33 (10): 559-559. 2007.The BMA’s recent discussion paper A rational way forward for the NHS in England, while wishing to free the English NHS from day-to-day politics, merely shifts the locus of the political conflict.In May this year, the British Medical Association published a discussion paper entitled “A rational way forward for the NHS in England”, outlining the association’s suggestions for reform of the English NHS.1The paper is worth reading for its insightful dissection and analysis of the current problems of …Read more
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1Family decision making—a victim to the hegemony of autonomyProceedings of the International Joint Bioethics Congress on Inter-Cultural Bioethics: Asia and the West, Sanliurfa, Turkey 14 18. 2005.
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11The old order changeth yielding place to newJournal of Medical Ethics 30 (4): 331-331. 2004.Editors-in-Chief Søren Holm and John Harris announce exciting changes for the journalStarting with this issue, the Journal of Medical Ethics has a new editorial team. We inherit one of the best—we believe the best—journal concerned with medical ethics and bioethics in the world. Certainly it is the journal with the highest impact factor in bioethics, applied philosophy, and medical ethics. For this we have to thank not only Julian Savulescu from whom we take over but also the two previous editor…Read more
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10Irreversible bodily interventions in childrenJournal of Medical Ethics 30 (3): 237-237. 2004.Is the opposition to circumcision partly driven by cultural prejudices?In this issue of the Journal of Medical Ethics you can read a minisymposium on circumcision, mainly dealing with the circumcision of male children at an age where they cannot consent, but also touching upon issues of female genital mutilation.When reading the papers I found it strange, but of course not really surprising given its symbolic importance, that we are so worried about interventions on the male penis. Why are we no…Read more
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35Why it is not strongly irrational to have childrenJournal of Medical Ethics 30 (4): 381-381. 2004.Response to: A rational cure for prereproductive stress syndrome
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152Free speech, democracy, and eugenicsJournal of Medical Ethics 30 (6). 2004.Attempts to stifle debate in medical ethics must be strongly resistedOn 30 September and 1 October this year a conference on “Ethics, Science and Moral Philosophy of Assisted Human Reproduction” was held at the Royal Society in London. The conference was organised by the German philosopher Edgar Dahl and the eminent embryologist Robert Edwards, and the speakers included scientists, IVF practitioners, and philosophers from the UK, the USA, Europe, and Australia Because the programme included disc…Read more
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217Principles of Biomedical Ethics, 5th edn.: Beauchamp T L, Childress J F. Oxford University Press, 2001, pound19.95, pp 454. ISBN 0-19-514332- (review)Journal of Medical Ethics 28 (5). 2002.The Principles of Biomedical Ethics by Beauchamp and Childress is a classic in the field of medical ethics. The first edition was published in 1979 and “unleashed” the four principles of respect for autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence, and justice on the newly emerging field. These principles were argued to be mid-level principles mediating between high-level moral theory and low-level common morality, and they immediately became very popular in writings about medical ethics. Over the years B…Read more
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30Regulating stem cell research in Europe by the back doorJournal of Medical Ethics 29 (4): 203-204. 2003.Regulation of stem cell research in Europe should not take place without public and scholarly inputThe European Union has, at present, no jurisdiction over research carried out in the member states, or concerning the “ethics” of member states. This does not, however, mean that decisions made by the European institutions cannot influence such matters greatly.There has recently been a lot of focus on the decision not to fund embryonic stem cell research during the first year of the 6th framework p…Read more
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23Bioethics down under--medical ethics engages with political philosophyJournal of Medical Ethics 31 (1): 1-1. 2005.Philosophers should be wary of using the methods they use in philosophy when engaging in discussions about policy makingThe beginning of November last year was a busy time in the bioethics calendar with four conferences taking place in New Zealand and Australia. The Fifth International Conference on Priorities in Health Care took place in Wellington; the Fifth Feminist Approaches to Bioethics congress, the Seventh World Congress of Bioethics, and the meeting of the Australasian Bioethics Associa…Read more
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15Principles of Biomedical Ethics, 5th ednJournal of Medical Ethics 28 (5): 332-2. 2002.The Principles of Biomedical Ethics by Beauchamp and Childress is a classic in the field of medical ethics. The first edition was published in 1979 and “unleashed” the four principles of respect for autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence, and justice on the newly emerging field. These principles were argued to be mid-level principles mediating between high-level moral theory and low-level common morality, and they immediately became very popular in writings about medical ethics. Over the years B…Read more
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