Bioethics – Global, National, Local
Health Care Policy, Reproductive Medicine, Genetics and Genomics
From the monthly archives:
The genetic code contains only four letters. Organisms of staggering complexity are built from the detailed information contained in this four-letter alphabet. How this code is manifested requires many added layers of complexity and interaction with a host of variable systems.
Epigenetics describes modifications to chromosomal DNA that do not alter the genetic code, but persist [...]
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Genes are patented. Not Lee’s or Levi’s — not those jeans. Sequences composed of adenine, thymine, guanine, and cytosine — those genes. How absurd. How indirectly nihilistic. Camus, Beckett, Ionesco, and Vonnegut are laughing up their ghostly sleeves.
Only in America. Well not quite only here. But close. The sad part is that patenting gene sequences [...]
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The New York Times reported on 2-19-10 that virtually every state is making or planning significant cuts in Medicaid benefits.1 These actions are taking place while demand for Medicaid grows. This entitlement, originally conceived as a support for those in lower socioeconomic classes and disabled persons, now is a necessary lifeline for those formerly in [...]
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Revising the doctorpatient relationship is a very important conversation. It is worthwhile and instructive to first look at how the media — broadcast, print, and web sources — participate in and affect this relationship. Stating the obvious, there are good media and bad media. Mostly bad. The power and necessity of the 24-hour news churn [...]
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Families will struggle with these choices, regardless of whether withholding or withdrawing treatment is being considered. For the ethics consultant, it’s good to begin with the understanding that withholding and withdrawing are moral and ethical equivalents. That clears the playing field.
It seems likely that family members who are guilt-ridden — for all the things they [...]
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Distributive justice does not imply that everyone should have equal access to everything all the time. This would be an extreme position and lead to severe distortions in availability of medical services. Competing needs must be balanced fairly and opportunities to access medical care must be equitable. In the American health care marketplace, however, the [...]
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Ethical relativism provides a flimsy moral gloss condoning questionable activities of global pharmaceuticals in developing nations. But the Emperor has no clothes. Ultimately, there’s no such thing as a little bit of ethics.
Medical ethics became an area of concern in the wake of the Nuremberg Trials. The Nuremberg Code was developed in response to the [...]
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For genetic analysis related to breast cancer and Huntington’s disease, it is likely such investigations are initiated for an asymptomatic patient with a relevant family history. Testing for Down’s syndrome is routine for pregnant women older than 35. With the advent of maternal serum markers, aggressive obstetricians may recommend such screening to all their patients.
The [...]
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The overarching ethical concern related to type 2 PGD/HLA testing is the moral status of the embryo. Many books have been written on this topic and many more are being contemplated.
One set of outliers on the bell curve of ethical commentators states that life begins at conception (or, variously, fertilization). The antipodal group states that [...]
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