Category: Ethics

Image of a USAID notification announcing a reduction-in-force affecting 1,600 personnel. Starting February 23, 2025, all direct hire personnel will be on administrative leave, except for specific designations.

Indiscriminate, Cruel, and Wasteful: Abandoning USAID clinical trials

The chaos and cruelty of its abrupt deconstruction are self-evident and already demonstrable

/ February 25, 2025

The Trashing of Science by Robert F Kennedy Jr

If confirmed, Kennedy will keep trashing science and will continue exploiting the trashed science he helps create for his own benefit.

/ February 4, 2025

The Ethics of Artificial Brains

We are living in a time of technology advancing so rapidly it is challenging to keep up. This has multiple ramifications, and in the area of biomedical research, there is an important ethical and regulatory dimension. Confronting the ethical considerations of our own technology is nothing new, and fresh debate seems to erupt with every new development – including in-vitro fertilization, transplanting...

/ April 10, 2024

Tightening Gene Editing Rules for Humans

Gene-editing regulations are again in the news. We need to take a thoughtful approach.

/ March 8, 2023
NY puberty blocker article

What the New York Times gets wrong about puberty blockers for transgender youth

The New York Times recently published an article expressing grave concern about the use of puberty blockers to treat gender dysphoria in transgender adolescents. Unfortunately, the reporting ignored evidence and important context to weave a narrative portraying puberty blockers as far more risky than they actually are.

, / December 4, 2022
Recycling old antivax arguments as "bioethics"

Recycling old antivax tropes as “bioethics”-based arguments against COVID-19 vaccination for children

A recently published article in Bioethics makes ethical arguments against vaccinating children against COVID-19. If you change the word "COVID-19" to measles, chickenpox, or rotavirus (or others), this article could have been published on one of the higher-brow antivax websites in 2010. Antivax arguments never change; they're just continually recycled.

/ March 28, 2022

Treating the Unvaccinated

Should vaccination status be used to triage care for critically ill patients during a crisis?

/ December 8, 2021
The BMJ's Facebook logo

What the heck happened to The BMJ?

Last week, The BMJ published an "exposé" by Paul Thacker alleging patient unblinding, data falsification, and other wrongdoing by a company running three sites for the massive clinical trial of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. It was a highly biased story embraced by antivaxxers, with a deceptively framed narrative and claims not placed into proper context, leading me to look into the broader...

/ November 8, 2021

The Frenetic Frenum Freeing Frenzy

What problems do tongue-ties cause? Do all of them need to be clipped?

/ August 20, 2021

“Imbalanced Energy Field” is not a valid diagnosis and therapeutic touch is pseudoscience, so why can’t nurses just give it up?

“Imbalanced Energy Field” is not a valid diagnosis and therapeutic touch is pseudoscience. It's past time nursing gave up both.

/ August 12, 2021