Another unethical study – this time in NY’s Bowery
In the 1950s an oncologist recruited homeless men for a study of prostate cancer. Here’s a familiar script: medical researchers in the 1950s in a...
Weight loss surgery provokes controversy
Obesity, one of the great health issues of our time, is provoking some controversial treatments by doctors. Here are two recent issues which ought to...
No prosecution for doctors who agreed to sex-selective abortion in UK
DPP gives reasons in statement Keir Starmer, Director of Public Prosecutions Forty-six years after it was legalized in the UK, the legal status of abortion is...
Bioethics is tough; why not abolish it?
Moral abolitionists want to do away with morality altogether. Bioethics is like ice cream: there are many different flavours on a common base. There is...
Belgium’s new death row
Ten prisoners in Belgian jails have asked for euthanasia Ten prisoners in Belgian jails have asked for euthanasia, according to the television program Panorama. Authorities...
The Silk Road to suicide
The hidden drug-trafficking website Silk Road was also selling suicide drugs. The shut-down of the underground drug-trafficking website 'Silk Road' made headlines around the world...
Euthanasia knocked back in Tasmania
Euthanasia bill fails, narrowly A bill to legalise euthanasia and assisted suicide in the Australian state of Tasmania has failed in the lower house by...
Can you marry someone in a vegetative state?
Can an advanced directive be used to authorise a wedding? As the Terri Schiavo case showed, the status of advanced directives can be controversial. But...
Can Muslim doctors examine patients of the other sex?
Muslim doctors may examine patients of the opposite sex. A recent article in the Journal of Medical Ethics challenged the right of Muslim doctors to...
The importance of regulating implicit attitudes
Should doctors sit for a 'bias-detection' test?Ever since Freud, scholars have been wondering about the effect of subconscious factors on our decision making. Much of...