Bioethics


Are bioethicists a “priestly caste”?

Michael Cook | 18 May 2013 |
tags: bioethics
Is bioethics compatible with democracy? This is not a question that surfaces very often in policy debates featuring prestigious bioethicists. However, in a provocative column in The Guardian, Nathan Emmerich, a young bioethicist, asks whether bioethicists are turning into a priestly caste:

An attack on academic freedom?

Michael Cook | 04 May 2013 |
tags: academic freedom, after-birth abortion, BioEdge, bioethics
Some bioethicists who feel at home in the utilitarian common room of the Journal of Medical Ethics described the imbroglio as an attack on academic freedom.

Call for input from bioethicists from the developing world

Michael Cook | 23 March 2013 |
tags: bioethics, developing world health
Who are the gatekeepers in bioethics? Does editorial bias or institutional racism exist in leading bioethics journals?

New pope unlikely to change bioethics stand

Michael Cook | 16 March 2013 |
tags: bioethics, Catholic Church
Judging from his 2011 book Sobre Cielo y Tierra, the new Pope's stand on bioethical issues is fully in sync with his predecessors.

UN report reframes bioethics as anti-torture ethic

Michael Cook | 09 March 2013 |
tags: bioethics, torture
A new United Nations report frames number of bioethical questions as issues of torture, giving a new twist to a number of controversial issues.

Scrap “unwinnable” war on drugs and fight antibiotic misuse instead, says philosopher

Michael Cook | 23 February 2013 |
tags: bioethics, drug abuse
Governments should stop squandering resources fighting an "unwinnable war" against illegal drugs. Instead, they should work on curbing antibiotic misuse, which poses a far more serious threat to human health, an American philosopher argues in the Journal of Medical Ethics.

Does Western bioethics ignore the family?

Michael Cook | 07 February 2013 |
tags: bioethics, family
The emergence of a family centred bioethics

A surprise bioethics best-seller for 2013?

Michael Cook | 27 January 2013 |
tags: bioethics, Catholic Church
Here’s a New Year’s prediction. The world’s biggest-selling bioethics book this year will not be written by anyone from the University of Pennsylvania, Oxford, Harvard or Monash.

One thing is the theory. Another is real life.

Michael Cook | 01 December 2012 |
tags: bioethics, commercialization, insider trading
Former bioethics student involved in insider trading scandal

Queer bioethics holds its first conference

Michael Cook | 21 September 2012 |
tags: bioethics, queer bioethics
The novel field of “queer bioethics” held its first national conference today at the University of Pennsylvania.

Bioethics under attack in new book

Michael Cook | 15 September 2012 |
tags: bioethics, book reviews
The latest book in the Basic Bioethics Series published by The MIT Press is a scathing attack on the whole discipline of bioethics.

Australian judge defines “conception” in surrogacy case

Michael Cook | 11 August 2012 |
tags: bioethics, conception, surrogacy
A judge in Brisbane, Australia, may have notched up a world first by defining the word "conception".

Work for unemployed bioethicists?

Michael Cook | 08 June 2012 |
tags: bioethics, robot ethics
If we haven't managed to sort out standards for bioethics yet, what chance is there for creating a widely-accepted non-controversial robot ethics?

Bioethics: real life or an “esoteric puzzle”?

Michael Cook | 01 June 2012 |
tags: bioethics, corruption
Corruption is not a chapter heading in most bioethics textbooks. But a passionate article in a recent issue of the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine suggests that it is fundamental.

Doctors, patients persecuted in Arab turmoil

Jared Yee | 26 May 2012 |
tags: Bahrain, bioethics, Syria
Doctors in Syria and Bahrain risk arrest and prison for treating patients without fear or favour.

US bioethics centre queried about ties to drug industry

Michael Cook | 19 May 2012 |
tags: bioethics, conflict of interest
The US Senate's Finance Committee has asked seven organisations, including the well-known Center for Practical Bioethics, in Kansas City, for information about financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry.

“Alarming cracks” in the edifice of science

Michael Cook | 12 May 2012 |
tags: bias, bioethics, credibility of science, fraud
Many of the most heated policy debates in bioethics hinge on the accuracy of the research -- in biology, medicine and social science. So anything which affects the reliability of scientific knowledge also has a bearing on bioethics.

Should Big Pharma fund bioethics?

Michael Cook | 12 May 2012 |
tags: Big Pharma, bioethics, conflict of interest
Gadfly: a person who annoys or criticizes others in order to provoke them into action. There is no better word to describe Carl Elliott, a University of Minnesota bioethicist who is the profession’s most savage critic. In his column in the Chronicle of Higher Education this week, he took up a favourite theme: cosying up to the pharmaceutical industry. He complains that too many bioethicists are being funded by Big Pharma, which Dr Elliott tends to describe as a Mafia network.

Is there a limit to the wisdom of the market?

Michael Cook | 28 April 2012 |
tags: bioethics, commercialization, markets
Why can you sell sperm but not your vote? These conundrums are investigated by Michael Sandel, of Harvard University, in his latest book, What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets. It is sure to become a reference point in future bioethics debates.

“Human dignity”: more action in the trenches

Michael Cook | 20 April 2012 |
tags: bioethics, human dignity
A bioethicist at Weill Cornell Medical College has fired another salvo in the battle of human dignity. Writing in the May issue of the journal Bioethics, she dissects earlier arguments and finds them wanting.
 
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