The Economist
Originally posted March 12, 2016
Here is an excerpt:
Constant, wireless-linked monitoring may spare patients much suffering, by spotting incipient signs of their condition deteriorating. It may also spare health providers and insurers many expensive hospital admissions. When Britain’s National Health Service tested the cost-effectiveness of remote support for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, it found that an electronic tablet paired with sensors measuring vital signs could result in better care and enormous savings, by enabling early intervention. Some m-health products may prove so effective that doctors begin to provide them on prescription.
So far, big drugmakers have been slow to join the m-health revolution, though there are some exceptions. HemMobile by Pfizer, and Beat Bleeds by Baxter, help patients to manage haemophilia. Bayer, the maker of Clarityn, an antihistamine drug, has a popular pollen-forecasting app. GSK, a drug firm with various asthma treatments, offers sufferers the MyAsthma app, to help them manage their condition.
The article is here.
Thursday, March 31, 2016
'Body Hacking' Movement Rises Ahead Of Moral Answers
Eyder Peralta
NPR
Originally published 10, 2016
Here is an excerpt:
Sometimes, he said, technology moves too fast and outpaces accepted social boundaries — not to mention laws. He argued that was part of the reason why early wearers of Google Glass were called "glassholes."
"It created a social misunderstanding," Salvador said. "You didn't know what was going on."
To Salvador, the boundaries of acceptance are a matter of our social philosophy, an area that he argued was driven by esoteric discourse without tangible moral and ethical recommendations.
The philosophers, he said, are letting us down.
Alva Noë, a philosopher at the University of California, Berkeley and a contributor to NPR's 13.7: Cosmos and Culture blog, has written extensively on what he calls "cyborgian naturalness." He disagreed that the modern philosophers dropped the ball, saying that tackling the matter would involve unpacking two questions:
To the first question, Noë said he found the "body hacking" experimentation on humans "ethically disturbing" and couldn't fathom a doctor or any other scientists conducting these kinds of operations.
The second question was more complicated.
The article is here.
NPR
Originally published 10, 2016
Here is an excerpt:
Sometimes, he said, technology moves too fast and outpaces accepted social boundaries — not to mention laws. He argued that was part of the reason why early wearers of Google Glass were called "glassholes."
"It created a social misunderstanding," Salvador said. "You didn't know what was going on."
To Salvador, the boundaries of acceptance are a matter of our social philosophy, an area that he argued was driven by esoteric discourse without tangible moral and ethical recommendations.
The philosophers, he said, are letting us down.
Alva Noë, a philosopher at the University of California, Berkeley and a contributor to NPR's 13.7: Cosmos and Culture blog, has written extensively on what he calls "cyborgian naturalness." He disagreed that the modern philosophers dropped the ball, saying that tackling the matter would involve unpacking two questions:
- Is it OK to cut into human bodies for these kinds of experiments?
- How much tolerance should society have for artificially enhancing the body?
To the first question, Noë said he found the "body hacking" experimentation on humans "ethically disturbing" and couldn't fathom a doctor or any other scientists conducting these kinds of operations.
The second question was more complicated.
The article is here.
Wednesday, March 30, 2016
Doctors Often Fail To Treat Depression Like A Chronic Illness
Shfali Luthra
NPR.org
Originally published March 7, 2016
Depression prompts people to make about 8 million doctors' appointments a year, and more than half are with primary care physicians. A study suggests those doctors often fall short in treating depression because of insurance issues, time constraints and other factors.
More often than not, primary care doctors fail to teach patients how to manage their care and don't follow up to see how they're doing, according to the study, which was published Monday in Health Affairs. Those are considered effective tactics for treating chronic illnesses.
"The approach to depression should be like that of other chronic diseases," said Dr. Harold Pincus, vice chair of psychiatry at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons and one of the study's co-authors. But "by and large, primary care practices don't have the infrastructure or haven't chosen to implement those practices for depression."
Most people with depression seek help from their primary care doctors, the study notes. That can be because patients often face shortages and limitations of access to specialty mental health care, including lack of insurance coverage, the authors write. Plus there's stigma: Patients sometimes feel nervous or ashamed to see a mental health specialist, according to the authors.
The article is here.
NPR.org
Originally published March 7, 2016
Depression prompts people to make about 8 million doctors' appointments a year, and more than half are with primary care physicians. A study suggests those doctors often fall short in treating depression because of insurance issues, time constraints and other factors.
More often than not, primary care doctors fail to teach patients how to manage their care and don't follow up to see how they're doing, according to the study, which was published Monday in Health Affairs. Those are considered effective tactics for treating chronic illnesses.
"The approach to depression should be like that of other chronic diseases," said Dr. Harold Pincus, vice chair of psychiatry at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons and one of the study's co-authors. But "by and large, primary care practices don't have the infrastructure or haven't chosen to implement those practices for depression."
Most people with depression seek help from their primary care doctors, the study notes. That can be because patients often face shortages and limitations of access to specialty mental health care, including lack of insurance coverage, the authors write. Plus there's stigma: Patients sometimes feel nervous or ashamed to see a mental health specialist, according to the authors.
The article is here.
Most Popular Theories of Consciousness Are Worse Than Wrong
Michael Graziano
The Atlantic
Originally published March 9, 2016
Here is an excerpt:
In the modern age we can chuckle over medieval naiveté, but we often suffer from similar conceptual confusions. We have our share of phlegm theories, which flatter our intuitions while explaining nothing. They’re compelling, they often convince, but at a deeper level they’re empty.
One corner of science where phlegm theories proliferate is the cognitive neuroscience of consciousness. The brain is a machine that processes information, yet somehow we also have a conscious experience of at least some of that information. How is that possible? What is subjective experience? It’s one of the most important questions in science, possibly the most important, the deepest way of asking: What are we? Yet many of the current proposals, even some that are deep and subtle, are phlegm theories.
The article is here.
The Atlantic
Originally published March 9, 2016
Here is an excerpt:
In the modern age we can chuckle over medieval naiveté, but we often suffer from similar conceptual confusions. We have our share of phlegm theories, which flatter our intuitions while explaining nothing. They’re compelling, they often convince, but at a deeper level they’re empty.
One corner of science where phlegm theories proliferate is the cognitive neuroscience of consciousness. The brain is a machine that processes information, yet somehow we also have a conscious experience of at least some of that information. How is that possible? What is subjective experience? It’s one of the most important questions in science, possibly the most important, the deepest way of asking: What are we? Yet many of the current proposals, even some that are deep and subtle, are phlegm theories.
The article is here.
Tuesday, March 29, 2016
Planned Parenthood And Fetal Tissue Sale: Manufactured Controversy And The Real Ethical Debate
I. Glenn Cohen
Health Affairs Blog
March 9, 2016
Here is an excerpt:
The Real Debate (We Already Had)
As a bioethicist, what was perhaps most upsetting to me was the way the kabuki political theater obscured the fact that there was a real set of ethical questions to be discussed.
These are questions about complicity. For those who think abortion is seriously wrong, in what ways does the use of tissue from abortion make the user or downstream beneficiary of research complicit in that sin?
This is an interesting question that bioethicists have wrestled with for a long time. But when it comes to law, it is one the law has explicitly resolved in a way that allows fetal tissue use.
As my friend Alta Charo noted in a piece for The Washington Post:
Health Affairs Blog
March 9, 2016
Here is an excerpt:
As a bioethicist, what was perhaps most upsetting to me was the way the kabuki political theater obscured the fact that there was a real set of ethical questions to be discussed.
These are questions about complicity. For those who think abortion is seriously wrong, in what ways does the use of tissue from abortion make the user or downstream beneficiary of research complicit in that sin?
This is an interesting question that bioethicists have wrestled with for a long time. But when it comes to law, it is one the law has explicitly resolved in a way that allows fetal tissue use.
As my friend Alta Charo noted in a piece for The Washington Post:
Fetal tissue research is legal in all but a handful of states, and it has been conducted in the United States, with federal support, for decades, except for a brief moratorium on the use of National Institutes of Health funds in the 1980s. It is regulated by federal law, and was funded by the Clinton, Bush 43, and Obama administrations, most recently to the tune of about $76 million per year.The blog post is here.
Monday, March 28, 2016
Taking Ethics Seriously: By Setting Up Board Committees?
Dina Medland
Forbes.com
Originally published March 9, 2016
Here is an excerpt:
However, the report does not recommend that all companies should form a committee. “While the need for more detailed oversight may favor the creation of a committee, there is a risk of the board’s own responsibilities being diluted – and of unnecessary overlap with other committees. What remains critical is that boards address the issues of ethics and values in the context of their approach to risk oversight, even when they do not have a committee”, it says.
One could argue that the creation of a committee in a boardroom is in fact a death knell to a broader discussion of the issue of company culture – which surely includes creating attitudes to corporate values, sustainability and realistic profit targets from an ethical base implicit in the business plan.
The article is here.
Forbes.com
Originally published March 9, 2016
Here is an excerpt:
However, the report does not recommend that all companies should form a committee. “While the need for more detailed oversight may favor the creation of a committee, there is a risk of the board’s own responsibilities being diluted – and of unnecessary overlap with other committees. What remains critical is that boards address the issues of ethics and values in the context of their approach to risk oversight, even when they do not have a committee”, it says.
One could argue that the creation of a committee in a boardroom is in fact a death knell to a broader discussion of the issue of company culture – which surely includes creating attitudes to corporate values, sustainability and realistic profit targets from an ethical base implicit in the business plan.
The article is here.
To blame or to forgive?
By Nicola Lacey and Hanna Pickard
Oxford University Blog
Originally published March
What do you do when faced with wrongdoing – do you blame or do you forgive? Especially when confronted with offences that lie on the more severe end of the spectrum and cause terrible psychological or physical trauma or death, nothing can feel more natural than to blame. Indeed, in the UK and the US, increasingly vehement and righteous public expressions of blame and calls for vengeance are commonplace; correspondingly, contemporary penal philosophy has witnessed a resurgence of the retributive tradition, in the modern form usually known as the ‘just deserts’ model.
But if we stop to think about it, this criminal justice practice stands in contrast to significant features of our everyday moral practices. People can and routinely do forgive others, even in cases of severe crime. Evolutionary psychologists have argued that both vengeance and forgiveness are universal human adaptations that have evolved as alternative responses to exploitation, and, crucially, strategies for reducing risk of re-offending. We are naturally endowed with both capacities: to blame and retaliate, or to forgive and seek to repair relations. We have a choice. Which should we choose?
The blog post is here.
Oxford University Blog
Originally published March
What do you do when faced with wrongdoing – do you blame or do you forgive? Especially when confronted with offences that lie on the more severe end of the spectrum and cause terrible psychological or physical trauma or death, nothing can feel more natural than to blame. Indeed, in the UK and the US, increasingly vehement and righteous public expressions of blame and calls for vengeance are commonplace; correspondingly, contemporary penal philosophy has witnessed a resurgence of the retributive tradition, in the modern form usually known as the ‘just deserts’ model.
But if we stop to think about it, this criminal justice practice stands in contrast to significant features of our everyday moral practices. People can and routinely do forgive others, even in cases of severe crime. Evolutionary psychologists have argued that both vengeance and forgiveness are universal human adaptations that have evolved as alternative responses to exploitation, and, crucially, strategies for reducing risk of re-offending. We are naturally endowed with both capacities: to blame and retaliate, or to forgive and seek to repair relations. We have a choice. Which should we choose?
The blog post is here.
Sunday, March 27, 2016
Reversing the legacy of junk science in the courtroom
By Kelly Servick
Science Magazine
Originally published March 7, 2016
Here is an excerpt:
Testing examiner accuracy using known samples can give the judge or jury a sense of general error rates in a field, but it can’t describe the level of uncertainty around a specific piece of evidence. Right now, only DNA identification includes that measure of uncertainty. (DNA analyses are based on 13 genetic variants, or alleles, that are statistically independent, and known to vary widely among individuals.) Mixtures of genetic material from multiple people can complicate the analysis, but DNA profiling is “a relatively easy statistical problem to solve,” says Nicholas Petraco, an applied mathematician at City University of New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City. Pattern evidence doesn’t operate under the same rules, he says. “What’s an allele on a tool mark?”; “What’s an allele on a hair or fiber?”
The article is here.
Note: This article addresses evidence such as fingerprints, that can have error. What does this say about neurological or psychological "evidence" in terms of accuracy, validity, and reliability?
Science Magazine
Originally published March 7, 2016
Here is an excerpt:
Testing examiner accuracy using known samples can give the judge or jury a sense of general error rates in a field, but it can’t describe the level of uncertainty around a specific piece of evidence. Right now, only DNA identification includes that measure of uncertainty. (DNA analyses are based on 13 genetic variants, or alleles, that are statistically independent, and known to vary widely among individuals.) Mixtures of genetic material from multiple people can complicate the analysis, but DNA profiling is “a relatively easy statistical problem to solve,” says Nicholas Petraco, an applied mathematician at City University of New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City. Pattern evidence doesn’t operate under the same rules, he says. “What’s an allele on a tool mark?”; “What’s an allele on a hair or fiber?”
The article is here.
Note: This article addresses evidence such as fingerprints, that can have error. What does this say about neurological or psychological "evidence" in terms of accuracy, validity, and reliability?
Saturday, March 26, 2016
How our bias toward the future can cloud our moral judgment
By Agnieszka Jaroslawska
The Conversation
Originally published March 7, 2016
Here are two excerpts:
It may seem illogical, but research has confirmed that people have markedly different reactions to misdemeanours that have already happened to those that are going to happen in the future. We tend to judge future crimes to be more deliberate, less moral, and more deserving of punishment than equivalent transgressions in the past. Technically speaking, we exhibit “temporal asymmetries” in moral judgements.
(cut)
Research suggests that people rely on their emotions when making judgements of fairness and morality. When emotions run high, judgements are more extreme than when reactions are weak.
The article is here.
The Conversation
Originally published March 7, 2016
Here are two excerpts:
It may seem illogical, but research has confirmed that people have markedly different reactions to misdemeanours that have already happened to those that are going to happen in the future. We tend to judge future crimes to be more deliberate, less moral, and more deserving of punishment than equivalent transgressions in the past. Technically speaking, we exhibit “temporal asymmetries” in moral judgements.
(cut)
Research suggests that people rely on their emotions when making judgements of fairness and morality. When emotions run high, judgements are more extreme than when reactions are weak.
The article is here.
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