By Brad Wolverton
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Originally published October 24, 2014
She was everywhere, and seemingly everyone’s friend, a compassionate do-gooder who worked long hours with underprepared students while balancing several jobs, including directing a center on ethics.
On Wednesday the world learned something else about Jeanette M. Boxill: Her own ethics were malleable.
Most of the blame fell on Julius E. Nyang’oro, a former department chair at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and his longtime assistant, Deborah Crowder, after they were identified as the chief architects of a widespread academic scandal there.
The entire story is here.
Wednesday, November 12, 2014
Tuesday, November 11, 2014
Human-subjects research: The ethics squad
By Elie Golgin
Nature
Originally published October 21, 2014
Here is an excerpt:
Ethical dilemmas in research are nothing new; what is new is that scientists can go to formal ethics consultancies such as Silber's to get advice. Unlike the standard way that scientists receive ethical guidance, through institutional review boards (IRBs), these services offer non-binding counsel. And because they do not form part of the regulatory process, they can weigh in on a wider range of issues — from mundane matters of informed consent and study protocol to controversial topics such as the use of experimental Ebola treatments — and offer more creative solutions.
The consulting services are “a really new area”, says Joshua Crites, a research ethicist at the Pennsylvania State College of Medicine in Hershey. “Even some of the most basic questions get complicated really quickly, and it's better to have a group of ethicists working together to sort this out.”
The entire article is here.
Nature
Originally published October 21, 2014
Here is an excerpt:
Ethical dilemmas in research are nothing new; what is new is that scientists can go to formal ethics consultancies such as Silber's to get advice. Unlike the standard way that scientists receive ethical guidance, through institutional review boards (IRBs), these services offer non-binding counsel. And because they do not form part of the regulatory process, they can weigh in on a wider range of issues — from mundane matters of informed consent and study protocol to controversial topics such as the use of experimental Ebola treatments — and offer more creative solutions.
The consulting services are “a really new area”, says Joshua Crites, a research ethicist at the Pennsylvania State College of Medicine in Hershey. “Even some of the most basic questions get complicated really quickly, and it's better to have a group of ethicists working together to sort this out.”
The entire article is here.
Researchers retract bogus, Dr. Oz-touted study on green coffee bean weight-loss pills
By Abby Phillip
The Washington Post
Originally published October 22, 2014
Researchers have retracted a bogus study that was used by a company to validate weight-loss claims for green coffee bean pills, one of several questionable supplements being scrutinized by federal regulators.
The study, which was conducted in India but written by researchers from the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania, initially claimed that people who used the supplement lost 16 percent of their body fat (about about 18 pounds each) with or without diet and exercise.
The entire story is here.
The Washington Post
Originally published October 22, 2014
Researchers have retracted a bogus study that was used by a company to validate weight-loss claims for green coffee bean pills, one of several questionable supplements being scrutinized by federal regulators.
The study, which was conducted in India but written by researchers from the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania, initially claimed that people who used the supplement lost 16 percent of their body fat (about about 18 pounds each) with or without diet and exercise.
The entire story is here.
Monday, November 10, 2014
U.S Troops and Patients Were Used as Malaria Guinea Pigs
By Bill Briggs
NBC News
Tens of thousands of mental patients and troops unknowingly became malaria test subjects during the 1940s — part of a secret federal rush to cure a dread disease and win a world war, according to a book published Tuesday that exposes vast, previously unknown breaches of medical ethics.
“The Malaria Project” — operating via the same covert White House machinery that drove the Manhattan Project — tasked doctors with removing malaria from naturally exposed U.S. troops then injecting those strains into people with syphilis and schizophrenia, reports author Karen Masterson, who researched files at the National Archives.
Some details of the project have been previously reported, but the book's new revelations renew debate over the ethics of using unsuspecting people as test subjects — similar to the Tuskegee Syphilis Study on low-income black men.
The entire story is here.
NBC News
Tens of thousands of mental patients and troops unknowingly became malaria test subjects during the 1940s — part of a secret federal rush to cure a dread disease and win a world war, according to a book published Tuesday that exposes vast, previously unknown breaches of medical ethics.
“The Malaria Project” — operating via the same covert White House machinery that drove the Manhattan Project — tasked doctors with removing malaria from naturally exposed U.S. troops then injecting those strains into people with syphilis and schizophrenia, reports author Karen Masterson, who researched files at the National Archives.
Some details of the project have been previously reported, but the book's new revelations renew debate over the ethics of using unsuspecting people as test subjects — similar to the Tuskegee Syphilis Study on low-income black men.
The entire story is here.
More Insurers Put Spending Limits On Medical Treatments
By Michelle Andrews
NPR
Originally published October 21, 2014
To clamp down on health care costs, a growing number of employers and insurers are putting limits on how much they'll pay for certain medical services such as knee replacements, lab tests and complex imaging.
A recent study found that savings from such moves may be modest, however, and some analysts question whether "reference pricing," as it's called, is good for consumers.
The California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS), which administers the health insurance benefits for 1.4 million state workers, retirees and their families, has one of the more established reference pricing systems.
The entire article is here.
NPR
Originally published October 21, 2014
To clamp down on health care costs, a growing number of employers and insurers are putting limits on how much they'll pay for certain medical services such as knee replacements, lab tests and complex imaging.
A recent study found that savings from such moves may be modest, however, and some analysts question whether "reference pricing," as it's called, is good for consumers.
The California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS), which administers the health insurance benefits for 1.4 million state workers, retirees and their families, has one of the more established reference pricing systems.
The entire article is here.
Sunday, November 9, 2014
Why it matters whether you believe in free will
By Rebecca Roache
Practical Ethics Blog
Originally published May 23, 2013
Scientific discoveries about how our behaviour is causally influenced often prompt the question of whether we have free will (for a general discussion, see here). This month, for example, the psychologist and criminologist Adrian Raine has been promoting his new book, The Anatomy of Violence, in which he argues that there are neuroscientific explanations of the behaviour of violent criminals. He argues that these explanations might be taken into account during sentencing, since they show that such criminals cannot control their violent behaviour to the same extent that (relatively) non-violent people can, and therefore that these criminals have reduced moral responsibility for their crimes. Our criminal justice system, along with our conceptions of praise and blame, and moral responsibility more generally, all presuppose that we have free will. If science can reveal it to be an illusion, some of the most fundamental features of our society are undermined.
The entire article is here.
Practical Ethics Blog
Originally published May 23, 2013
Scientific discoveries about how our behaviour is causally influenced often prompt the question of whether we have free will (for a general discussion, see here). This month, for example, the psychologist and criminologist Adrian Raine has been promoting his new book, The Anatomy of Violence, in which he argues that there are neuroscientific explanations of the behaviour of violent criminals. He argues that these explanations might be taken into account during sentencing, since they show that such criminals cannot control their violent behaviour to the same extent that (relatively) non-violent people can, and therefore that these criminals have reduced moral responsibility for their crimes. Our criminal justice system, along with our conceptions of praise and blame, and moral responsibility more generally, all presuppose that we have free will. If science can reveal it to be an illusion, some of the most fundamental features of our society are undermined.
The entire article is here.
Saturday, November 8, 2014
Why Doctors need Stories
By Peter D. Kramer
The New York Times
Originally published October 18, 2014
Here is an excerpt:
I have long felt isolated in this position, embracing stories, which is why I warm to the possibility that the vignette is making a comeback. This summer, Oxford University Press began publishing a journal devoted to case reports. And this month, in an unusual move, the New England Journal of Medicine, the field’s bellwether, opened an issue with a case history involving a troubled mother, daughter and grandson. The contributors write: “Data are important, of course, but numbers sometimes imply an order to what is happening that can be misleading. Stories are better at capturing a different type of ‘big picture.’ ”
Stories capture small pictures, too. I’m thinking of the anxious older man given Zoloft. That narrative has power.
The entire article is here.
The New York Times
Originally published October 18, 2014
Here is an excerpt:
I have long felt isolated in this position, embracing stories, which is why I warm to the possibility that the vignette is making a comeback. This summer, Oxford University Press began publishing a journal devoted to case reports. And this month, in an unusual move, the New England Journal of Medicine, the field’s bellwether, opened an issue with a case history involving a troubled mother, daughter and grandson. The contributors write: “Data are important, of course, but numbers sometimes imply an order to what is happening that can be misleading. Stories are better at capturing a different type of ‘big picture.’ ”
Stories capture small pictures, too. I’m thinking of the anxious older man given Zoloft. That narrative has power.
The entire article is here.
Friday, November 7, 2014
‘Science is our best answer, but it takes a philosophical argument to prove that’
By Andrew Anthony
The Guardian
Originally published October 18, 2014
For some time now the discipline of philosophy has been under something of an assault from the world of science. Four years ago Stephen Hawking announced that philosophy was “dead”. He was referring specifically to the philosophy of science, which he said was still bogged down in epistemological questions from which science had moved on.
But philosophy in general has increasingly been viewed as irrelevant by many scientists. It’s a perspective that may be best summed up by the cosmologist Lawrence M Krauss, who has said: “science progresses and philosophy doesn’t”.
What’s more, science has begun to progress into areas previously occupied by philosophy and the humanities at large. These incursions have not gone unchallenged.
The entire article is here.
The Guardian
Originally published October 18, 2014
For some time now the discipline of philosophy has been under something of an assault from the world of science. Four years ago Stephen Hawking announced that philosophy was “dead”. He was referring specifically to the philosophy of science, which he said was still bogged down in epistemological questions from which science had moved on.
But philosophy in general has increasingly been viewed as irrelevant by many scientists. It’s a perspective that may be best summed up by the cosmologist Lawrence M Krauss, who has said: “science progresses and philosophy doesn’t”.
What’s more, science has begun to progress into areas previously occupied by philosophy and the humanities at large. These incursions have not gone unchallenged.
The entire article is here.
Why isn't everyone an evolutionary psychologist?
By Darren Burke
Front. Psychol., 27 August 2014
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00910
Despite a widespread acceptance that the brain that underpins human psychology is the result of biological evolution, very few psychologists in any way incorporate an evolutionary perspective in their research or practice. There have been many attempts to convince mainstream psychology of the importance of such a perspective, mostly from those who identify with “Evolutionary Psychology,” and there has certainly been progress in that direction, but the core of psychology remains essentially unevolutionary. Here I explore a number of potential reasons for mainstream psychology continuing to ignore or resist an evolutionary approach, and suggest some ways in which those of us interested in seeing an increase in the proportion of psychologists adopting an evolutionary perspective might need to modify our tactics to increase our chances of success.
If we assume that very few highly educated people don't believe in biological evolution (which is a fairly safe assumption), then it follows that the vast majority of scientifically oriented psychologists, and psychology researchers believe that the neural mechanisms that underpin our psychological abilities and propensities are the product of evolution—of natural, kin, and sexual selection. It is puzzling, therefore, that there is not a more widespread acceptance of the importance of an evolutionarily informed approach in our science.
The entire article is here.
Front. Psychol., 27 August 2014
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00910
Despite a widespread acceptance that the brain that underpins human psychology is the result of biological evolution, very few psychologists in any way incorporate an evolutionary perspective in their research or practice. There have been many attempts to convince mainstream psychology of the importance of such a perspective, mostly from those who identify with “Evolutionary Psychology,” and there has certainly been progress in that direction, but the core of psychology remains essentially unevolutionary. Here I explore a number of potential reasons for mainstream psychology continuing to ignore or resist an evolutionary approach, and suggest some ways in which those of us interested in seeing an increase in the proportion of psychologists adopting an evolutionary perspective might need to modify our tactics to increase our chances of success.
If we assume that very few highly educated people don't believe in biological evolution (which is a fairly safe assumption), then it follows that the vast majority of scientifically oriented psychologists, and psychology researchers believe that the neural mechanisms that underpin our psychological abilities and propensities are the product of evolution—of natural, kin, and sexual selection. It is puzzling, therefore, that there is not a more widespread acceptance of the importance of an evolutionarily informed approach in our science.
The entire article is here.
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