Science News
August 7, 2018
Currently, research on embryos is limited in many countries to a maximum period of 14 days after their fertilisation in the lab.
But ethicists Dr John Appleby of Lancaster University with Professor Dr Annelien Bredenoord of University Medical Center Utrecht believe the current limit is "no longer adequate for current scientific developments."
Dr Appleby and Professor Dr Bredenoord said: "The 14 day rule has been a very successful example of international science regulation, but it should not become a dogma in itself and it should be revisited when no longer fit to purpose."
Until recently, scientists have not been able to culture and sustain embryos in vitro as long as (or beyond) 14 days but this has now changed.
"There are both scientific and ethical reasons to extent the 14 day rule to for example 28 days. Extending the window for embryo research to 28 days would allow scientists to reveal a new in-depth chapter of knowledge about the developmental processes that take place in embryos."
The info is here.
Tuesday, August 21, 2018
Ethical Concerns Raised by Illicit Human Experiments
David Tereshchuk
Religion and Ethics - PBS.org
Originally posted July 16, 2018
Institutional regulation in science – including medical science – is undergoing one of its periodic assaults by proponents of greater freedom in research. These proponents argue (most of them in entirely good faith, I should stress) that experimentation is often needlessly hampered by too much official control. Formal constraints, they say, can cramp the kind of spontaneous improvisation that leads to unexpected, sometime spectacular, breakthroughs.
As reported by Marisa Taylor of Kaiser Health News, it has been revealed that the federal Food and Drug Administration (who won’t officially confirm this) is pursuing criminal inquiries into an egregious case of medical experimentation – conducted illicitly in off-shore locations and in hotel rooms on American soil.
The procedures under investigation were self-styled drug ‘trials’ – apparently a last-ditch effort by a university professor of microbiology, William Halford who – knowing he was dying from an incurable cancer – evidently threw both professional caution and ethics to the winds. He embarked hell-bent on a test-program for a herpes vaccine he’d invented, but for which he hadn’t gained FDA approval – a program that involved injecting it into human subjects.
The information is here.
Religion and Ethics - PBS.org
Originally posted July 16, 2018
Institutional regulation in science – including medical science – is undergoing one of its periodic assaults by proponents of greater freedom in research. These proponents argue (most of them in entirely good faith, I should stress) that experimentation is often needlessly hampered by too much official control. Formal constraints, they say, can cramp the kind of spontaneous improvisation that leads to unexpected, sometime spectacular, breakthroughs.
As reported by Marisa Taylor of Kaiser Health News, it has been revealed that the federal Food and Drug Administration (who won’t officially confirm this) is pursuing criminal inquiries into an egregious case of medical experimentation – conducted illicitly in off-shore locations and in hotel rooms on American soil.
The procedures under investigation were self-styled drug ‘trials’ – apparently a last-ditch effort by a university professor of microbiology, William Halford who – knowing he was dying from an incurable cancer – evidently threw both professional caution and ethics to the winds. He embarked hell-bent on a test-program for a herpes vaccine he’d invented, but for which he hadn’t gained FDA approval – a program that involved injecting it into human subjects.
The information is here.
Monday, August 20, 2018
Ethics and the pursuit of artificial intelligence
Daniel Wagner
South China Morning Post
Originally posted August 6, 2018
So many businesses and governments are scurrying to get into the artificial intelligence (AI) race that many appear to be losing sight of some important things that should matter along the way – such as legality, good governance, and ethics.
In the AI arena the stakes are extremely high and it is quickly becoming a free-for-all from data acquisition to the stealing of corporate and state secrets. The “rules of the road” are either being addressed along the way or not at all, since the legal regime governing who can do what to whom, and how, is either wholly inadequate or simply does not exist. As is the case in the cyber world, the law is well behind the curve.
Ethical questions abound with AI systems, raising questions about how machines recognise and process values and ethical paradigms. AI is certainly not unique among emerging technologies in creating ethical quandaries, but ethical questions in AI research and development present unique challenges in that they ask us to consider whether, when, and how machines should make decisions about human lives – and whose values should guide those decisions.
In a world filled with unintended consequences, will our collectively shared values fall by the wayside in an effort to reach AI supremacy? Will the notion of human accountability eventually disappear in an AI-dominated world? Could the commercial AI landscape evolve into a winner takes all arena in which only one firm or machine is left standing?
The information is here.
South China Morning Post
Originally posted August 6, 2018
So many businesses and governments are scurrying to get into the artificial intelligence (AI) race that many appear to be losing sight of some important things that should matter along the way – such as legality, good governance, and ethics.
In the AI arena the stakes are extremely high and it is quickly becoming a free-for-all from data acquisition to the stealing of corporate and state secrets. The “rules of the road” are either being addressed along the way or not at all, since the legal regime governing who can do what to whom, and how, is either wholly inadequate or simply does not exist. As is the case in the cyber world, the law is well behind the curve.
Ethical questions abound with AI systems, raising questions about how machines recognise and process values and ethical paradigms. AI is certainly not unique among emerging technologies in creating ethical quandaries, but ethical questions in AI research and development present unique challenges in that they ask us to consider whether, when, and how machines should make decisions about human lives – and whose values should guide those decisions.
In a world filled with unintended consequences, will our collectively shared values fall by the wayside in an effort to reach AI supremacy? Will the notion of human accountability eventually disappear in an AI-dominated world? Could the commercial AI landscape evolve into a winner takes all arena in which only one firm or machine is left standing?
The information is here.
Massachusetts allows school to continue with electric shocks
Jeffrey Delfin
theguardian.com
Originally posted July 12, 2108
Here is an excerpt:
The device is not used in what we might call “electroshock therapy” – where small shocks are passed through the brain under anesthesia. Rather, the GED is used as a variation of “aversive conditioning”, in which negative stimulation is applied to a patient when he or she performs an unwanted action. The patient is awake, and feeling pain is the point of the shock.
The GED, when activated, outputs an electric shock that is distributed to the patient’s skin for up to two seconds. Students wear a backpack containing the shocking device, with electrodes constantly affixed to their skin. Staff are able to shock students at any point during the day. Previous attendees at JRC have spoken of up to five electrodes being attached to their bodies. One, Jen Msumba, who blogs about her time at the facility, said electrodes were applied under their fingers or the bottom of their feet to increase the pain.
“We’ve all experienced aversive conditioning. We touch the stove while it’s still hot, it hurts, then we become very cautious about touching it,” says Dr Jean Mercer, the leader of the group Advocates for Children in Therapy, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to ending harmful practices for treating children’s mental health.
The information is here.
theguardian.com
Originally posted July 12, 2108
Here is an excerpt:
The device is not used in what we might call “electroshock therapy” – where small shocks are passed through the brain under anesthesia. Rather, the GED is used as a variation of “aversive conditioning”, in which negative stimulation is applied to a patient when he or she performs an unwanted action. The patient is awake, and feeling pain is the point of the shock.
The GED, when activated, outputs an electric shock that is distributed to the patient’s skin for up to two seconds. Students wear a backpack containing the shocking device, with electrodes constantly affixed to their skin. Staff are able to shock students at any point during the day. Previous attendees at JRC have spoken of up to five electrodes being attached to their bodies. One, Jen Msumba, who blogs about her time at the facility, said electrodes were applied under their fingers or the bottom of their feet to increase the pain.
“We’ve all experienced aversive conditioning. We touch the stove while it’s still hot, it hurts, then we become very cautious about touching it,” says Dr Jean Mercer, the leader of the group Advocates for Children in Therapy, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to ending harmful practices for treating children’s mental health.
The information is here.
Sunday, August 19, 2018
Druggists Shouldn't Act as Morality Police
The Editors
Scientific American
Originally published July 18, 2018
Here is an excerpt:
In states with conscience carve-outs for pharmacists, pharmacies honoring those policies should be required to preemptively notify state authorities and medical providers that they might refuse service.
That way, women and their doctors could make alternative arrangements to fill prescriptions at pharmacies that will give them the medications they need —avoiding situations like the recent one in Arizona. (This follows a model worked out in 2014, when the Supreme Court told the Obama administration that employers with moral objections did not have to offer an insurance plan with birth control coverage. But such employers did have to notify the Department of Health and Human Services so the government and insurers could provide birth control coverage via a private insurance plan or a government-sponsored one.)
And in situations where individual pharmacists may refuse service—even if their pharmacies generally fill family-planning prescriptions—there should be a legal requirement to automatically refer that prescription to another pharmacy within a certain reasonable distance or to have a backup pharmacist on call to do the work so that patients can get medications quickly and efficiently.
The information is here.
Scientific American
Originally published July 18, 2018
Here is an excerpt:
In states with conscience carve-outs for pharmacists, pharmacies honoring those policies should be required to preemptively notify state authorities and medical providers that they might refuse service.
That way, women and their doctors could make alternative arrangements to fill prescriptions at pharmacies that will give them the medications they need —avoiding situations like the recent one in Arizona. (This follows a model worked out in 2014, when the Supreme Court told the Obama administration that employers with moral objections did not have to offer an insurance plan with birth control coverage. But such employers did have to notify the Department of Health and Human Services so the government and insurers could provide birth control coverage via a private insurance plan or a government-sponsored one.)
And in situations where individual pharmacists may refuse service—even if their pharmacies generally fill family-planning prescriptions—there should be a legal requirement to automatically refer that prescription to another pharmacy within a certain reasonable distance or to have a backup pharmacist on call to do the work so that patients can get medications quickly and efficiently.
The information is here.
Saturday, August 18, 2018
Rationalization is rational
Fiery CushmanPreprint
Uploaded July 18, 2018
Abstract
Rationalization occurs when a person has performed an action and then concoct the beliefs and desires that would have made it rational. Then, people often adjust their own beliefs and desires to match the concocted ones. While many studies demonstrate rationalization, and a few theories identify its underlying cognitive mechanisms, we have little understanding of its its function. Why is the mind designed to construct post hoc rationalizations of its behavior, and then to adopt them? This design may accomplish an important task: to transfer information between the many different processes and representations that influence our behavior. Human decision-making does not rely on a single process; it is influenced by reason, habit, instincts, cultural norms and so on. Several of the processes that influence our behavior are not organized according to rational choice (i.e., maximizing desires conditioned on belief). Thus, rationalization extracts implicit information—true beliefs and useful desires—from the influence of these non-rational systems on behavior. This is not a process of self-perception as traditionally conceived, in which one infers the hidden contents of unconscious reasons. Rather, it is a useful fiction. It is a fiction because it imputes reason to non-rational psychological processes; it is useful because it can improve subsequent reasoning. More generally, rationalization is one example of broader class of “representational exchange” mechanisms, which transfer of information between many different psychological processes that guide our behavior. This perspective reveals connections to theory of mind, inverse reinforcement learning, and reflective equilibrium.
The paper is here.
Asking patients why they engaged in a behavior is another example of useful fiction. Dr. Cushman suggests psychologists ask: What made that worth doing?
Friday, August 17, 2018
Ethical Dimensions of Caring Well for Dying Patients
Ilana Stol
AMA Journal of Ethics
2018;20(8):E678-682.
Dying is a uniquely individual yet deeply shared and universal experience; it profoundly impacts perceptions of culture, personhood, and identity. For many Americans, it is also an experience widely discrepant from the one they want and envision for themselves and their loved ones. Over the past decade, there has been growing awareness of the incongruence between the way Americans say they want to die and how they actually do. But while most would agree that this reality is not the ideal that clinicians or patients strive for, what is less agreed upon is what the roles of clinicians and patients should be in defining what actually constitutes dying and good care of dying people. What do patients and clinicians need to know about dying and care at the end of life? What barriers exist to accessing and employing this knowledge in the face of difficult decisions?
To best answer these questions, it is useful to examine the social structures and supports already in place for end-of-life care and to understand how they are being utilized. To begin with, hospital palliative care programs are expanding rapidly in order to meet the physical and emotional needs of patients with serious or terminal illness. Robust evidence now exists demonstrating that early palliative care improves the dying experience for both patients and families while generally reducing health care costs and potentially prolonging survival. Despite these facts, there is significant variation in physician practice in the care of patients at the end of life and a general consensus that palliative and hospice care are underutilized by physicians.
The information is here.
AMA Journal of Ethics
2018;20(8):E678-682.
Dying is a uniquely individual yet deeply shared and universal experience; it profoundly impacts perceptions of culture, personhood, and identity. For many Americans, it is also an experience widely discrepant from the one they want and envision for themselves and their loved ones. Over the past decade, there has been growing awareness of the incongruence between the way Americans say they want to die and how they actually do. But while most would agree that this reality is not the ideal that clinicians or patients strive for, what is less agreed upon is what the roles of clinicians and patients should be in defining what actually constitutes dying and good care of dying people. What do patients and clinicians need to know about dying and care at the end of life? What barriers exist to accessing and employing this knowledge in the face of difficult decisions?
To best answer these questions, it is useful to examine the social structures and supports already in place for end-of-life care and to understand how they are being utilized. To begin with, hospital palliative care programs are expanding rapidly in order to meet the physical and emotional needs of patients with serious or terminal illness. Robust evidence now exists demonstrating that early palliative care improves the dying experience for both patients and families while generally reducing health care costs and potentially prolonging survival. Despite these facts, there is significant variation in physician practice in the care of patients at the end of life and a general consensus that palliative and hospice care are underutilized by physicians.
The information is here.
Genetically modified babies given go ahead by UK ethics body
Ian Sample
The Guardian
Originally posted July 17, 2018
The creation of babies whose DNA has been altered to give them what parents perceive to be the best chances in life has received a cautious green light in a landmark report from a leading UK ethics body.
The Nuffield Council on Bioethics said that changing the DNA of a human embryo could be “morally permissible” if it was in the future child’s interests and did not add to the kinds of inequalities that already divide society.
The report does not call for a change in UK law to permit genetically altered babies, but instead urges research into the safety and effectiveness of the approach, its societal impact, and a widespread debate of its implications.
“It is our view that genome editing is not morally unacceptable in itself,” said Karen Yeung, chair of the Nuffield working group and professor of law, ethics and informatics at the University of Birmingham. “There is no reason to rule it out in principle.”
The info is here.
The Guardian
Originally posted July 17, 2018
The creation of babies whose DNA has been altered to give them what parents perceive to be the best chances in life has received a cautious green light in a landmark report from a leading UK ethics body.
The Nuffield Council on Bioethics said that changing the DNA of a human embryo could be “morally permissible” if it was in the future child’s interests and did not add to the kinds of inequalities that already divide society.
The report does not call for a change in UK law to permit genetically altered babies, but instead urges research into the safety and effectiveness of the approach, its societal impact, and a widespread debate of its implications.
“It is our view that genome editing is not morally unacceptable in itself,” said Karen Yeung, chair of the Nuffield working group and professor of law, ethics and informatics at the University of Birmingham. “There is no reason to rule it out in principle.”
The info is here.
Thursday, August 16, 2018
Series of ethical stumbles tests NIH’s reliance on private sector for research funding
Lev Facher
STAT News
Originally published August 1, 2018
Here is an excerpt:
Now, the NIH is seeking to bounce back from the hit to its reputation — and to demonstrate that the failures of recent years are isolated incidents and not emblematic of a broader cultural problem. At the same time, some congressional aides have hinted at more aggressive oversight of the foundation through which the NIH takes on many of its partnerships.
NIH officials told STAT this week the agency is completing a plan to ensure better ethical compliance and better delineate the actual process for private-sector collaboration. The officials said the plan will be presented to an advisory committee in December.
Already, as STAT reported in April, the NIH proactively nixed a long-touted plan to accept roughly $200 million from pharmaceutical manufacturers to pursue research on pain and addiction treatment, with an explicit acknowledgement that involving companies being sued for their role in the crisis could taint the perception of the research.
NIH Director Francis Collins acknowledged the setbacks in an interview with STAT this week, but defended his staff’s efforts.
The info is here.
STAT News
Originally published August 1, 2018
Here is an excerpt:
Now, the NIH is seeking to bounce back from the hit to its reputation — and to demonstrate that the failures of recent years are isolated incidents and not emblematic of a broader cultural problem. At the same time, some congressional aides have hinted at more aggressive oversight of the foundation through which the NIH takes on many of its partnerships.
NIH officials told STAT this week the agency is completing a plan to ensure better ethical compliance and better delineate the actual process for private-sector collaboration. The officials said the plan will be presented to an advisory committee in December.
Already, as STAT reported in April, the NIH proactively nixed a long-touted plan to accept roughly $200 million from pharmaceutical manufacturers to pursue research on pain and addiction treatment, with an explicit acknowledgement that involving companies being sued for their role in the crisis could taint the perception of the research.
NIH Director Francis Collins acknowledged the setbacks in an interview with STAT this week, but defended his staff’s efforts.
The info is here.
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