Ethical

Physicians Consider Self-Prescribing Ethical

Most physicians consider writing a prescription for themselves "ethical," but only about half see it as "healthy," and few consider it "necessary". Medical student Robert Wroblewski and others at the University of Minnesota, Duluth, surveyed 300 urban and rural physicians to determine general attitudes towards self-prescription. An earlier study had indicated that about half of all residents pres...

Ruling On Non Disclosure Of HIV Positive Status Is Not Ethical

You may expect your partner to inform you of his/her HIV status, but as far as law goes, you don't have a legal stand on this. Even horrifying is the fact that you have to rely on the quality of condom to protect you // from the virus. The Wellington District Court, New Zealand, dismissed the charges of criminal nuisance against Justin Dalley, who was charged with criminal nuisance aft...

Economic and Ethical disparities hinder cervical cancer screening

Professor Geetanjali Dabral Datta and her research team from Harvard School of Public Health, Boston has found social disparities occur in cervical cancer screening for women.// Cervical cancer can be detected early by Pap smear test, which proves to be a very useful and sensitive test for early detection of cervical cancer and early cervical cancer is easily curable compared to late stage cancer...

Marketing of Low Tar Cigarette Brand by BAT Unethical

An online study published in the Lancet has revealed how British American Tobacco (BAT), a leading cigarette manufacturer has been adopting a strategy to mask the toxicity of the manufactured cigarettes. // In an audit conducted to review the internal documents of the company by Canadian researchers, it has been found that the cigarettes actually delivered elevated levels of tar and ni...

Waiting for Trial Results Sometimes Unethical

Waiting for the results of randomised trials of public health interventions can cost hundreds of lives, especially in poor countries. Researchers// in this week’s BMJ argue that, if the science is good, we should act before the trials are done. Randomised controlled trials are usually required before new interventions are implemented. But in 2003, the BMJ published an article about th...

Dartmouth Professor Makes Case for Ethically Universal Stem Cell Lines

Human embryonic stem cells (hESC), those very young cells that are a biological blank slate, have the potential to become more specialized, contributing to the workings of a wide variety of organs and tissues. Their potential to treat diseases such as Parkinsons is slow to be realized because of the ongoing ethical debate over harvesting hESCs, a process called deriving hESC lines. Additionally,...

IVF Tourism Marred by Ethical Differences in EU

There should be a basic set of standards among the European Union countries regarding the IVF tourism some experts believe. There needs to be reduced legal differences between countries that are encouraging reproductive tourism." The term 'reproductive tourism' refers to people travelling to countries other than their own for fertility treatments because it may be cheaper or easie...

Gardasil Could Be Effective, but Aggressive Marketing Raises Ethical Concerns

Mercks Gardasil does show real promise for reducing HPV infection in women. Given the increasingly permissive ways of the West , the human papilloma virus is a looming danger and one has to go all out to fight cervical cancer. But the multi-million marketing by the multi-national drug manufacturer has made experts uneasy. To give the impression that it could completely elim...