By Beatrice Brown A recent BMJ article has exposed ethical concerns with the informed consent process in the World Health Organization’s (WHO) large, randomized cluster trial of the world’s first licensed malaria vaccine, RTS,S, known as Mosquirix. The study is being conducted in Malawi, Ghana, and Kenya, and 720,000 children will receive the vaccine. The…
By Alexa Richardson Informed consent in childbirth is under fire by advocates, who stress that there is a widespread absence of meaningful informed consent during birth. While informed consent in medical settings always poses challenges, informed consent in childbirth raises particular concerns. Labor unfolds in real-time, and people are heavily reliant on their provider for…
By Beatrice Brown On December 3, The New York Times broke shocking news: China has been using the DNA of Uighurs, a Muslim minority group who have been facing increased persecution, to create an image of a person’s face using a process called DNA phenotyping. The Uighur men were living in Tumxuk (a city in…
By Beatrice Brown On September 10, 2019, the Joint Committee on Judiciary at the Massachusetts State House heard testimony regarding House Bill 3388 and Senate Bill 843, “An Act Improving Medical Decision Making.” The Massachusetts Medical Society (MMS) was among those testifying in favor of the act. As noted by MMS, Massachusetts is one of…
By Alexa Richardson A new study indicates that 28.1% of women birthing in U.S. hospitals experienced mistreatment by providers during labor, with rates even higher for women of color. The multi-stakeholder study, convened in response to World Health Organization efforts to track maternal mistreatment, included more than 2,000 participants, and defined mistreatment as including one…
A case of sensitive health news delivered via telemedicine incites questions about the use of technology in critical care conversations.
Spring of 2019 brought flowers, showers, and many updates on fertility fraud cases across the country.
We should resist the temptation of letting memories of Nazi war crimes lead us to a false story about the origin of human subject research regulation in the United States.
Our current digital moment is rife with risks. Yet, a broader view shows that this moment represents a powerful opportunity.
In the next 200 years, at least 20 billion people will die — and the issue of how best to manage their posthumous medical records is unclear.
