As of Friday, June 28, this post is closed to further comments. We want to thank the many readers who have engaged in a vigorous and civil discussion on the recent posts to the Bill of Health that engage questions related to the debate over vaccines. In general, we do not moderate discussions on the…
By Laura Stark Institutional Review Boards are in the top news at outlets such as the New York Times, as a research debacle unfolds. I looked through the documents that are publicly available to figure out what happened and what to expect. Researchers at 22 universities or hospitals in the US enrolled premature babies in…
By Michelle Meyer As most readers are probably aware, the past few years have seen considerable media and clinical interest in chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a progressive, neurodegenerative condition linked to, and thought to result from, concussions, blasts, and other forms of brain injury (including, importantly, repeated but milder sub-concussion-level injuries) that can lead to…
By Christopher Robertson I just came across this excellent story by Mina Kimes, which gives a detailed chronicle of how the lines between physician discretion, off-label promotion, and human subjects research can be blurred by an aggressive manufacturer, in a context where life or death is on the line (bone cement used in spine surgery).…
By Christopher Robertson On these pages, Michelle Mello recently posted a discussion of her new article with Lindsey Murtagh, Thomas Gallagher, and Penny Andrew, called “Disclosure-And-Resolution Programs That Include Generous Compensation Offers May Prompt A Complex Patient Response.” In this vignette-based online study, the authors put respondents in clinical scenarios with medical errors, and then added…
By Christopher Robertson New hospital safety scores were released this week, and around the country, those that scored well are crowing (see e.g., here and here). The data is provided by a nonprofit called Leapfrog Group, which compiles survey-responses and CMS data on a website called hospitalsafetyscore.org. Check out your own hospitals. The Leapfrog Group…
By Michele Goodwin Penn State’s former president, Graham Spanier, is the latest person to be charged in the fallout involving Jerry Sandusky’s sexual abuse of boys on the Penn State campus. A year ago, I blogged about Spanier’s curiously timed defense of his former staff members following the horrific allegations involving the former, popular football…
By Katie Kraschel It was an exciting time to attend the annual meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine in San Diego this week. Just before the meeting, ASRM reclassified cryopreservation of oocytes for future use, removing the procedure’s “experimental” label. The possibility of increased uptake of this procedure raises many ethical issues (some…
By Arthur Caplan Art Caplan has a new article out in the Journal of Law, Medicine, and Ethics – “Free to choose but liable for the consequences: should non-vaccinators be penalized for the harm they do?” (subscription required) Here’s the abstract: Can parents who choose not to vaccinate their children be held legally liable for any harm…
by Jonathan J. Darrow On October 3, 2012, the FDA’s Division of Professional Drug Promotion issued an untitled letter to Genentech in connection with its cancer drug Tarceva. Tarceva (erlotinib) was approved in 2004 for the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer, and has since been approved, in combination with Gemzar (gemcitabine), for the treatment…
