The rise of biobanks including the related databases containing increasing amount of health information are now commonplace - found on every continent of the globe including Antarctica common though they may be, legal and ethical issues for collecting, storing and using the associated health/genetic information continue to perplex clinicians, researchers, ...

Reviews the book, The Neuropsychology of Asian Americans edited by Daryl E. M. Fujii (see record 2010-22283-000). The Neuropsychology of Asian Americans fills in an important gap in the existing literature on neuropsychology as it specifically relates to Asian American cultural groups. Each chapter covers one particular Asian or Asian ...

ABSTRACT: In recent years there has been a major change on the part of funders, particularly in North America, so that data sharing is now considered to be the norm rather than the exception. We believe that data sharing is a good idea. However, we also believe that it is ...

The use of client information in clinical writings or presentations may be very helpful in advancing the knowledge base of the profession. Yet, the very act of asking a client for permission to use their treatment information in this way may be detrimental to the therapeutic alliance and treatment process. ...

In 2008 and again in July of this year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued safety communications regarding the use of transvaginally placed surgical mesh. These FDA communications have been the subject of much discussion in the literature. One issue raised by these communications and in the medical ...

A recent increase in legislative initiatives involving specific aspects of the practice of medicine is challenging traditional doctor-patient relationships. A Florida state law prohibiting physicians from asking patients about the presence of guns in the home could potentially result in real harm because of the risk of childhood injuries, domestic ...

In the study reported here, we compared self-reported industry relationships of authors who attended 3 major orthopedic sports medicine conferences during a single calendar year. Our goal was to calculate the variability between disclosure information over time. A significant percentage of authors who attended these meetings were inconsistent in submitting ...

Living donation is becoming increasingly used to help fill the gap between the needs of potential organ recipients and the availability of organs from deceased donors. The last few years has seen a small, but increasing contribution from altruistic (or good Samaritan or nondirected) donors. However, use of organs from ...

SUMMARY:: The incidence of craniopagus twins approximates four to six per 10 million births. Although rare, surgical separation of conjoined twins poses significant technical and ethical challenges. The present report uses the case of craniopagus twins AD and TD to examine the bioethical issues faced by a multidisciplinary medical team ...

Great advances in technology produce unique challenges. Every technology also has a dual use, which needs to be understood and managed to extract maximum benefits for mankind and the development of civilization. The achievements of physicists in the mid-20th century resulted in the nuclear technology, which gave us the destructive ...

We assessed the extent of research ethics approval and informed consent reporting in publications emanating from Cameroon and indexed in PubMed from 2005-2009. In our review of 219 fulllength articles, we found that 57.53% reported ethics approval, 70.78% informed consent, and 50.68% both ethics approval and informed consent. Reporting these ...

ETHICAL ISSUES: Caring for cancer patients presents many ethical issues for veterinarians and other veterinary health workers. The issues that most veterinarians think of relate to management of the patient when the owners' preferences for treatment do not appear to be in the animal's best interest, as well as concerns ...

This article examines the special relation between common morality and particular moralities in the four-principles approach and its use for global ethics. It is argued that the special dialectical relation between common morality and particular moralities is the key to bridging the gap between ethical universalism and relativism. The four-principles ...

This paper defends an 'opt-out' scheme for organ procurement, by distinguishing this system from 'presumed consent' (which the author regards as an erroneous justification of it). It, first, stresses the moral importance of increasing the supply of organs and argues that making donation easier need not conflict with altruism. It ...

An annual technology assessment identifies board influence and rich data collection.

A tailored review of peer-reviewed abstracts presented at the 2010 Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) Annual Meeting was performed following oral presentation. This review will highlight 15 formal and informal scientific paper presentations focusing on three main topics: (1) 3D isotropic MR imaging of joints, (2) diffusion tensor imaging ...

OBJECTIVE: To review ethical standards contained in guidelines to authors of Brazilian scientific journals in several medical specialties and see if there is any standardization available. METHODS: This is an exploratory study evaluating Brazilian scientific journals classified on the Portal of Journals on Health Sciences of the Virtual Health Library ...

In 2010, a National Institutes of Health Consensus Panel and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists issued updated statements on trial of labor after cesarean delivery (TOLAC). This article presents an ethical framework for the informed consent process for TOLAC. Three conclusions are reached. For women with one previous ...

A core principle of American medical ethics holds that an informed and capacitated patient has the right to have treatments withdrawn or withheld. Nevertheless, many clinicians remain reluctant to honor a request to deactivate a patient's pacemaker. This article describes a case in which a patient was denied her request ...

When treating contacts of patients with sexually transmitted infections (STIs), health professionals may face conflicting ethical imperatives. We surveyed middle grade doctors in genitourinary (GU) medicine and asked how they would manage a hypothetical clinical scenario. This was analysed on the basis of principles of respect for autonomy and beneficence/non-maleficence ...

Cells have specific proteins that serve as gatekeepers of information, much as the media serve as gatekeepers of information for society. With examples of DNA damage detection and rapid reporting of tainted meat, the importance of gatekeepers in science and society is illustrated.

To investigate the extent to which authors of cluster randomised trials adhered to two basic requirements of the World Medical Association's Declaration of Helsinki and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors' uniform requirements for manuscripts (namely, reporting of research ethics review and informed consent), to determine whether the adequacy ...

The systematic description and promotion of substitution options and processes is an underdeveloped and often missing element in chemical management and chemical policy discussions. This article describes major barriers and drivers for substitution, and concludes that more specific information can be an essential instrument to overcome those barriers. It also ...

The Toxic Substances Control Act is the principal US law governing industrial chemicals. Over the past three and one half decades, it has become clear that a considerable toxicological information gap exists about chemicals in commerce. The current provisions of the US TSCA law have failed to fill, and perhaps ...

This article addresses the ethical requirements to be considered when conducting clinical trials involving human subjects whose mental condition limits their ability to understand the information and to express fully autonomous and informed consent. It does not address other categories of vulnerable persons, such as children, or advanced directives concerning ...

The third Human Variome Project (HVP) Meeting "Integration and Implementation" was held under UNESCO Patronage in Paris, France, at the UNESCO Headquarters May 10-14, 2010. The major aims of the HVP are the collection, curation, and distribution of all human genetic variation affecting health. The HVP has drawn together disparate ...

After describing Heidegger's critique of metaphysics as ontotheology, I unpack the metaphysical assumptions of several transhumanist philosophers. I claim that they deploy an ontology of power and that they also deploy a kind of theology, as Heidegger meant it. I also describe the way in which this metaphysics begets its ...

More than 1,000 Web-based locus-specific variation databases (LSDBs) are listed on the Website of the Human Genetic Variation Society (HGVS). These individual efforts, which often relate phenotype to genotype, are a valuable source of information for clinicians, patients, and their families, as well as for basic research. The initiators of ...

Public policy is necessarily a political process with the law and order issue high on the political agenda. Consequently, working with sex offenders is fraught with legal and ethical minefields, including the mandate that community protection automatically outweighs offender rights. In addressing community protection, contemporary sex offender treatment is based ...

Following legislative changes in 2004 and the establishment of the Human Tissue Authority, access to human tissues for biomedical research became a more onerous and tightly regulated process. Ethical Tissue was established to meet the growing demand for human tissues, using a process that provided ease of access by researchers ...

The doctrine of informed consent has the effect of allowing the mentally competent adult patient to exercise individual choice in any proposed medical treatment. The ethical principles primarily inherent in this doctrine would be the principles of autonomy and beneficence. However, it is argued in this essay that the concept ...

The concept of human dignity plays an important role in the public discussion about ethical questions concerning modern medicine and biology. At the same time, there is a widespread skepticism about the possibility to determine the content and the claims of human dignity. The article goes back to Kantian Moral ...

Recent advances in biotechnologies have led to speculations about enhancing human beings. Many of the moral arguments presented to defend human enhancement technologies have been limited to discussions of their risks and benefits. The author argues that in so far as ethical arguments focus primarily on risks and benefits of ...

Human dignity is a phenomenon of interest in many disciplines, including health-related disciplines. The author in this article explores the ethics of dignity and sets forth the tenets of human dignity as a humanbecoming ethical phenomenon. The tenets elaborate reverence, awe, betrayal, and shame, all enduring truths inherently significant to ...

Are WEIRD societies unrepresentative of humanity? According to Henrich et al., they are not useful for generalizing about humans because they are at the extreme end of the distribution for societal formations. In their vision, it is best to stick with the "tried and true" traditional societies for speculations about ...

Two new Korean laws regulating animal welfare and the humane use of animals in science came into effect in 2008 and 2009. Both these laws impose ethical committee review prior to the performance of animal experiments in research, testing and education. This study briefly summarises the new Korean laws, and ...

Two key questions are addressed in this article. What are the potential harms to minipigs relative to the harms for dogs and non-human primates and can these harms be reduced more easily in minipigs than in other species? Are there potential benefits resulting from the use of minipigs relative to ...

In The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, published in 1871, Charles Darwin wrote: "I fully ... subscribe to the judgment of those writers who maintain that of all the differences between man and the lower animals the moral sense or conscience is by far the most ...

This paper reviews the legal rules that govern the way surgeons deal with human tissues during the course of diagnosing and treating their patients. The topic is dominated by the Human Tissue Act 2004, which was enacted in September 2006; thus, the article applies specifically only to England, Wales and ...

This essay follows Alfred Russel Wallace back from the field in 1862, tracing how his views on human evolution developed after his field experiences in the East Indies and how he articulated them within the social structure of British science during the 1860s. It analyses his involvement in the metropolitan ...

This paper reviews the legal rules that govern the way surgeons deal with human tissues during the course of diagnosing and treating their patients. The topic is dominated by the Human Tissue Act 2004 which was enacted in September 2006 thus the article applies specifically only to England Wales and ...

Technological developments in recent years have significantly improved the capacity of human rights advocates to monitor and document abuses of authority, including violations of human rights at home and in remote isolated regions of the world. Recognizing the need for a platform from which scientists and scientific Societies might speak ...

The controversy about the use of data from human volunteer studies involving experimental exposure to pesticides as part of regulatory risk assessment has been widely discussed, but the complex and interrelated scientific and ethical issues remain largely unresolved. This discussion paper, generated by authors who comprised a workgroup of the ...

How can stakeholders within the fisheries community engage in constructive ethical discussions? Drawing on experiences from previous debates surrounding the human use of animals, this paper presents a proactive approach whereby stakeholders can create a framework for ethical discussion of capture fisheries.

More than 50 years after Ogdeon Bruton's discovery of congenital agammaglobulinemia, human primary immunodeficiencies (PIDs) continue to unravel novel molecular and cellular mechanisms that govern development and function of the human immune system. This report provides the updated classification of PIDs that has been compiled by the International Union of ...

Speaking at the 2009 Society for Medical Anthropology Conference, cultural anthropologist Margaret Lock pointed out that the advent of the genomic revolution brings with it important societal, political, and social issues that have the potential to radically change both human life and interaction.

The 2009 influenza A/H1N1 pandemic seems to be only moderately severe. In the future, a pandemic influenza with high lethality, such as the Spanish influenza in 1918-1919 or even worse, may emerge. In this kind of scenario, lethality rates ranging roughly from 2% to 30% have been proposed. Legal and ...

Much bioethical discussion has been devoted to the subject of human enhancement through various technological means such as genetic modification. Although many of the same technologies could be, indeed in many cases already have been, applied to non-human animals, there has been very little consideration of the concept of "animal ...

In this paper I develop and defend my arguments in favor of the moral permissibility of a legal market for human body parts in response to the criticisms that have been leveled at them by Paul M. Hughes and Samuel J. Kerstein.

The article surveys and analyzes the roles in Judaism of the value of imago Dei/human dignity, especially in bioethical contexts. Two main topics are discussed. The first is a comparative analysis of imago Dei as an anthropological and ethical concept in Jewish and Western thought (Christianity and secular European values). ...