Bioethics
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Biography Historical Article
Tu Youyou winning the Nobel Prize: Ethical research on the value and safety of traditional Chinese medicine.
In 2015, the Chinese pharmacologist, Tu Youyou, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of artemisinin. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) was the source of inspiration for Tu's discovery and provides an opportunity for the world to know more about TCM as a source of medical knowledge and practice. In this article, the value of TCM is evaluated from an ethical perspective. ⋯ The article discusses safety issues within TCM, which is a controversial area, and also comments on some shortcomings and challenges which pose difficulties for more widespread and greater uptake of TCM-derived clinical or therapeutic interventions. The article concludes that TCM is generally safe if it is used according to TCM theory and where such applications are cognizant of the strengths and weaknesses of TCM. TCM has important bioethical values which may inform potential measures for meeting challenges facing global health care systems and the article argues that it can have an increasing role in improving human health.
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In colonial societies such as Canada the implications of colonialism and ethnocide (or cultural genocide) for ethical decision-making are ill-understood yet have profound implications in health ethics and other spheres. They combine to shape racism in health care in ways, sometimes obvious, more often subtle, that are inadequately understood and often wholly unnoticed. Along with overt experiences of interpersonal racism, Indigenous people with health care needs are confronted by systemic racism in the shaping of institutional structures, hospital policies and in resource allocation decisions. ⋯ Indeed, the laws, including health laws, are social determinants of the ill-health of Indigenous peoples. This article describes the problem of Indigenous ethnocide and explores its ethical implications. It thereby problematizes the role of law in health ethics.
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To the extent that antibiotic resistance (ABR) is accelerated by antibiotic consumption and that it represents a serious public health emergency, it is imperative to drastically reduce antibiotic consumption, particularly in high-income countries. I present the problem of ABR as an instance of the collective action problem known as 'tragedy of the commons'. I propose that there is a strong ethical justification for taxing certain uses of antibiotics, namely when antibiotics are required to treat minor and self-limiting infections, such as respiratory tract infections, in otherwise healthy individuals. ⋯ Taxation might be a coercive policy, especially for certain individuals, but the ethical case for coercive policies is very strong when the good to be preserved is important enough and when they force individuals to do something they have a moral obligation to do anyway. I argue that, in the case of mild and self-limiting infections, individuals have a moral duty of easy rescue and a moral duty of fairness to make their contribution to the preservation of the common good of antibiotic effectiveness by foregoing antibiotics. I also suggest that taxing antibiotics in such cases is an all things considered ethically justified policy even if it would introduce inequalities in access to healthcare.
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The application of genetic editing techniques for the prevention or cure of disease is a highly promising tool for the future of humanity. However, its implementation contains a number of ethical and legal challenges that should not be underestimated. On this basis, some sectors have already asked for a veto on any intervention that modifies the human germ line, while supporting somatic line editing. ⋯ While doing so, I will provide some examples of the different approaches to germ line editing adopted by different regulations so as to demonstrate that, contrary to what is sometimes stated, a general ban on this practice is not the rule, but the exception. Additionally, I will show how alternative options which currently exist, such as a selective ban based on criteria different to the germ line/somatic line distinction, match better with the need to conciliate research needs and legitimate ethical concerns. Finally, I will introduce some further suggestions to this same purpose.