Faculty Bibliography

The use of performance-enhancing drugs is rife in amateur and professional sports, and one can only wonder what the level of drug use would be if vigorous testing efforts were not in place. But perhaps that is the wrong worry. Should we try to weed out performance-enhancing drugs from sports or any other venue of life? As long as what is being used is relatively safe and users are free to decide, are we simply deluding ourselves that use can in any practical way be banned? It may make more sense to try to articulate an ethic of performance enhancement than to maintain an illusion of abstinence. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

Chaplan comments on the latest trend of reproductive technology, where doctors put more than one embryo. No clinic should be putting more than two or three babies into even a younger patient who has already shown she can create children through success in previous rounds of in vitro fertilization. If the only way to prevent such outrageous treatment is to pass a law penalizing any doctor who implants numerous embryos under such circumstances, then let's get such a law passed

Caplan depicts a situation where conflict between parents and doctors right to determine if one of the patients or family members who was diagnosed with a highly malignant disease is dead. He further discusses whether family's religious view of death and the doctors' professional rights to declare death affects the decision of whether an individual is already dead. He explains that the determination of death is best left in the hands of doctors. The determination of when to end care that is completely and utterly futile because the patient has died is also best left to doctors. As much as death may trigger religious activity on the part of many, religion should never trump science when it comes to deciding when death has occurred in a hospital and what to do about the fact

Vaccination policy in the case of human papillomavirus (HPV) has remained a constant source of controversy ever since Gardasil, Merck's vaccine against HPV, received US Food and Drug Administration approval in the summer of 2006. This controversy has centered on the risks and benefits of vaccinating girls and women in rich and poor nations alike. However, despite all of the attention created by this important policy question, relatively little has been focused on another key public health question: should boys be vaccinated against HPV as well? If herd immunity against the most carcinogenic strains of HPV could be more rapidly and efficiently achieved by vaccinating everyone at risk for being a carrier, it logically follows that vaccine policy should expand to include boys and men.