Faculty Bibliography

Debates over vaccine mandates raise intense emotions, as reflected in the current controversy over whether to mandate the vaccine against human papilloma virus (HPV), the virus that can cause cervical cancer. Public health ethics so far has failed to facilitate meaningful dialogue between the opposing sides. When stripped of its emotional charge, the debate can be framed as a contest between competing ethical values. This framework can be conceptualized graphically as a conflict between autonomy on the one hand, which militates against government intrusion, and beneficence, utilitarianism, justice, and nonmaleficence on the other, which may lend support to intervention. When applied to the HPV vaccine, this framework would support a mandate based on utilitarianism, if certain conditions are met and if herd immunity is a realistic objective.

Investigators, sponsors, and institutional review boards have to decide when re-consent of clinical trials' participants must be obtained when new information becomes available. We present an algorithm to help in the decision-making process, which takes into consideration the kind of new information, the risk of exposure (patients could be on the treatment or in the follow-up phases), and the possibility of managing the case. Re-consent should be obtained in three of the eight possible situations.

Nanoethics: The Ethical and Social Implications of Nanotechnology, edited by Fritz Allhoff, Patrick Lin, James Moor, and John Weckert, is reviewed

Green is so distracted by the pace of science in genomics, stem cell research, gene therapy, and preimplantation genetic diagnosis that the staggering plight of so many existing children never edges into his analytical field of vision

Caplan talks about the prospect of human cloning, which has now inched very close to becoming a reality. People do not need politicians to panic or religious leaders to decompensate. Instead, they need sound public policies that will prevent the premature use of reproductive cloning, while opening the door to the use of cloning for stem cell research

An effective treatment for syphilis, penicillin, was well established by the late 1940s, but the notorious Tuskegee study continued for 30 more years fuelled by a powerful current of racism until the whole sordid tale was presented to Congress at a series of hearings held by a young Senator Edward Kennedy, in 1973 And a few see bioethics as having its roots far back in the medical ethics thinking done in earlier centuries by such giants as Robert Koch, Claude Bernard, or Moshe ben Maimon (Maimonides). When your specialty is ready for a handbook it has truly arrived. 34 scholars have penned 30 essays on a wide range of subjects-as various as "the rule of double effect", "the ethics of a two-tier health system", "the ethics of enhancement of human beings", and the "politics and policy issues raised by therapeutic cloning"