Doctors and hospitals must stop being bystanders to food-related illness and begin to become role models and educators in the transition to healthful eating habits, just as they did in tobacco cessation.
When a patient requests an unfamiliar treatment, the physician should not hesitate to research it before giving a categorical reply about its safety or efficacy.
By failing to follow informed consent protocols and regulations, a researcher engaging in CBPR may inflict permanent harm on the participating community and chill future research among disadvantaged populations.
CBP researchers are challenged to think strategically about ways to convey their accomplishments and educate their non-CBPR peers about the nature of their research, processes not required of traditional researchers.
Patients who use drugs intravenously may be at high risk for relapse, but their situation is no more futile than that of persons with diabetes and coronary artery disease who smoke and frequent all-you-can-eat buffets.
Elizabeth Lee Daugherty, MD, MPH and Douglas B. White, MD, MA
Opportunities to advance scientific knowledge may arise during humanitarian crises, but their presence does not justify suspension of the ethical foundations governing human subjects research.
All of us who are pursuing solutions to the obesity epidemic face clinical, ethical, and regulatory challenges. First among them is the significant role of individual lifestyle and behavior choices in causing obesity.
Research is needed to understand mental health effects of cancer at diagnosis, throughout treatment and the post-treatment phases, and in survivorship.
AMA J Ethics. 2017;19(5):486-492. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2017.19.5.msoc2-1705.
Forced migration of Pacific Islanders raises ethical issues of health and health care disparities, which are examined in the case of Tuvaluan immigrants.
AMA J Ethics. 2017;19(12):1211-1221. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2017.19.12.imhl1-1712.