Drivers, physicians, and motor vehicle agencies all have some responsibility in reducing the number of fatal traffic accidents caused by driver sleepiness.
Discussion of and expansion upon a journal article that explains how community-based research can also teach the researchers lessons in culturally effective health care.
In “Ethics of International Research: What Does Responsiveness Mean?” Christine Grady explains how developing countries are vulnerable to exploitation by researchers and explores what “responsiveness” to the needs of those populations might entail.
The Epidemic Intelligence Service, by Douglas H. Hamilton, traces the history of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Epidemic Intelligence Service, with details about the service’s response to actual and potential epidemic outbreaks.
Article explains the right granted to state public health agencies by the Supreme Court in Jacobson v Massachusetts to mandate vaccination in the presence of actual or threatened danger to the health of its residents from infectious disease.
Clinical trials for the blood substitute PolyHeme exposed the possibility for ambiguous interpretation of the FDA’s waiver of informed consent for emergency research.
To be a useful tool for assessing quality of physician care, pay-for-performance must be designed to include process measures and to not penalize physicians for treating patients with difficult-to-manage conditions.
Physicians’ ethical obligations to disclose conflicts of interest to patients and to obtain their informed consent for treatment are particularly critical when proposed treatments are experimental.