Rather than turning away children whose parents refuse to have them vaccinated, pediatricians should engage the parents in discussion about the importance and safety of vaccination.
Both public health agencies and vaccine companies have a stake in promulgating good information about vaccines: where the government sees gaps in immunization coverage, vaccine manufacturers see gaps in market coverage. Why shouldn't they work together to close them?
Anne-Marie Laberge, MD, PhD and Wylie Burke, MD, PhD
Physicians and counselors must address the importance of communicating genetic test results to family members in the pre-test counseling and informed-consent processes prior to testing.
A medical student’s desire to practice the specialty that he or she finds most interesting should not outweigh the right of patients in a pluralistic society to receive a full range of legal medical services.
Amanda Fakih, MHSA and Kayte Spector-Bagdady, JD, MBE
Testing everyone for everything identifies more fetal conditions, but confusion persists about whether clinicians should leave screening decisions to patients.
AMA J Ethics. 2019;21(10):E858-864. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2019.858.
There is a market for direct-to-consumer genetic testing and a need for better consumer information and more regulation of tests and testing laboratories.