Joel T. Wu, JD, MPH, MA and Jennifer B. McCormick, PhD, MPP
False health-related speech can cause harm, but it’s not restricted unless it’s obscene. Physicians are obliged not only to correct patients’ false beliefs, but to engage digital spaces in which false claims thrive.
AMA J Ethics. 2018;20(11):E1052-1058. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2018.1052.
A physician advocate who has taken public advocacy stances against the federal government while employed by the government talks about the conflicts that arise between medicine and politics.
To participate in a lethal injection is to occupy the medical role and use medical training for a purpose that is not part of the goals of medicine and that harms the recipient of treatment.
With good planning and good will, medical professionals’ right of conscience and patients’ rights to controversial services can be both protected and accommodated.