Standards for posttransplant graft/survival rates do not reward transplant centers for performing riskier transplants to increase population benefit.

Physicians who torture historically have not been held accountable by the law or medical profession, but national medical associations can promote accountability.

Forced sterilization of HIV-positive women, which is widespread in South Africa, Namibia, and Chile, violates women’s human right to autonomy and the principle of informed consent and is medically unnecessary.

Law doesn’t always adequately address unauthorized uses of individuals’ DNA. Ethics can help establish legal privacy protections that work.

Successful implementation of initiatives to improve screening and access to health-promotion activities at minority-serving religious institutions requires partnering with faith-based organizations, adapting interventions, and leveraging organizational infrastructure and social networks.

Physicians should honor confidentiality whenever possible when screening and treating adolescents for sensitive health conditions such as substance abuse.

Physicians working in correctional systems face many ethical dilemmas and professional challenges in providing health care for incarcerated adolescents.

Some clinicians and researchers believe that quality-of-life measurements are flawed, and using them in clinical decision making is dangerous.

A controversial Oregon plan used quality-of-life assessments to provide fewer health care services to a larger pool of Medicaid patients.

The conventional quality-adjusted life years approach to resource allocation has greater societal value if it is distributed among many rather than concentrated on a few, assuming that severity of illness is the same.