A history of device oversight by the US Food and Drug Administration traces regulatory changes in response to injuries caused by Dalkon Shield intrauterine devices.
AMA J Ethics. 2021;23(9):E712-720. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2021.712.
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.
Government can regulate false speech and professional speech, which bans “gag laws” and compelled speech about laws to restrict abortion, for example. How should health professions share regulatory responsibility with government to prevent true speech about health information from being stifled?
AMA J Ethics. 2018;20(11):E1041-1048. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2018.1041.
Until the mid-20th century, birth in the United States for Latinx Indigenous peoples was an ancestral ceremony guided by midwives and traditional healers.
AMA J Ethics. 2022;24(4):E326-332. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2022.326.
Unchallenged supra-geographic segregation perpetuates racial medical mythology, exacerbates myopia in health professions practice and education, and perpetuates injustice.
AMA J Ethics. 2023;25(1):E72-78. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2023.72.
In the past, forced sterilizations violated the autonomy of vulnerable women. Today, measures intended to protect such women from the abuses of the past may in fact hamper their autonomy in a different way.
Physicians who have adequately informed a competent patient of his or her diagnosis, its meaning, and medically appropriate options should then accept the patient’s informed consent or refusal of treatment.