As high-tech care decisions led to value clashes in hospital corridors, ethics committees developed to respond to diverse viewpoints, families’ concerns, and clinicians’ moral distress. They now exist in almost all US health care organizations.
AMA J Ethics. 2016;18(5):546-553. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2016.18.5.mhst1-1605.
Wendy E. Parmet, JD and Claudia E. Haupt, PhD, JSD
Clinicians using governing authority to make public health policy are ethically obliged to draw upon scientific and clinical information that accords professional standards.
AMA J Ethics. 2023;25(3):E194-199. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2023.194.
Isabelle Freiling, PhD, Nicole M. Krause, MA, and Dietram A. Scheufele, PhD
Misinformation is an urgent new problem, so health professions communities need solutions as much as they need to be wary of ethical pitfalls of rushed interventions.
AMA J Ethics. 2023;25(3):E228-237. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2023.228.
The FDA’s approval for over-the-counter sales of emergency contraception marked a departure from its standard approval process and obstructed access to a safe and effective drug. That departure could set a dangerous precedent for future decisions.
State laws prohibiting sodomy were on the books throughout US history until struck down by the US Supreme Court, which argued in Lawrence v Texas (2003) that the state cannot criminalize private sexual conduct.
All of us who are pursuing solutions to the obesity epidemic face clinical, ethical, and regulatory challenges. First among them is the significant role of individual lifestyle and behavior choices in causing obesity.