Research is often conducted without the knowledge or consent of those whose tissues are banked and poses possible harms to social groups if information about a few members is unscientifically applied to all.
Physicians working in close-knit communities, whether small towns or urban neighborhoods, have to manage relationships with people who may be simultaneously patients and neighbors, friends, and business associates.
Developing drugs for profit is challenged in Parasites!, a patient education comic that highlights the need for unprofitable drugs for tropical diseases.
AMA J Ethics. 2018; 20(2):167-175. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2018.20.2.msoc1-1802.
AMA Journal of Ethics editor Audiey Kao, MD, PhD, interviewed Richard Pan, MD, MPH, about how, as a physician and legislator, he seeks to protect public health in light of recurrent outbreaks of vaccine-preventable infectious diseases.
When deciding whether to offer deep brain stimulation earlier than usual for Parkinson disease, it is important to consider not only the patient’s autonomy but also the validity of the evidence and concepts of harm that are being used to form practice policies.
Clinical equipoise—the idea that the community of medical experts is uncertain about the relative therapeutic merits of the arms of a clinical trial at its outset—mitigates physicians’ responsibility for patients’ poor outcomes when patients are assigned to the control arm or are harmed by an investigational agent.
AMA J Ethics. 2015; 17(12):1108-1115. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.12.ecas1-1512.