Institutional review boards (IRBs) have the responsibility to ensure the protection of human-research subjects and are legally liable if they fail to do so.
An overview of Maine's pilot program to reduce the practice of defensive medicine in certain specialties by assuring legal protection for doctors who follow particular guidelines and discussion of why it was not used in malpractice litigation.
AMA J Ethics. 2018;13(11):792-795. doi:
10.1001/virtualmentor.2011.13.11.pfor1-1111.
Specific contributions to a scientific article entitle the contributor to be included as an author; requests for authorship by those who have not made those specific contributions are unethical.
Patients need to be aware that they are fully responsible for disclosing a complete medical history, and physicians may not be liable for damages if they do not comply.
Physicians should encourage pharmaceutical companies to make socially responsible funding decisions and take an active role in setting biomedical research priorities by advocating for fair and effective allocations of public and private biomedical R & D investments.