AMA Journal of Ethics^®

Targeted dosing to treat pediatric inflammatory bowel disease is challenging because dosing guidelines are based on data gathered from adult subjects of clinical trials. Patients’ families and health care organizations also incur high costs and must try to balance potential benefits against risks of ongoing monitoring.

When prescribing antibiotics, physicians should weigh individual benefit against both environmental and community harms.

Risks of off-label medication to treat aggression should be balanced with consequences of not responding to social factors.

Bedside rationing based on ethnicity, gender, or skin color can lead to some patients not receiving treatments to which they are entitled.

Clinicians can be patient advocates, resource stewards, and promote good financial choices about care.

Diethylstilbestrol (DES) was widely used in the 1940s to 1960s to prevent pregnancy loss but was later found to be associated with adverse health effects in exposed offspring, underscoring the need for careful evaluation of new therapies.

This month, AMA Journal of Ethics editor-in-chief Audiey Kao, MD, PhD, interviewed Peter A. Ubel, MD, about factors contributing to the high cost of health care, how to bend the cost curve, and the compatibility of cost containment and profit seeking.

The new Veterans Health Administration policy on the use of medical marijuana was brought about by patient advocacy in 2010.

Because many complementary and alternative medicine therapies for autism are based on misguided notions of its cause and lack support from scientifically sound studies, physicians should steer parents away from these practices and toward safe, effective, and evidence-based interventions.

There is evidence that some complementary and alternative treatments improve physiological abnormalities in autism and thus hold promise for improving symptoms.