Environmental Health Research Involving Human Subjects: Ethical Issues

This article reviews some of the ethical issues that arise in environmental health research with human subjects, such as minimizing risks to subjects, balancing benefits and risks in research, intentional exposure studies with human subjects, protecting third parties in research, informing subjects about environmental hazards, communicating health information to subjects, and protecting privacy and confidentiality

The clinical investigator-subject relationship: a contextual approach

Abstract Background The nature of the relationship between a clinical investigator and a research subject has generated considerable debate because the investigator occupies two distinct roles: clinician and scientist. As a clinician, the investigator has duties to provide the patient with optimal care and undivided loyalty. As a scientist, the investigator has duties to follow the rules, procedures and methods described in the protocol. Results and conclusion In this article, I present a contextual approach to the investigator-subject relationship. The extent of the investigator's duty to provide the patient/subject with clinical care can vary from one situation to the next, as a function of several factors, including: the research design, benefits and risks of the research; the subject's reasonable expectations, motivations, and vulnerabilities; the investigator's ability to benefit the subject; and the investigator's prior relationship with the subject. These and other factors need to be considered when determining the clinical investigator's obligations to provide clinical care to human research subjects. In some research contexts, the investigator has extensive clinical obligations to the patient/subject; in others, the investigator has minimal ones.</p

Managing Peanut Allergies In Schools: Ethical And Policy Issues

Protecting children with peanut allergies from harm poses difficult ethical dilemmas for school administrators. Some schools have responded to the peanut allergy problem by implementing bans on peanuts and peanut products, thereby sparking outrage and protests from some parents. School administrators should carefully consider how best to protect allergic children while taking into consideration the interests of non-allergic children, their parents and practical considerations. While it is not realistic to expect that a school setting can be risk-free, every reasonable effort should be made to protect allergic children from harm in order to promote their health and educational attainment

Genetic modification and genetic determinism

In this article we examine four objections to the genetic modification of human beings: the freedom argument, the giftedness argument, the authenticity argument, and the uniqueness argument. We then demonstrate that each of these arguments against genetic modification assumes a strong version of genetic determinism. Since these strong deterministic assumptions are false, the arguments against genetic modification, which assume and depend upon these assumptions, are therefore unsound. Serious discussion of the morality of genetic modification, and the development of sound science policy, should be driven by arguments that address the actual consequences of genetic modification for individuals and society, not by ones propped up by false or misleading biological assumptions

Green bioethics, patient autonomy and informed consent in healthcare

Green bioethics is an area of research and scholarship that examines the impact of healthcare practices and policies on the environment and emphasises environmental values, such as ecological sustainability and stewardship. Some green bioethicists have argued that healthcare providers should inform patients about the environmental impacts of treatments and advocate for options that minimise adverse impacts. While disclosure of information pertaining to the environmental impacts of treatments could facilitate autonomous decision-making and strengthen the patient–provider relationship in situations where patients have clearly expressed environmental concerns, it may have the opposite effect in other situations if makes patients feel like they are being judged or manipulated. We argue, therefore, that there is not a generalisable duty to disclose environmental impact information to all patients during the consent process. Providers who practice green bioethics should focus on advocating for system-level changes in healthcare financing, organisation and delivery and use discretion when bringing up environmental concerns in their encounters with patients

Response to Kuhse

In this short paper, we respond to critics of our original paper, The agony of agonal respiration: is the last gasp necessary?. A common thread in both Hawryluckâ s and Kuhseâ s responses is the difficulties encountered when using the agentâ s intentions to make moral distinctions between using neuromuscular blocking drugs to palliate versus using neuromuscular blocking drugs to kill. Although this difficulty does exist we maintain that the intentions of the physician must matter when providing end-of-life care. Originally published Journal of Medical Ethics, Vol. 28, No. 4, Aug. 200

Development of banded microstructure in 34CrNiMo6 steel

In this paper the development of a banded microstructure in hot-rolled 34CrNiMo6 steel which consisted of bainitic and martensitic bands is explained. The chemical compositions of the bands were measured with energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS), which showed that the martensitic bands contained more alloying elements (Mn, Cr, Mo, Si) than bainitic bands. By using Oberhoffer reagent, the segregations of phosphorus were also revealed. These phosphorus segregations coincided with the positive segregations of the alloying elements. The continuous cooling transformation (CCT) diagrams of steel were calculated. They confirmed the formation of martensite in positive segregations and the formation of bainite in negative segregations