Vaccine mandates, arguably the most preventive and protective measure to address COVID-19 and to prevent death, require a more organized ethical analysis, streamlined to include the considerations appropriate for government, employers, or other stakeholders, yet broad enough to incorporate largescale considerations like the potential political cost. This post examines the role of religious exemptions viewed…
Voluntariness at the time one provides data is an important, overlooked part of providing informed consent. In medicine, informed consent requires voluntariness, yet the on-the-ground experience may reveal pressures to comply. The new landscape of responsible technology, while it incorporates certain types of consent like clicking to accept cookies, needs more definition and clarity around…
Facial recognition technology is everywhere. Pew Research found more than half of adults trust law enforcement with facial recognition but fewer trust tech companies, advertisers, and landlords. The data signifies not only that the user matters, but that use matters. Tracking facial reactions to public ads and displays was the least popular use cited by…
In bioethics, moral controversies may have high stakes. Differences of fact or opinion are of a different nature than moral disagreements. There are factual disagreements where a truth may be discovered, making one side right and one side wrong. During the COVID-19 pandemic, some such factual questions were politicized, but that alone does not turn…
The current estimated life expectancy of a Black man in the US is now 68 years. That is seven years less than White and Hispanic male life expectancy. It is a gap that cannot be explained entirely by the medical causes of death in the CDC report. To solve the disparity, people must look to…
Through a feminist lens, the self-help industry is sometimes ethically problematic, as noted by various scholars. In particular, the personal growth self-help industry presents a bioethics issue surrounding mental and physical health, equality, justice, employment discrimination, and child care. It challenges the balance between pursuing more and being content with what one has. Some self-help…
My effort to add critical thinking to bioethics, a choppy path at best, sparked me to question some fundamentals about academic publishing. From long ago on the Urban Law Journal at Fordham Law School to my current position at Voices in Bioethics, Columbia University’s journal, I have encountered and managed viewpoint discrimination. In training peer…
Bioethics must recognize a syndemics approach to ethical solutions to the obesity epidemic in the US. The line between public health and personal health is artificial. Economic, political, and social structures influence the body in the doctor’s office. Public health approaches obesity various ways—usually by recommendations of exercise and lifestyles that are unattainable. Public programs…
Data-Generating Patents require a broad ethical approach that incorporates business ethics. Ethics should that adhere to the spirit behind antitrust law and competition to protect consumers. Intellectual property rights are expanding. Data-generating patents can preclude competitors from obtaining, collecting, or generating the same type of data. It also deprives people of control over their data…