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Erratum
Perspect Biol Med. 2023;66(2):i. doi: 10.1353/pbm.2023.0019.NO ABSTRACTPMID:37755712 | DOI:10.1353/pbm.2023.0019 (Source: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine)
Source: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine - September 27, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research

Making and Managing New Biological Entities: conceptual, ontological, epistemological, and ethical aspects
This article identifies and analyzes key conceptual, ontological, epistemological, and ethical aspects of such entities in order to suggest how to make, manage, and regulate them. It argues that in order to avoid conceptual vagueness and taxonomic confusion, it is important to clarify how person-related biological entities relate to existing concepts and to make new concepts where necessary. Ontologically, we need to determine the thing- and person-likeness of such entities. Epistemically, we must provide measures to verify the characteristics of person-related biological entities and to provide high-quality knowledge of t...
Source: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine - September 27, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Bj ørn Hofmann Source Type: research

An Ethical Framework for Research Using Genetic Ancestry
Perspect Biol Med. 2023;66(2):225-248. doi: 10.1353/pbm.2023.0021.ABSTRACTA wide range of research uses patterns of genetic variation to infer genetic similarity between individuals, typically referred to as genetic ancestry. This research includes inference of human demographic history, understanding the genetic architecture of traits, and predicting disease risk. Researchers are not just structuring an intellectual inquiry when using genetic ancestry, they are also creating analytical frameworks with broader societal ramifications. This essay presents an ethics framework in the spirit of virtue ethics for these researche...
Source: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine - September 27, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Anna C F Lewis Santiago J Molina Paul S Appelbaum Bege Dauda Agustin Fuentes Stephanie M Fullerton Nanibaa' A Garrison Nayanika Ghosh Robert C Green Evelynn M Hammonds Janina M Jeff David S Jones Eimear E Kenny Peter Kraft Madelyn Mauro Anil P S Ori Aaron Source Type: research

Daniel Callahan's Decade of Doubt
Perspect Biol Med. 2023;66(2):249-266. doi: 10.1353/pbm.2023.0022.ABSTRACTDaniel Callahan died on July 16, 2019, just short of his 89th birthday. In the years since, we have seen the overturning of abortion rights, a concern central to his scholarship and musings about the place of religion in American civic life. Callahan's journey from lay Catholic journalist and commentator at Commonweal to a co-founder of the Hastings Center, during his decade of doubt, is especially relevant today as America revisits established precedent governing a woman's right to choose. His life-long struggle with faith and the secularization of ...
Source: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine - September 27, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Kaiulani S Shulman Joseph J Fins Source Type: research

Joanna Stephens and the Stone: credibility economy in the history of medicine
Perspect Biol Med. 2023;66(2):267-283. doi: 10.1353/pbm.2023.0014.ABSTRACTIn 1740, Joanna Stephens (fl. 1720-1741) produced a recipe for a tonic that she claimed cured bladder stones. Although she had the support of some notable and powerful men in the medical community and empirical evidence that her tonic worked, it took two years of petitioning, discussing, and even (unsuccessfully) crowd-sourcing before Parliament relented and awarded her the sum she requested to take her tonic public. Stephens's interaction with the scientific community serves as a case study for how epistemic credibility shapes how communities hear, ...
Source: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine - September 27, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Julie Walsh Source Type: research

Out of This World: re-grounding justice through science fiction
Perspect Biol Med. 2023;66(2):284-298. doi: 10.1353/pbm.2023.0015.ABSTRACTGood science fiction can be a successful vehicle for portraying justice. Science fiction can stimulate moral imagination in much the same way as the most effective justice theories, connecting the world in which we live with a range of alternative futures deliberately and creatively made plausible. A selective examination of classic and recent science fiction stories and novels provides contextual framing for considering questions of climate justice, virtuous personal action in the face of structural injustice, and the problem of what justice means w...
Source: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine - September 27, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Nancy M P King Larry R Churchill Source Type: research

Between the Spaces: graphic diagnosis
Perspect Biol Med. 2023;66(2):299-311. doi: 10.1353/pbm.2023.0016.ABSTRACTThis illustrated essay describes the graphic diagnosis memoir as a form of illness narrative that uses a different way of telling stories than standard prose. A cartoon is broken into sequenced segments that ask the reader to jump across the gaps between the panels at the same time as they bridge the images and text assembled in each panel. To be successful in presenting a graphic story, the artist must be able to express an idea, but also must be able to project, or imagine, how readers will be able link ideas, images, and words. The cartoon diagnos...
Source: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine - September 27, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Annemarie Jutel Source Type: research

The Demise of the AMA's Mission to Improve Public Health
Perspect Biol Med. 2023;66(2):312-326. doi: 10.1353/pbm.2023.0017.ABSTRACTMuch has been written about the deplorable state of American health care, but rarely with the wealth of historical and political information packed into Peter Swenson's Disorder: A History of Reform, Reaction, and Money in American Medicine (2021). In this meticulously researched and comprehensive study of the role of organized medicine, particularly the American Medical Association (AMA) and affiliated state and county medical societies, Swenson provides detailed insight into the AMA's political evolution from a force advocating progressive reforms ...
Source: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine - September 27, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: John Abramson Source Type: research

Sickening: who is protecting pharma consumers?
Perspect Biol Med. 2023;66(2):327-343. doi: 10.1353/pbm.2023.0018.ABSTRACTIn 2022, John Abramson published Sickening: How Big Pharma Broke American Healthcare and How We Can Repair It. The book illustrates how large pharmaceutical companies have become misinformation machines that have corrupted peer-reviewed journals, systematic review authors, and guideline committees. Industry influence includes selective reporting of clinical trial results and selection of control groups likely to enhance benefits and disguise side effects. Other documented forms of influence include clear conflicts of interest for members of guideline...
Source: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine - September 27, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Robert M Kaplan Source Type: research