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Are Psychedelic Experiences Transformative? Can We Consent to Them?
This article argues, however, that there is limited evidence that psychedelic experiences are transformative in Paul's sense, and that they may not differ in their transformative features from other common medical experiences for which informed consent is clearly possible. Further, even if psychedelic experiences can be transformative, informed consent is still possible. Because psychedelic experiences are importantly different in several respects from other medical experiences, this article closes with recommendations for how these differences should be reflected in informed consent processes.PMID:38662069 | DOI:10.1353/p...
Source: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine - April 25, 2024 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Brent M Kious Andrew Peterson Amy L McGuire Source Type: research

Valuing the Acute Subjective Experience
Perspect Biol Med. 2024;67(1):155-165. doi: 10.1353/pbm.2024.a919717.ABSTRACTPsychedelics, including psilocybin, and other consciousness-altering compounds such as 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), currently are being scientifically investigated for their potential therapeutic uses, with a primary focus on measurable outcomes: for example, alleviation of symptoms or increases in self-reported well-being. Accordingly, much recent discussion about the possible value of these substances has turned on estimates of the magnitude and duration of persisting positive effects in comparison to harms. However, many have descr...
Source: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine - April 25, 2024 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Katherine Cheung Brian D Earp David B Yaden Source Type: research

Does Bioethics Need Ethical Theories?
Perspect Biol Med. 2024;67(1):166-179. doi: 10.1353/pbm.2024.a919718.ABSTRACTThe relationship between philosophy and bioethics remains a matter of perennial debate, but there does appear to be a consensus on one issue: whatever bioethics might want to borrow from philosophical ethics, it won't be normative theories. This essay argues that theories can have an important role to play in bioethics, though it might not be the one traditionally assumed by philosophers.PMID:38662071 | DOI:10.1353/pbm.2024.a919718 (Source: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine)
Source: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine - April 25, 2024 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Wayne Sumner Source Type: research

Negative Impacts of Taegyo : Feminist and Disability Perspectives
This study examines the origin and religious roots of taegyo, Korean traditional prenatal education, and raises concerns about potential negative impacts of contemporary taegyo practice from feminist and disability perspectives. Taegyo has been accepted without much criticism due to its deep integration into prenatal care culture, and most existing literature focuses on taegyo's positive impacts on fetal health and development from scientific or nursing perspectives. This article analyzes a 19th-century taegyo manual, Taegyo Singi, and Seon and Won Buddhist literatures on taegyo in order to understand the religio-cultural ...
Source: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine - April 25, 2024 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Hajung Lee Source Type: research

Imagine This: Happy Aging in America
Perspect Biol Med. 2023;66(4):610-619. doi: 10.1353/pbm.2023.a909730.ABSTRACTThis essay explores what it means to age happily, beginning with concepts of aging and happiness and proceeding to factors that promote or undermine happy aging. Relationships, contribution, and personal growth all add value to an aging life. Community also matters, as does the acceptance that a happy older age requires neither perfect health nor immense wealth.PMID:38661848 | DOI:10.1353/pbm.2023.a909730 (Source: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine)
Source: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine - April 25, 2024 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Tia Powell Source Type: research

Futures of Care: Care Technologies and Graphic Medicine
Perspect Biol Med. 2023;66(4):639-650. doi: 10.1353/pbm.2023.a909731.ABSTRACTAssistive care technologies, developed to replace, support, or extend human capabilities and to address the surging demands of care, have been gaining prominence recently. The current trend summons a posthuman approach through decentering the privileged role of humans in several spaces of caregiving, such as hospitals and eldercare homes. The existence of these cutting-edge assistive technologies, exciting as they are, hints at a possible future when the distinction between humans and technology will be blurred, thus transforming care relations. H...
Source: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine - April 25, 2024 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Sathyaraj Venkatesan Livine Ancy A Source Type: research

Futures of Care: Care Technologies and Graphic Medicine
Perspect Biol Med. 2023;66(4):639-650. doi: 10.1353/pbm.2023.a909732.ABSTRACTAssistive care technologies, developed to replace, support, or extend human capabilities and to address the surging demands of care, have been gaining prominence recently. The current trend summons a posthuman approach through decentering the privileged role of humans in several spaces of caregiving, such as hospitals and eldercare homes. The existence of these cutting-edge assistive technologies, exciting as they are, hints at a possible future when the distinction between humans and technology will be blurred, thus transforming care relations. H...
Source: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine - April 25, 2024 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Sathyaraj Venkatesan Livine Ancy A Source Type: research

Mycobacterial Death and Resurrection: paradigm shifts in disease understanding 
This article examines two medical journal research articles on tuberculosis, one published in 1938 and the other in 2014. The two articles, which use animal models to understand aspects of tuberculosis mycobacteria survival in the lungs, rely on markedly different research and biotechnological techniques, reach somewhat opposite conclusions, and reflect different paradigms of tuberculosis pathogenesis: the 1938 article (indirectly invoking Koch's postulates) was written before the paradigm of so-called "latent" and "reactivation" tuberculosis became widely adopted, while the 2014 article (indirectly invoking the molecular ...
Source: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine - April 25, 2024 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Chadi Cortas Source Type: research

Publishing Biomedical Research: a rapidly evolving ecosystem 
This article takes a broad view of the biomedical research publishing system from its origins in the 17th century to the present day. It begins with a story from the author's lab that illustrates a scientist's complex interactions with the publishing system and then reviews the history, growth, and evolution of scientific publishing, including several recent disruptive developments: the digital transformation, the open access (OA) movement, the creation of "predatory journals," and the emergence of preprint archives. Each has influenced scientific peer review and editorial decision-making, two processes critical to the con...
Source: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine - April 25, 2024 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Jeffrey S Flier Source Type: research

Placebos and Metaphors
The objective of this essay is to develop the argument that placebos are a species of metaphor and to demonstrate that an analysis of the figurative trope can help us elucidate the power of the placebo response. The cognitive and embodied responses to both metaphors and placebos stem from the transfer of meaning between two domains, each with rich allusive properties that in turn depend on highly ramified and interconnected neural webs. Metaphors and placebos require an appropriate cultural backdrop for their linguistic and cognitive work and are dependent on shared social forms of life. More specifically, metaphors rely o...
Source: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine - April 25, 2024 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Abraham Fuks Source Type: research

Bridging Divides: art and religion in the early AIDS pandemic 
This article rediscovers an archive rich in interdisciplinary illness narratives, arguing that the unearthed art pieces articulate four themes that interrogate the relationship between people with AIDS and religious traditions. In addition to furthering our understanding of a forgotten expression of AIDS illness narratives, this analysis provides insight into art's capacity to dialogue between communities in the setting of internal divisions. These lessons may aid us as we endeavor to understand the diversity, function, and applications of illness narratives in the setting of the politicized diseases of the 21st century, i...
Source: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine - April 25, 2024 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Matthew Kelly Source Type: research

On Antiscience and Antisemitism
This article provides both historical and recent perspectives on the links between antiscience and antisemitism, together with the author's personal experience as a Jewish vaccine scientist targeted by both dark forces. New approaches to uncoupling antisemitism from antiscience, while combating both, are essential for saving lives and preserving democratic values.PMID:38661936 | DOI:10.1353/pbm.2023.a902035 (Source: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine)
Source: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine - April 25, 2024 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Peter Hotez Source Type: research

Lives Cut Short: suicide among adolescent females 
Perspect Biol Med. 2023;66(3):437-450. doi: 10.1353/pbm.2023.a902036.ABSTRACTSuicide is a worldwide public health issue, and suicide ideation and behavior among adolescents, females in particular, have been increasing. Focusing on the risk factors that are unique to adolescents and adolescent females can help tailor and inform prevention strategies. There are unique biological, psychological, social, and societal factors that contribute to suicide ideation and behavior among adolescent females. Some of these include hormonal fluctuations and sensitivity, developing brain systems, impacts of social media, maladaptive coping...
Source: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine - April 25, 2024 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Meaghan Stacy Jay Schulkin Source Type: research

Accepting and Embracing Our Mortality
Perspect Biol Med. 2023;66(3):451-460. doi: 10.1353/pbm.2023.a902037.ABSTRACTAging and death need to be seen as a single reality, aging-and-death. Separating them largely voids the lessons to be learned from aging, and the benefits of seeing life as a whole and learning a new sense of beauty, meaning, hope, and love. All the distinctive experiences central to our sense of ourselves as human beings are tied to recognition of our mortality. Living a full life means accepting and embracing death as not only inevitable, but necessary and desirable.PMID:38661938 | DOI:10.1353/pbm.2023.a902037 (Source: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine)
Source: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine - April 25, 2024 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Larry R Churchill Source Type: research

2020: what COVID taught us about women in medicine 
Perspect Biol Med. 2023;66(3):461-467. doi: 10.1353/pbm.2023.a902038.ABSTRACTAs Vice Chair of Clinical Services of Psychiatry at the University of Colorado, I choose to work where clinical services need most attention. As a woman, I want to show up where we can be seen and show up in the best possible way. Just as COVID began, I found myself doing clinical shifts in the newly created psychiatry emergency room. I became part of a front-line team, where "I" became "We," facing an unknown enemy. Not only was my work life upended, but my personal life was too, as I rushed to help my daughter, a medical student, care for her so...
Source: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine - April 25, 2024 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Alison M Heru Source Type: research