Category: Ethics
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Religio Medici
Stefan GrebeRochester, Minnesota, United States Mama, take this badge off of me / I can’t use it anymore. / It’s gettin’ dark, too dark to see / I feel I’m knockin’ on heaven’s door“Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” Bob Dylan If the injured deputy in Bob Dylan’s lyrics had been living in today’s United States, he would have…
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George Orwell and the ethics of dealing in or dealing with cigarettes
Lynn T. KozlowskiBuffalo, NY, United States Early in World War II, George Orwell wrote the essay “England, my England,” commenting that as he was writing “highly civilized human beings” were flying overhead trying to kill him: They do not feel any enmity against me as an individual, nor I against them. They are ‘only doing…
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The flu vaccine: Transparency, uncertainty, and trust in medicine
Anthony PapagiannisThessaloniki, Greece A few years ago the fear of ‘pandemic flu’ was spread widely all over the world, causing what has been termed an “emotional epidemic.”1 The disease itself, its social dimensions, and the ways it was publicly handled could form the subject for an academic thesis. Those events led me to a series of…
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On being disabled
Yeji LeeToronto, Canada In the past the disabled have often been isolated from the rest of society by structural, physical, and emotional means, considered irrelevant or even detrimental to the development and function of the larger majority. The lame could not physically work; the deaf and mute could not communicate with others; the blind could…
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Public insurance expansion versus a single payer system
Adil MenonBrookline, Massachusetts Since the late 1940s when employer based private health insurance became increasingly prevalent in the United States, the expansion of public health insurance to a growing share of the population has been viewed as the best approach to helping people, particularly those on the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum, obtain medical…
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Designer babies: Boon or bane?
Hanashu DurganauduSelangor, Malaysia Would the implementation of ‘designer babies’ be a boon to humans? First and foremost, it helps to detect known genetic abnormalities and chromosomal diseases at an early stage. This would be particularly helpful for couples or individuals who possess a high risk of passing down disadvantageous genes for conditions such as cystic fibrosis…
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Diagnosing defectives: Disability, gender and eugenics in the United States, 1910–1924
Sara VogtChicago, Illinois, United States Introduction The science of eugenics developed in countries around the world such as Great Britain, the United States, and Germany during the second half of the nineteenth century as a means of fighting emergent public health and social problems like tuberculosis, prostitution, and the so-called degeneration of the race. The…
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A student’s call for mentorship
Stephanie GrachChicago, Illinois, United States The Hippocratic Oath is surprisingly short in length given its indisputable importance to the medical community over the past 2,000 years. Its rules—such as “I will use my power to help the sick to the best of my ability and judgment” and “I will be chaste and religious in my…