Evidence-based medicine has always required integration of patient values with ‘best’ clinical evidence. It is widely recognized that scientific practices and discoveries, including those of EBM, are value-laden. But to date, the science of EBM has focused primarily on methods for reducing bias in the evidence, while the role of values in the different aspects of the EBM process has been almost completely ignored.

We discuss the implications of the findings reported in the target article for moral theory, and argue that they represent a clear and genuine case of fundamental moral disagreement. As such, the findings support a moderate form of moral anti-realism – the position that, for some moral issues, there is no fact of the matter about what is right and wrong.

This case study examines the failure of top management at Putnam to exercise ethical behavior in the face of their clear knowledge of corruption in the company. Market timing by employees was expressly forbidden by Putnam. Six employees, including two portfolio managers, repeatedly engaged in market timing activities from 1998 to 2003, garnering over a million dollars in personal profit. The CEO and key senior executives had factual knowledge of the abuses. Management failed to stop the abuses or to discipline (...) those involved until faced with charges from government regulators. By failing to do so, top management breached ethical duties to its shareholders and inflicted serious damage on the organization. The end results of top management's failure to address ethical violations were significant outflow of assets from Putnam's funds, payment of penalties, and loss of trust among investors. This case raises awareness about ethical issues surrounding mutual fund trading practices and the impact that top management can have on the ethical behavior of employees. (shrink)

Catholic employers and employees have been under increasing attack in the last fifty years by a growing number of public policy encroachments in the workplace that are in direct conflict with their religious convictions. In some instances, these threats have been successfully parried. Others remain a source of serious conflict. This article will summarize highlights of the last fifty years of public policy and jurisprudence as they relate to the ability of Catholic institutions to practice and enforce non-negotiable Catholic moral (...) doctrines. (shrink)

The use of evidence in medicine is something we should continuously seek to improve. This book seeks to develop our understanding of evidence of mechanism in evaluating evidence in medicine, public health, and social care; and also offers tools to help implement improved assessment of evidence of mechanism in practice. In this way, the book offers a bridge between more theoretical and conceptual insights and worries about evidence of mechanism and practical means to fit the results into evidence assessment procedures.

The informed consent process for genetic testing does not commonly address preferences regarding disclosure of results in the event of the patient's death. Adults being tested for familial colorectal cancer were asked whether they want their exome sequencing results disclosed to another person in the event of their death prior to receiving the results. Of 78 participants, 92% designated an individual and 8% declined to. Further research will help refine practices for informed consent.

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 12, Issue 10, Page 9-10, October 2012.

To achieve impact, academics need to create personal impact development plans, focused on what and on whom to have an impact and the necessary competencies to do so. Profession and university leaders play a critical role in the successful implementation of such plans.

Julian Savulescu has given clear expression to a principle—that of “procreative beneficence”—which underlies the thought of many contemporary writers on bioethics. The principle of procreative beneficence holds that parents or single reproducers are at least prima facie obliged to select the child, out of a range of possible children they might have, who will be likely to lead the best life. My aim in this paper is to argue that prospective parents, just by dint of their being prospective parents, are (...) in fact not obliged to act on PPB. That is, there is something about their filling the role of prospective parents that exempts them from selecting the child with the best life. I urge that it is more realistic to view prospective parents as bound by a principle of acceptable outlook, which holds that they ought not to select children whose lives will contain an unacceptable amount of suffering. (shrink)

In much the same way that genomic technologies are changing the complexion of biomedical research, the issues they generate are changing the agenda of IRBs and research ethics. Many of the biggest challenges facing traditional research ethics today — privacy and confidentiality of research subjects; ownership, control, and sharing of research data; return of results and incidental findings; the relevance of group interests and harms; the scope of informed consent; and the relative importance of the therapeutic misconception — have become (...) important policy issues over the last 20 years because of the ways they have been magnified by genomic research efforts. Research that examines the ethical, legal, and social implications of human genomics research has become a burgeoning international field of scholarship over the last 20 years, thanks in part to its support first by the genome research funding bodies in the U.S. and then by national science agencies in other countries. (shrink)