Current Affairs

Tortured logic

by Dominic Wilkinson
April 8, 2009

A leaked report by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has concluded that medical personnel were involved in interrogation and torture performed overseas by the CIA according to reports in the New York Times. The practices reported by the ICRC have been known about for some time. The way that this has been reported in the media seems to imply that there is something especially bad about the involvement of medics in torture, that this makes it even worse. But why should this be?

Ecclesiastical gaydar: should churches be allowed to discriminate priests?

by Anders Sandberg
April 3, 2009

Melbourne's Catholic Churches have decided to test potential priests for sexual orientation, banning those that appear to be gay. This is in accordance with the Vatican recommendation that even celibate gays should not be allowed in the priesthood. Needless to say, both people within and outside the church have reacted negatively to it. But to what extent can a church declare who is fit to hold positions in it? And would the testing be fair?

Contradicting Nature

by Roger Crisp
April 2, 2009

Rubén Noé Coronado Jiménez is 25 and pregnant with twins. He is unusual in that he is a transsexual man, in the middle of hormone treatments and about to undergo a full operation to change his sex: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/30/transexual-man-pregnant-twins . The operation has, of course, been postponed while he and his female partner await the birth… Read More »Contradicting Nature

Life or no-life on the ventilator: the argument from parental freedom

by Dominic Wilkinson
March 11, 2009

In the High Court this week, parents of nine-month old infant OT are fighting a request by doctors to turn off the infant’s life support. The infant has been on a breathing machine since 3 weeks of age, and apparently has severe brain damage. This case has obvious echoes with the highly publicised case of Charlotte Wyatt, and the earlier case of baby MB. In both those instances courts ruled in the parents’ favour and life support was continued.

Bad doctor, bad prosecutor or bad laws?

by Anders Sandberg
March 10, 2009

Ethics, medical practice and the law should ideally coincide. But as a current affair in Sweden shows, it is all too easy for them to collide.

On March 2 police took a doctor into custody at the Astrid Lindgren Children's Hospital in front of her colleauges, suspected of killing an infant. The background is tragic: last year a three month pre-term infant suffered a stroke, causing serious brain damage. This was likely due to a medical mistake that was duly reported. Some months afterwards the dying infant was taken of ventilaton and died, with the consent of the parents. She was given high doses the painkiller morphine and anaesthetic thiopental to prevent suffering. Apparently the prosecutor investigating the initial medical mistake noticed these high levels and decided to investigate whether manslaughter had taken place. Much criticism has been aimed at the prosecutor for the heavy-handed use of the police and putting the doctor into arrest, especially since the events occured several months ago and it is very unlikely there is any danger of tampering with evidence. But it is more troubling that the doctors involved (at least given currently available information) were acting according to standard medical praxis. Are a sizeable fraction of the Swedish medical profession guilty of manslaughter?

Designer Babies and Slippery Slopes

by Roger Crisp
March 4, 2009

Designer babies are in the news again. The LA Fertility Institutes, headed by a 1970s IVF pioneer, have offered the opportunity for potential parents to choose traits such as the eye and hair colour of their children: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7918296.stm Unsurprisingly, slippery slope arguments have already begun to appear: http://www.theage.com.au/world/la-delivers-first-designerbaby-clinic-20090302-8meq.html Marcy Darnovsky, director of the Centre for… Read More »Designer Babies and Slippery Slopes

Is doodling a form of cheating?

by Rebecca Roache, Royal Holloway University of London
February 27, 2009

The public
often complains about the fluctuating and conflicting attitudes of scientists. So often do things heralded as good for us
one week turn out to be deadly the next (consider, for example, this recent
report about vitamin pills) that there seems little point in
trying to follow the advice of scientists.

Some recent
news stories raise the question of whether the public is inclined to dismiss
the conflicting views of ethicists, too. Ethical
concerns about pharmacological cognitive enhancement have regularly been
reported in the press (see, for example, here,
here,
and here);
whilst at the same time—as Dominic Wilkinson has noted on this blog—the
public has embraced non-pharmacological cognitive enhancement in the form of software designed to improve brain power, and the media
currently abounds with docile, non-panicky reports of how instant messaging,
texting,
taking short naps,
taking long naps,
listening to The Beatles,
and doodling can all enhance cognition in various ways.
So far, there have been no reports of ethical concerns about these
activities: nobody is suggesting that students who doodle during lectures are cheating. It seems that, despite the concerns of some, the public is willing
to embrace cognitive enhancement in a variety of forms.

Brain training and cognitive enhancement

by Dominic Wilkinson
February 26, 2009

If you were offered a treatment that claimed to be able to improve your memory and creativity, enhance neuroplasticity and increase cognitive ability, and prevent later cognitive decline would you take it? Many people would – at least if the recent popularity of computer-based brain-training exercises is anything to go by. Programs claiming to be able to do some or all of the above have been at the top of software charts for the last couple of years, and have sold millions of copies. Research published today in the consumer magazine ‘Which?’ pours cold water on the claims of the brain trainer manufacturers. The research concludes that there is very weak evidence that these exercises actually work.

Achievement and the welfare of children

by Roger Crisp
February 4, 2009

A report commissioned by the Children’s Society claims that the aggressive pursuit of individual achievement is damaging the interests of children in the UK: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7861762.stm The principal author is Lord Richard Layard, whose book *Happiness: Lessons from a New Science* (Allen Lane, 2005) is the best account of the last few decades of research on… Read More »Achievement and the welfare of children

EightFourteen is enough

by Mark Sheehan
February 2, 2009

As the Guardian reports, what started out as the more usual happy, wonder-of-modern medicine story of octuplets born in California has turned a little bit sour. It turns out that the 33 year old single mother of the eight newborns who lives with her parents, has six children already, the eldest of whom is seven. That’s 14 children below the age of eight. The story gets more difficult. Apparently, the mother is a self described ‘professional student’ who lives on “education grants and her parents’ money” and plans on becoming a “television childcare expert.” Further, the woman’s parents have recently filed for bankruptcy and her mother has previously consulted a psychologist about her daughter’s obsession with children.