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Is it criminal not to breastfeed?
by Rebecca Roache The Brazilian model Gisele Bundchen recently—and controversially—claimed that mothers should be required by law to breastfeed their babies for the first six months of their lives. A few days later, she partially retracted the claim on her blog, insisting that her talk of a breastfeeding law should not be taken literally. It was…
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Why We Should Criminalise Dangerous Sexual Behaviour
Recent post from my blog: Imagine that Herman has toxic radioactive waste from his laboratory. He decides to bury it in the ground next to his laboratory, knowing that it will expose the surrounding houses to dangerous radiation. As a result, Gertrude develops cancer some years later and dies at the age of 37. Herman…
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Demedicalising and decriminalising drugs
Is drug addiction a disease? Substance Dependence appears as a diagnosis in the influential Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Psychiatric Disorders (DSM-IV). There are medical specialists in the field who use a range of different drug and non-drug treatments for patients who are addicted. There are hospitals and clinics where those who are addicted can…
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Off- and on-line, an outdated distinction
Almost a month ago the websites of several newspapers and magazines (http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/dpps/news/who-is-cyber-pranking-victim-jessi-slaughter-dpgoha-20100720-fc_8747638) reported the case of a young girl (11 years old) from Florida, known as Jessi Slaughter, who had been posting videos online (http://gawker.com/5589103/how-the-internet-beat-up-an-11+year+old-girl?skyline=true&s=i), which had been picked up by Stickydrama, a social networking tabloid website. One of the videos was a rather childish…
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The ethics of prescribing antibiotics
Antibiotics are overprescribed. That is, they are given out in many cases where they will achieve little or nothing for the patient. On its own, this would merely be wasteful, but usage of antibiotics increases the development of antibiotic resistant organisms and this is bad for everyone. Today's Guardian has an article suggesting that antibiotic…
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Competing against Mutants
Introduction In a recently broadcasted documentation about gene-doping, multiple award winning Swiss science journalist and author, Beat Glogger, reflected the issue of gene-doping in a sensitive and objective manner. In this Swiss-German co-production Andy Miah, a bold British Bioethicist, argued that gene-doping is supposed to be a natural friendly method of performance enhancement, whereas many…
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Do we harm our children by revealing their sex?
by Rebecca Roache I am over a month late reading the news of the Swedish couple who have chosen to keep the sex of their toddler a closely-guarded secret, but the story is too interesting to pass up the opportunity to write about it here. The parents of the two-and-a-half year old child, known as…
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Blow the Whistle and be Damned?
Reading David Edmonds’ post here and the ensuing discussion about why journalists might be under an imperative to bring important information to light has got me wondering about the other actors involved in exposing cases of wrongdoing. Before a journalist gets on the case, you generally need to have a whistleblower. But when should a…
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Publish and be Damned
When should journalists censor themselves? Last week secret US military files about the war in Afghanistan were published on WikiLeaks. The reaction from the US government was swift and furious. The US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said that WikiLeaks may already have blood on its hands. One fear is that information provided about informants will…
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Ethicists unite: you have nothing to lose but your non-citation
Yesterday Richard Ashcroft, Professor of Bioethics at Queen Mary College, London, wrote in a Facebook update: ‘I am fed up with being asked to come into science/medicine projects, add a bit of ethics fairy dust, usually without getting any share of the pie, just to shut reviewers up. I am not doing it any more.…