August 2007 AJOB
The latest issue of AJOB features three target articles:
The Imperatives of Narrative: Health Interest Groups and Morality in Network News
by Joshua A. Braun
Acceptability in France of Induced Abortion for Adolescents
by Maria T. Munoz Sastre, Elizabeth Legrain, Etienne Mullet, Celine Peccarisi, Paul Sorum
Towards a Global Human Embryonic Stem Cell Bank
by Jason P. Lott, Julian Savulescu
As always, each target article is accompanied by a group of peer commentaries. This month's issue also features an editorial by Matthew K. Wynia: "Breaching Confidentiality to Protect the Public: Evolving Standards of Medical Confidentiality for Military Detainees" -- its full text is available for free. Here's a snip:
One might surmise that it would be easier to ethically defend a breach of confidentiality to prevent possible harms to a large population compared to a breach to protect just one person, but in fact it's been the opposite. There seems to be something in human nature that allows for extreme responses to prevent harms to identifiable individuals (this is the so-called "rule of rescue;" see, for example, McKie and Richardson 2003). Despite ethical questions about this (for example, is being 'identifiable' a morally legitimate basis for getting extra attention?), breaching confidentiality to protect populations has been harder for doctors to accept than has breaching it to prevent harms to identifiable individuals.
And there's more, including book reviews and correspondence. Check it out.
contribute a comment
Comments have been closed for this post.
