Articles Tagged With:
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Eat More Fish? Choose Fish Carefully to Avoid Mercury Toxicity
Synopsis: A recent review deals with the benefits, as well as the risks, of eating fish rich in omega-3 fatty acids and pinpoints which fish contain the most and least amounts of mercury.
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Evidence of economic burden of disparate care for minorities continues to grow
A recent tragic case involving informed consent obtained from parents with limited English proficiency led to a successful lawsuit against the hospital. The parents were told the risks of surgery for their child included kidney damage, but there was no interpreter in the room.
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Study validity may be compromised if patients drop out
Occasionally, individuals who agreed to participate in a research study withdraw for various reasons; some simply stop participating without communicating with investigators.
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Surprising data on FDA committee members’ financial ties
Food & Drug Administration (FDA) advisory committee meetings have, on average, 13% of members with financial conflicts of interest, according to a recent study. Researchers analyzed financial conflicts of 1,400 advisory committee members over a 15-year period.1
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Innovative program effectively educates nurses on clinical ethics
A Clinical Ethics Residency for Nurses has been developed at two large northeastern academic medical centers. One goal is to teach nurses how to be effective advocates for patients whose circumstances, problems, and treatments are ethically complex.
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Ensure patients’ wishes are respected through surrogate decisionmakers
A recent ethics consult at The Ottawa Hospital in Ontario, Canada involved a victim of domestic violence. “The challenge was that the husband, who had severely beaten the patient, was the patient’s substitute decisionmaker,” recalls Thomas Foreman, DHCE, MA, MPIA, director of the Department of Clinical and Organizational Ethics. -
IOM: End-of-Life Care is Inadequate in the US
The American healthcare system is poorly equipped to care for patients at the end of life, according an Institute of Medicine report.
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Guest column: Is “Right to Try” the right fit for better access to investigational drugs?
There is a constant struggle between giving people, particularly the terminally ill, access to new treatments quickly, while also ensuring that those treatments are as safe and effective as possible. The debate continues with the proposal and passage of state “Right to Try” laws, which would give terminally ill people access to investigational drugs that have completed Phase I studies.
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When creating a resource guide, hyperlinks can be useful
The main goal of creating an IRB resource guide is for it to be used and useful. If it’s too large and difficult to search, such as a 50-page paper document, or if it’s too cumbersome, such as a spreadsheet, staff might avoid it.
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New SACHRP member brings legal and bioethical perspective to board
IRB Advisor asked Holly Fernandez Lynch, JD, MBioethics, executive director of the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics, Harvard Law School, Cambridge, MA, to discuss her role in joining the Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Human Research Protections (SACHRP). Before joining the Petrie-Flom Center, Lynch was a senior policy and research analyst for the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues’ report on the Guatemala STD inoculation study.