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A news analysis published in CANCER found that black patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), or liver cancer, have worse survival than patients of other races, even after receiving comparable treatments.
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A growing number of clinics around the world are advertising therapeutic applications for stem cell treatments that have not been subjected to well-controlled trials.
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Data on physicians prescribing is routinely purchased from pharmacies, with physicians identified through information purchased from the American Medical Association.
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There is a growing focus on identifying a core set of quality metrics that can be used to improve both palliative and end-of-life care.
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Comparative effectiveness research (CER) has the potential to improve outcomes and lower costs, but one key ethical concern is how to best convey to patients that they are participating in research.
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While the vast majority of gamete donations are made anonymously, a growing number of countries are enacting laws allowing children access to identifying information about their gamete donor.
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The Affordable Care Act invested significantly in comparative effectiveness research (CER), but at the same time, states that no decisions coming out of CER should determine what treatments are covered by insurers, notes Norman Daniels, PhD, professor of ethics and population health at Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, MA.
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Health care providers frequently have misconceptions about legal requirements of end-of-life care. By educating providers about how to make decisions when people lose capacity, fewer formal ethics or legal consults will be needed.
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Advance directives enabling people with advanced dementia to refuse food and water as a way of hastening death are controversial.
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The Food and Drug Administration recently held hearings on mitochondrial manipulation to determine whether additional research is needed before proceeding to clinical trials. Ethical concerns include:
