Category: Newsfeed

Ethics & Society Newsfeed: May 5, 2017

May 5, 2017
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Politics

What Obama’s Former Ethics Counsel Thinks of Trump
Norm Eisen, former ethics counsel to President Obama and co-founder of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) discusses the ethical issues of the Trump administration’s first 100 days.

White House aims for Thursday signing of religious liberty executive order
A win for conservatives, especially the Vice President, the new religious liberty executive order is expected to be signed Thursday.

Ethics office says it wasn’t consulted about Ivanka Trump job
Ivanka Trump was brought on as a White House adviser without consulting the Office of Government Ethics.

State Department Promotes Ivanka Trump’s Book In Another Ethics Blunder
A State Department office retweeted post promoting Ivanka Trump’s new book despite federal rule that bars the use of public office for private gain.

Bioethics and Medical Ethics

This New App Is Tinder For Sperm And Egg Donors
“The ethical and legal complexities of egg-shopping.”

Jimmy Kimmel’s powerful, poignant Obamacare plea crystallizes the GOP’s dilemma
Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel made an emotional plea to lawmakers to fund health-care spending for preexisting conditions, discussing his newborn son Billy’s heart condition on his show.

Firestorm brewing as scientists work to create synthetic human DNA
Scientists say that synthesized human DNA could be a reality in as little as 5 years, invoking ethical questions and concerns.

Informed Consent Becoming More Difficult?
“The recent decision in Ike White v. David Beeks, M.D., has threatened to turn this consent process on its head, especially if it were to be adopted in other states.”

5 things to know about infertility treatments
Treatment for infertility can be expensive and clinics are scarce, calling into question ethics issues.

Research Ethics

Do Youth Have the Ability to Understand and Participate in HIV Prevention Research?
A group of NIMHD-funded researchers are working on one of the barriers to studying HIV prevention in young people: getting parental permission. They found that 14- to 17-year-olds are capable of understanding a hypothetical study on HIV prevention.

Environmental/Ecological Ethics

Can Artificial Intelligence have Ecological Intelligence?
Exploring the possibility that machines could have a better attitude towards the environment than humans.

Should CRISPR Scientists Play God?
“Will genome editing with the new technology, CRISPR, usher in a new era of Promethean overreach? …anti-play-god bioethicists fear that geneticists will play god and precipitate a backlash from nature that could be disastrous to the human race.”

Is It O.K. to Tinker Withthe Environment toFight Climate Change?
Scientists are investigating whether releasing tons of particulates into the atmosphere might be good for the planet. Not everyone thinks this is a good idea.

China’s Appetite Pushes Fisheries to the Brink
Unsustainable fishing practices put the livelihoods of fishermen in the developing world in jeopardy.

Sports

Sports are not a sanctuary from racism. They are a reflection of society.
“There seems to be a broad agreement that acts of racism in the United States are increasing at an alarming rate. The same was true in sport in 2016, where such acts tripled from 11 in 2015 to 31 in 2016, according to research and analysis from the [University of Central Florida’s Institute for Diversity and Ethics and Sport].”

Sports Ethics – An Oxymoron?
Psychologist and WVU faculty member, Dr. Ed Etzel, writes about the rocky relationship between sport and ethics.

The Worrisome Reporting on Aaron Hernandez’s Sexuality
A media ethicist says that the initial reporting on the former football player’s sexuality was careless and harmful.

Technology

The Internet of Things Needs a Code of Ethics
Technology is evolving faster than the legal and moral frameworks needed to manage it.

Teenage hackers motivated by morality not money, study finds
Cyber hackers are on a “moral crusade” to keep the internet free, impress their friends, and challenge the political system.

Ethics and Fashion

Sustainable style: will Gen Z help the fashion industry clean up its act?
Four years after the Rana Plaza tragedy, a burgeoning collection of cool but ethical brands have launched to target the socially conscious young consumer. 

Is There A Difference Between Ethical & Sustainable Fashion?
Unsustainable fashion raises huge ethical issues.

The Only Way Is Ethics
Reasons why it’s easier than ever to be an ethical consumer

 

Ethics & Society Newsfeed: February 17, 2017

February 17, 2017
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Politics

Trump Ethics Monitor: Has The President Kept His Promises?
To track Trump’s ethics-related promises, NPR checked debate transcripts, campaign speeches and press conferences

Trump’s South Florida estate raises ethics questions
Ethics questions and possible conflicts surrounding President Donald Trump’s frequent trips to his sprawling Mar-a-Lago property, especially in regards to the invitation of Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, over the weekend; a trip Trump pledged to pay for.

Should Jeff Sessions Recuse Himself From the Russia Inquiries?
Bruce Green, director of the Louis Stein Center for Law and Ethics at Fordham University, comments on whether Attorney General, Jeff Sessions should recuse himself from investigations involving former National Security Adviser, Michael Flynn and Russian hacking.

Trickle-Down Ethics at the Trump White House
Federal ethics guidelines forbid White House officials from using public position and power for their own private gain or to promote the private business interests of others. Trump Administration actions to be reviewed by the White House counsel and by the Office of Government Ethics.

Government Watchdog Presses Jason Chaffetz To Investigate Kellyanne Conway Himself
Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, requested that The Office of Government Ethics (OGE) investigate Kellyanne Conway’s possible breach of federal ethics rules, indicating that the Chairman may be trying to take pressure off his own committee, which has the most authority to investigate the matter.

Ethics Watchdog Denounces Conway’s Endorsement of Ivanka Trump Products
Federal government’s chief ethics watchdog calls for White House adviser, Kellyanne Conway, to be disciplined after publically endorsing Ivanka Trump’s product line.

Bioethics/Medical Ethics

Scientists ponder future of gene editing to fight disease
Ethical issues surrounding breakthroughs gene editing to fight genetic diseases such as cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy, and cancer.

Continue reading “Ethics & Society Newsfeed: February 17, 2017” →

Ethics & Society Newsfeed: February 3, 2017

February 3, 2017
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Politics

Betsy DeVos’s ethics review raises further questions for Democrats and watchdogs
Betsy DeVos, Trump’s nominee to lead the Education Department, promised to divest from more than 100 entities to avoid potential conflicts of interest with her new job. Questions left unanswered.

Donald Trump warned over ‘unprecedented’ plan to appoint cabinet without ethics office checks, emails reveal
Disclosed emails from the head of the ethics office warn President aides staffing a cabinet with robust oversight is a ‘tradition evolved as a result of hard lessons’

South Dakota Governor Signs Measure Reversing Voter Ethics
Governor of South Dakota signed a bill Thursday overturning an anti-corruption measure passed by a majority of voters in November, to the consternation of government watchdog groups.

Trump And His Organization Lawyer Up For The Ethics War Ahead
President Trump and the Trump Organization are beefing up their legal teams against an expected surge of conflict-of-interest allegations.

Teaching Ethics In The Trump Era
Graduate-level professor asks how to tell students ethics is important when “nothing around them feels ethical” re: Trump administration and conflicts of interest.

Bioethics

Human-pig hybrids might be unsettling. But they could save lives.
A new study out of California unsettled a lot of people last week after revealing that scientists had, for the first time, made part-human, part-pig embryos — referred to as “chimeras.” Raises ethical questions.

Could changing the way doctors are paid help narrow health disparities?
A study suggests that changing the way doctors and hospitals are paid could narrow some of the health disparities between poorer and wealthier patients.

Trump’s Supreme Court Pick Could Shape Bioethics for Generations
Neil Gorsuch, nominee for the US Supreme Court, has spent his career weighing matters of life and death. His views on life—that it is sacred and “intrinsically valuable”—are likely to shape court decisions in areas from abortion to assisted suicide for decades to come.

Continue reading “Ethics & Society Newsfeed: February 3, 2017” →

Ethics & Society Newsfeed: October 14, 2016

October 14, 2016
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Health Care and Bioethics

DNA database highlights need for new medical privacy protections
Creation of a national repository of genetic information is seen by some as crucial to reducing medical costs and improving people’s healthcare.

‘Big data’ could mean big problems for people’s healthcare privacy
Public and private insurers are spending millions of dollars on systems that can predict people’s future healthcare needs.

Colorado Wrestles With Ethics Of Aid In Dying As Vote Looms
Colorado man says he would like the option to end his life rather than face a painful death and advocates for Colorado’s Proposition 106  or “death with dignity.”

The NIH needs to review the ethics of research on primates
Congress asked the National Institutes of Health to review “its ethical policies and processes” on nonhuman primate research “to ensure it has appropriate justification for animal research protocols.”

Breast Cancer Death Rates Are Down, But Racial Disparities Persist
Women are less likely to die of breast cancer than they were a decade ago, but not all women are benefiting from that trend.

Continue reading “Ethics & Society Newsfeed: October 14, 2016” →

Ethics & Society Newsfeed: September 30, 2016

September 30, 2016
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Technology and Ethics

Tech Giants Team Up To Tackle The Ethics Of Artificial Intelligence
The Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to Benefit People and Society, consisting of Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and IBM (with Apple in talks to join), weighs in on the missing ethics standards in artificial intelligence.

Fourth Industrial Revolution: With robots, is a life without work one we’d want to live?
“Being gainfully employed is about more than money. We need to consider what will give our lives purpose and connection in the age of automation.”

Should we bring extinct species back from the dead?
New advances in genetic engineering have researchers thinking seriously about de-extinction and which animals we might be able to bring back.

Bioethics and Public Health

Birth of Baby with Three Parents’ DNA Marks Success for Banned Technique
Experts discuss the first successful mitochondrial donation procedure and why the term “three-parent baby” is misleading.

Human Chimera Research’s Huge (and Thorny) Potential
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) reversed policy barring funding from research involving human chimeras (mixtures of human cells with animal embryos) which can yield major human development discoveries.

Ethics review identifies top two challenges for genome editing
The Nuffield Council on Bioethics reports a need for urgent ethical scrutiny on new genome editing techniques.

Bioethics in the Election: Where the Candidates Stand
The major presidential candidates’ positions on bioethics-related issues in The Hastings Center’s interactive chart.

Continue reading “Ethics & Society Newsfeed: September 30, 2016” →

Jailing for Dollars: The Federal Government Takes Steps to Eliminate a Moral Stain on Justice in the US

August 24, 2016
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The United States has become the world’s leading jailer with 2.2 million people in jails and prisons across the country.  With a combination of government and privately run facilities, the nation faces the moral issues surrounding the prison-industrial complex.  As reflected in a recent New York Times article, the U.S. Justice Department has announced plans to phase out the use of privately run facilities, citing less safe conditions than their government run counterparts.

In the Obama administration’s continuing efforts to address inequities in the criminal justice system The U.S. Justice Department announced plans to phase out its use of privately operated prisons, calling them less safe and a poor substitute for government-run facilities.  According to Celia B. Fisher, Director of the Fordham Center for Ethics Education “this is a welcome step toward addressing the inequities produced by a public-private system that incentivizes high incarceration rates with devastating effects on poor and minority communities.

Fordham University Center for Ethics Education brought attention to this issue in a conference on “Jailing for Dollars: The Moral Cost of Privatizing Justice” featuring Cindy Chang, Los Angeles Times, Scott Cohn, NBC, Thomas Giovanni, Brennan Center for Justice, Judith Greene, Justice Strategies and Michael Jacobson, Vera Institute of Justice. Speakers explored pressing moral questions about the prison-industrial complex, including dangerous overcrowding, unsafe work and health conditions and its consequences on individuals, families and society at large.

To watch the video of this conference, click here and scroll to the bottom of the page to play.

Celia B. Fisher, Ph.D. is the Fordham University Marie Ward Doty University Chair in Ethics and Director of the Center for Ethics Education. Fisher’s  Decoding the Ethics Code: A Practical Guide for Psychologist, is now in its fourth edition from Sage Publications.

Ethics & Society Newsfeed: April 8, 2016

April 8, 2016
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Can we trust robots to make moral decisions?
Last week, Microsoft inadvertently revealed the difficulty of creating moral robots.

Why Bioethics Has a Race Problem
Moral imagination in bioethics has largely failed African Americans.

The disturbing reason some African American patients may be undertreated for pain
African Americans are routinely under-treated for their pain compared with whites, according to research.

Continue reading “Ethics & Society Newsfeed: April 8, 2016” →