Neil Gorsuch Speech at Trump Hotel Raises Ethical Questions
“Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, President Trump’s Supreme Court appointee, is scheduled to address a conservative group at the Trump International Hotel in Washington next month, less than two weeks before the court is set to hear arguments on Mr. Trump’s travel ban.”
Trump’s Washington DC hotel turns $2m profit amid ethics concerns
“Donald Trump’s company is said to have taken home nearly $2m in profits this year at its extravagant hotel in Washington, DC – amid ethics concerns stemming from the President’s refusal to fully divest from his businesses while he is in office.”
Does Trump’s Slippery Slope Argument About Confederate Statues Have Merit?
“NPR’s Robert Siegal talks with Ilya Somin, a professor of George Mason University, about President Trump’s warning that pulling down Confederate statues may lead to a slippery slope in which monuments to the Founding Fathers are torn down.”
CRISPR and the Ethics of Human Embryo Research
“Although scientists in China and the United Kingdom have already used gene editing on human embryos, the announcement that the research is now being done in the United States makes a U.S. policy response all the more urgent.”
The Ethics Issue Blocking Organ Transplant Research
“The ethics of so-called donor-intervention research are incredibly fraught. How do you get informed consent and from whom? The dead donor? The live recipient—or possibly dozens of live recipients getting tissues or organs from a single donor, fanned out across the country at different hospitals each with their own ethics review boards? All this would unfold against intense time pressure. Every minute of delay is a minute in which the organ is deteriorating.”
NSF reiterates policy on teaching good research habits despite its limitations
“The National Science Foundation (NSF) in Arlington, Virginia, has decided to double down on its implementation of a congressionally mandated policy aimed at reducing research misconduct among NSF-funded scientists, despite a new report that notes problems with the agency’s approach.”
What do revised U.S. rules mean for human research?
“Following a contentious 5½-year process, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP) released a revised “Common Rule,” which governs federally funded research involving human subjects (1). The updated rule includes a number of welcome changes for U.S. institutions and researchers, and their scientific collaborators abroad.”
The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence
“Establish an ethics committee, pursue innovation safely, create a solid foundation, choose autonomy, not regulation…”
“We have made more progress in artificial intelligence (AI) in the last three years than in the preceding three decades. AI is transforming from handy little applications that make our lives easier (from Alexa and Siri to Uber and Netflix) to something more powerful…”
How to be Ethical in the Workplace, According to 3 Philosophers “Whether you’re a journalist, banker, salesman, chef—whatever your career path may be—you’re obviously going to want to be a good professional. A key factor in being “good” in any profession is to be ethical…”
The American Psychoanalytic Association announced earlier this month that members of the association no longer need to abide by the long-established “Goldwater Rule” named after 1964 presidential candidate Barry Goldwater. The rule, which can be found in Section 7.3 of the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) Ethics Code, cautions against most psychiatrists and other mental health professionals offering opinions about an individual publicly – including the President of the United States.
In an interview with Fordham News, Dr. Fisher stated, “Revising ethical standards to address a particularly problematic political figure or to condone the publication of a book does not reflect well on the association.The public should be aware that the American Psychoanalytic Association organization does not represent the field of psychiatry per se, but a group of professionals who practice a particular therapeutic orientation within the mental health profession known as psychoanalysis.”
“Responsible diagnosis in psychoanalysis, as in other mental health fields, relies on assessment techniques that are characterized by interactions with and analysis of patient responses to specific established questions. A professionally and ethically responsible diagnosis cannot be determined in the absence of such interactions or assessments.For example, although the American Psychological Association has not adopted a “Goldwater Rule,” the importance of appropriate assessments are intrinsic in its ethics code, which forbids psychologists from providing opinions of the psychological characteristics of individuals if they have not “conducted an examination of the individuals adequate to support their statements or conclusions”. To be sure, the mental health profession can and should share their knowledge with the public, but irresponsible “diagnosis” diminishes the profession and does not serve the public it seeks to inform.”
The American Psychoanalytic Association’s Statement on “Goldwater Rule” can be found on their website.
This May, the Center for Ethics Education at Fordham University oversaw it seventh successful installment of installment of Theories and Applications in Contemporary Ethics. The theme of this year’s intensive ethics workshop was Living with Moral Disagreement: Activism, Advocacy, and Interaction. In this course, students from Fordham University and around the world engaged with faculty members from six disciplines on how to live in a world with a vast and deep moral disagreement
The Center brought together Michael Baur, PhD on Law, Melissa Labonte, PhD on Political Science, Charlie Camosy, PhD on Theology, Orit Avashai, PhD on Sociology, Gwenyth Jackaway, PhD on Communication and, the Center’s new Director of Academic Programs, Bryan Pilkington, PhD on Philosophy. From each of these distinct perspectives, the faculty engaged with students on topics about which we deeply disagree, including rights to healthcare, religious and legal exemptions around the concept of death and female genital mutilation or cutting. The conversation was lively, practical and steeped in the deep theoretical commitments.
The Center was pleased to have Lerato Molefe as a participant in this workshop, thanks to the Fordham/Santander Universities International Scholarship in Ethics Education. Lerato Molefe visited Fordham from Johannesburg, South Africa where she is the founding and managing director of Naaya Consulting, a legal and strategy consulting firm for large and high growth organizations spanning a range of industries across the African continent. She has degrees from Harvard Law School, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and Smith College.
How to Apply for the International Santander Universities International Student Scholarships
Politics and World News White House Waivers May Have Violated Ethics Rules
White House waiver allows all White House aids to communicate with news organizations, even if they involve a “former employer or former client.” Stephen K. Bannon, senior White House strategist, will be able to communicate with editors at Breitbart News.
A Vocal Defender of Ethics Has Fans — and Foes
Walter M. Shaub Jr., director of the Office of Government Ethics, is one of the few people in government willing to second-guess President Trump and his advisers.
Tuskegee syphilis study descendants speak about tragedy, seek healing
For 40 years starting in 1932, medical workers in the segregated South withheld treatment for unsuspecting men infected with a sexually transmitted disease simply so doctors could track the ravages of the horrid illness and dissect their bodies afterward. Decades later, descendants continue to gather in memory of their fathers and grandfathers.
Rethinking Ethics Training in Silicon Valley “If technology can mold us, and technologists are the ones who shape that technology, we should demand some level of ethics training for technologists.”
Facebook and the ethics of moderation
An examination of Facebook’s challenge in moderating content and those who are monitoring and moderating the social web
When Will Robots Deserve Human Rights? As robotics and AI advance, sophisticated machines or “robots” may match human capacities in intelligence, awareness, and emotions. Should be granted human-equivalent rights, freedoms, and protections?
The Fordham University HIV and Drug Abuse Prevention Research Ethics Training Institute (RETI), now in its 7th year, is a training grant sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) (R25 DA031608-07), Principal Investigator, Dr. Celia B. Fisher, Director, Center for Ethics Education). The RETI provides early-career investigators in the social, behavioral, medical and public health fields with an opportunity to gain research ethics training. In doing so, RETI addresses the urgent need for HIV and drug use investigators who can identify and address ethical issues, engage drug using and other at-risk communities in the construction and evaluation of population sensitive research protections, and generate empirical data to inform ethical practice and policies for HIV prevention science. Through their funded Mentored Research Projects (MRP), RETI fellows generate empirical data, publish their findings in a variety of high-impact academic journals, and are trained to apply for increasing grant opportunities.
The program’s aims are to: (1) increase trainees’ knowledge of and capacity to address key ethical issues in HIV and drug abuse prevention research; (2) increase trainees’ capacity to ethically engage participants and communities in the construction of participant protections that reflect the values and merit the trust of all stakeholders in HIV and drug abuse prevention research.; (3) increase trainees’ capacity to conduct research that will generate data to inform HIV and drug abuse prevention research practices and policies; and (4) create and sustain an information and communication network for trainees, faculty and others in the field for enhancing ethical knowledge, ethical dialogue and future professional collaborations in HIV and drug abuse prevention research ethics.
With the advent of 3-D printers and similar technology, modern science has come closer and closer to artificially solving medical issues and imitating parts of both the anatomy and physiology of the human body. However, when it comes to issues of reproduction and pregnancy, it’s an entirely different battle. Attempts to create an artificial womb for human gestation have proven to be be unsuccessful over the last two decades. However, researchers from The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia were able to create an artificial womb in which premature lambs were able to grow.
A recent article from The New York Times considers the ethical and legal implications of this new technology if it is applied to humans. One of the most likely situations that could arise would be using the artificial wombs for premature infants. An artificial womb could eliminate or address many of the issues and risks that face premature infants in incubators such as undeveloped lungs and neurodevelopmental challenges, and could be a life-saving technology for many. However, artificial wombs would not allow for contact or interaction between parents and infants that can be facilitated with incubators, which is something that is extremely beneficial for both the parents and the infant emotionally and physically.
“When I started my Ph.D. looking into the ethics of artificial wombs in 2009, several people told me that it was purely science fiction, and not anything that will happen anytime soon,” stated Dr. Elizabeth Yuko, Health & Sex Editor for SheKnows Media. She continued, “While the recent trials were conducted on lambs, not humans, the rapid evolution of reproductive technology means ethicists have to stay a few steps ahead of clinical practice.”
Dr. Yuko’s research interests include sexual health and reproductive ethics, human enhancement and research ethics. She adds that she is “thankful to have had the opportunity to address some of these early ethical issues in The New York Times.”
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.
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.”
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.
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.”
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.
