As one of the most groundbreaking sitcoms of all time, The Golden Girls introduced a range of bioethical issues on the show regarding medicine, the human body and women’s health.
In this TEDx Talk, Dr. Elizabeth Yuko, a Fordham University Center for Ethics Education fellow and adjunct professor, discusses how influential Golden Girls was, and still is, as a lens for the study of bioethics and its principles using examples from the show’s most notable episodes.
Watch below:
Dr. Elizabeth Yuko is also the Health Editor at SheKnows Media, a women’s lifestyle digital media company operating SheKnows.com. BlogHer.com. HelloFlo.com and STYLECASTER.com. Please visit her website and Twitter page for more information.
On Tuesday it was reported that the first live birth resulting from mitochondrial donation was born in New York to a Jordanian couple. According to The New York Times, the fertility procedure – also referred to as “3-parent IVF” – was performed at a Mexican clinic and the baby is a healthy boy.
The purpose of a donor for this couple was to “overcome flaws in a parent’s mitochondria that can cause grave illnesses in babies.” Thus, the DNA from the egg of the healthy mother who has the mutation, is placed in the egg of a healthy donor after her nuclear DNA is removed. It is important to understand that the mitochondria of a cell are completely separate entities from DNA that determines inheritance.
The Jordanian couple took their chances with the procedure as they had lost two other children to the disease, one at age 6 and the other at 8 months. Dr. John Zhang performed the procedure at the New Hope Fertility Center’s clinic in Mexico as it is “effectively banned” in the United States, though it has been legal in the United Kingdom since last year.
The child is now 5 months old and healthy with normal mitochondria, as was first reported by New Scientistmagazine.
Millions of people use websites like WebMD every day to gain insight on a range of medical issues from cancer to mental health. This practice, or “cyberchondria,” is a new digital phenomenon that has resulted from online databases of free, medical information.
With about 74 million users each month, the information on WebMD provides some with clarity for our most intimate and confusing health concerns, but for others, it could be a source of anxiety. In a recent article published in GOOD Magazine, Fordham University Center for Ethics Education Bioethicist Dr. Elizabeth Yuko addressed the “ethical gray area” of web diagnosis and online symptom checkers.
“Websites and algorithms are not held to the Hippocratic Oath. Because WebMD is a media organization, rather than an individual medical professional, it is not held to the same legal and ethical accountability as individual practitioners,” notes Dr. Yuko. Unlike WebMD, other online communities and health professionals must operate under ethics codes and guidelines designed by organizations such as American Medical Association and American Psychological Association.
As far as legal liability is concerned, Dr. Yuko explained that because WebMD’s Terms and Conditions state “This Site Does Not Provide Medical Advice,” the website is not “legally obligated to provide a worst-case scenario” while most health professionals, at least in the United States, are held accountable if they do not provide patients with complete information regarding their health conditions.
Dr. Yuko, however, is most concerned with the use of health care sites as a substitute for obtaining diagnoses because people “can’t afford in-person care.” She stated, “This in itself is an ethics issue, but one from a societal, distributive justice perspective, highlighting the fact that not everyone has access to effective, affordable health care.”
Central America hosts a thriving sex work industry that is a key source and transit region for sex trafficking and undocumented migrants engaged in sex work. Sex workers – particularly those who are migrant – are at high risk for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections as well as physical abuse and in some cases murder. However, the existing network of international, national, and local criminal and human rights policies applicable to sex workers can be confusing and contradictory, not only in the context of access to sexual health preventions and interventions, but also for investigators seeking to conduct that can lead to effective sexual health services.
Wednesday, April 27, 12:15 – 1:30 p.m. | Walsh Library Special Collections room
Join us for a lunchtime lecture and discussion led by Daisy Deomampo, Ph.D. (assistant professor of anthropology, Fordham). Her research focuses on the intersection between technology, gender, health and social justice. She will discuss her long-term ethnographic fieldwork in India with surrogate mothers and Western intended parents, described in her forthcoming book “Transnational Reproduction: Race, Kinship and Commercial Surrogacy” (NYU Press, 2016). A brief response will be provided by Elizabeth Yuko, Ph.D. (Center for Ethics Education).
UPDATE: 2/29/16: An article published today in JAMA Internal Medicine found that Addyi — the so-called “female Viagra” — is even less effective than initially thought, resulting in only one-half of one additional satisfying sexual experience per month for the women taking the medication.
The drug has not been selling well since it received FDA approval in August 2015. As of early January 2016, only 240-290 prescription for Addyi were written each week, according to a recent report cited in The New York Times.The report estimates that sales are currently running at a rate of around $11 million per year, far lower than the projected $100 to $150 million in revenue for this year.
For additional discussion of Addyi, the drug’s efficacy, and the ethical implications, please continue reading below.
Surgical team behind the first uterus transplant in the United States, via The Cleveland Clinic.
The first uterus transplant in the United States took place yesterday at the Cleveland Clinic. The patient is currently in “stable condition,” and more details about the procedure will be released next week at a press conference.
The uterus transplant that took place yesterday in Cleveland differs from those that occurred in Sweden in 2014, because the recipient received the uterus from a deceased donor. The wombs transplanted in the Swedish trial all came from living donors, which raises additional ethical questions regarding living donors undergoing serious surgery for a non-life-saving transplant.
