Acres of Skin: Human Experiments at Holmesburg Prison by
At a time of increased interest and renewed shock over the Tuskegee syphilis experiments, Acres of Skin sheds light on yet another dark episode of American medical history. In this disturbing expose, Allen M. Hornblum tells the story of Philadelphia's Holmesburg Prison.
Chasing Captain America: How Advances in Science, Engineering, and Biotechnology Will Produce a Superhuman by
Could we create a real-life superhero by changing human biology itself? The form and function of the human body, once entirely delimited by nature, are now fluid concepts thanks to recent advances in biomedical science and engineering. Professor, author, and comic book enthusiast E. Paul Zehr uses Marvel’s Captain America — an ordinary man turned into an extraordinary hero, thanks to a military science experiment — as an entry-point to this brave new world of science, no longer limited to the realm of fiction. With our ever-expanding scientific and technological prowess, human biological adaptability is now in our fallible human hands. Thanks to the convergence of biology, engineering, and technology, we can now alter our abilities through surgery, pharmaceutical enhancement, technological fusion, and genetic engineering. Written in an accessible manner, Chasing Captain America explores these areas and more, asking what the real limits of being human are, how far we should bend those limits, and how we may be forced to reshape human biology if we are to colonize planets like Mars.
Ethics and Integrity in Health and Life Sciences Research by
Life and health sciences and biomedical studies havedeveloped rapidly over the last few decades raising previously unanticipatedethical concerns and questions. New and emerging technologies require novelapproaches, protocols and raised awareness to ensure adequate levels ofbiosecurity and biosafety as well as the implementation of special measures toprevent their potential misuse or dual use. This volume brings together an international collection ofprominent ethics experts in health and life sciences, with the aim of providingclear and comprehensive guidelines for the establishment of efficient ethicalstrategies related to current and emerging biotechnologies and health research. Important current topics in research ethics includingCRISPR-Cas9 technologies, gene editing, 'big data' in healthcare and lifesciences, nutrition in medicine among other topics have found their place inthis volume. In addition, the volume discusses the prospects for theimplementation of an international unification of ethical standards in lifesciences.
Human Genetics and Ethicss by
Each cell in the human body contains about 20,000 genes. Genes carry the information that determines the traits that are passed on to you, or inherited, from your parents. Genes are the instructions for the growth and development of our bodies, however mutations in a person's genome can result in a genetic condition or disease. How do the building blocks of the human body - DNA, genes and chromosomes - interrelate and interact with the environment, and contribute to a range of serious diseases? What are the dilemmas, risks and regulations associated with genetic testing and its related privacy and discrimination issues, the corporate patenting of people's genes, and the growing prospects of human genetic enhancement? What are the ethical implications of gene therapies and emerging biotechnology techniques like gene editing (CRISPR) in the manipulation of the human genome, such as the recent controversial development of three-parent babies? In this new era of personalised medicine are we as a species, going too far, or are we on a promising path to curing many deadly diseases? Does this all amount to scientific progress, or are we playing God with our own genes?
No Place for Ethics: Judicial Review, Legal Postivism, and the Supreme Court of the United States by
In No Place for Ethics, Hill argues that contemporary judicial review by the U.S. Supreme Court rests on its mistaken positivist understanding of law--law simply because so ordered--as something separate from ethics. Further, to assert any relation between the two is to contaminate both, either by turning law into an arm of ethics, or by making ethics an expression of law. This legal positivism was on full display recently when the Supreme Court declared that the CDC was acting unlawfully by extending the eviction moratorium to contain the spread of the Covid-19 Delta variant, something that, the Court admitted, was of indisputable benefit to the public. How mistaken however to think that acting for the good of the public is to act unlawfully when actually it is to act ethically and must therefore be lawful. To address this mistake, Hill contends that an understanding of natural law theory provides the basis for a constitutive relation between ethics and law without confusing their distinct role in answering the basic question, how should I behave in society? To secure that relation, the Court has an overriding responsibility when carrying out its review to do so with reference to normative ethics from which the U.S. Constitution is derived and to which it is accountable. While the Constitution confirms, for example, the liberty interests of individuals, it does not originate those interests which have their origin in human rights that long preceded it. Essential to this argument is an appreciation of ethics as objective and based on principles, like those of justice, truth, and reason that ought to inform human behavior at its very springs. Applied in an analysis of five major Supreme Court cases, this appreciation of ethics reveals how wrongly decided these cases are.
Redefining the Boundaries of Medicine: The High-Tech, High-Touch Path Into the Future by
Health care as it stands today needs to be re-imagined. Redefining the Boundaries of Medicine by Paul Cerrato and Dr. John Halamka challenges the profession to renegotiate its priorities and address the fact that it's become timid and reluctant to explore new care delivery models. The guiding premise of this book is that rethinking and reimagining the way medicine is practiced in the 21st century will improve health outcomes, and that technology is central to this transformation. Dr. Halamka is the President and Paul Cerrato is the Senior Research Analyst and Communications Specialist for Mayo Clinic Platform, which is harnessing novel technologies to change how care is provided. This cutting-edge work, along with their combined 80 years of experience in healthcare, afford Dr. Halamka and Mr. Cerrato authoritative voices in technology and health care. This book shows how one-size-fits-all health care is slowly giving way to a more precise, personalized approach that takes into account each person's unique environmental and genetic risk factors. It discusses the use of several emerging technological tools that give each patient a unique "topographical map" to navigate their journey. Artificial intelligence in health care must be accurate, equitable and ethical; providers need to embrace a better way to predict diseases, identify effective treatments and rethink much of the conventional wisdom that has been handed down over the decades. Redefining the Boundaries of Medicine provides the guide to doing just that.
The Search for the Legacy of the USPHS Syphilis Study at Tuskegee by
The Search for the Legacy of the USPHS Syphilis Study at Tuskegee is a collection of essays that seeks to redefine the "legacy" of the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study in light of recent findings from other scientific studies that challenge the long-standing, widely-held understanding of the study. These essays are written with thoughtful attention to fully integrate the essayists' perspectives on the impact of the study on the lives of Americans today and place the legacy of the study within the evolving picture of racial and ethnic relations in the United States. Each essayist looks through his or her own personal and professional prism to give an account of what constitutes that legacy today. Contributors include the two leading historians of the Tuskeegee Syphilis Study and two former Surgeons General of the United States .
