Medical Ethics Advisor – June 1, 2007
June 1, 2007
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Gun control: Medical ethics issue, public health concern, or political bias?
The mass shootings at Virginia Tech in April fueled the national debate over gun control, and physicians treating those killed and injured in the rampage expressed shock at the extent of the violence. -
Is care ever futile? Texas MDs, advocates square off
If there is any state that is currently a lightning rod for issues relating to futility of care, it would be Texas. Medical professionals, right-to-life and disability rights organizations, churches, and civil liberties groups are doing battle over the Texas Advance Directives Act (TADA); many of the same parties have taken sides over a terminally ill Austin toddler whose mother is fighting a hospital's efforts to invoke the act to end the boy's life-sustaining treatments. -
Will California follow Oregon with PAS bill?
A bill that would make California the second state in the country to legalize physician-assisted suicide (PAS) has worked its way through the state assembly's Judiciary Committee, but needs to clear the state House by June 8 to be eligible for consideration this year by the state Senate. -
Pandemic plans address vaccines but not ethics
Should a pandemic strike the United States, states and local communities are ready with protective equipment and plans for allocating vaccines. But some important ethical questions aren't addressed in state pandemic flu plans, one public health expert says, and those are the issues that might derail the best-laid disaster plans. -
AAP reviews policy on circumcision
A "flurry" of new studies suggesting that there is a link between sexually transmitted diseases and non-circumcision has led the American Association of Pediatrics (AAP) to undertake a new review of its policy on the procedure.