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The authors respond to the article "Complete Lives in the Balance," by S. Kerstein and G. Bognar. They disagree with Kerstein and Bognar on ethical issues including the allocation of resources for the sickest individuals, the use of quality-of-life considerations and prioritizing adolescents over infants. They believe that their complete lives framework offers ethical guidance for allocating health resources.

The authors respond to the article "Complete Lives in the Balance," by S. Kerstein and G. Bognar. They believe that Kerstein and Bognar focus too narrowly on life-and-death cases and miss the relevance of tools that measure quality of life. Quality-adjusted life year (QALY) assessments, resource allocation and medical prognosis are also discussed.

The author responds to the article "Complete Lives in the Balance," by S. Kerstein and G. Bognar. The author agrees with Kerstein and Bognar that resource allocation should not be based on the assessment of the complete lives system. Allocating resources to the youngest patients first and making ethical decisions by considering the clinical bedside are also discussed.

The author responds to the article "Complete Lives in the Balance," by S. Kerstein and G. Bognar. He disagrees with Kerstein and Bognar's proportional trade-off proposal for allocating scarce health resources such as vaccines and organs. Quality-adjusted life years (QALY), medical prognosis and giving priority of resources to adolescents is also discussed.

The author responds to the article "Complete Lives in the Balance," by S. Kerstein and G. Bognar. He focuses on the issue of giving priority to adolescents over young children and older adults during a life-or-death situation. He agrees with Kerstein and Bognar that we do not have moral reasons to prioritize adolescents over infants when allocating scarce health resources.

The authors present their comments on the article "The case of Samuel Golubchuk and the right to live," by A. Jotkowitz and others in a previous issue. The authors suggest that the final decision in the withdrawal of life-sustaining interventions be mediated by a third-party, through dispute resolution, or through court adjudication. They discuss the “Statement on Withholding and Withdrawing Life-Sustaining Treatment," by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Manitoba (CPSM).

The article summarizes the moral basis for universal and uniform protection of human subjects in medical research. The article explains why the current federal regulatory scheme is inadequate. It proposed that states act to protect their citizens, following the example of an enacted law in Maryland and the absence of a federal law embodying universal protection.

The article discusses how various system or operational failures can contribute to the ethical dilemmas related to hospital discharge. Based on observational data from a federally-funded study, a number of salient but dysfunctional moments in the discharge processes are described as factors that contribute to the kinds of moral perplexities.

The article evaluates the Research Design by Research Ethics Committees in the context of ethical assessment of TeGenero TGN1412 trial by Emanuel and Miller. It is suggested that many reforms are required in the operating procedures of Review Committees such as the United Kingdom Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency to safeguard research subjects. The article suggests a centralized review system, public registration of clinical trials and public dissemination of research results.

The article comments on the article "A Decision Analysis of Consent," by J. Baron that appeared in the "American Journal of Bioethics." The tendency of Baron to consider decision analysis to be a different way of thinking about consent is criticized. The origin of the concept of decision analysis is discussed. The article also tackles the contrast between the philosophy of praxis and utilitarianism.

The article comments on the article "A Decision Analysis of Consent," by J. Baron that appeared in the "American Journal of Bioethics." The claim by Baron that decision making based on an appeal to tradition alone is criticized. The article also discusses the importance of considering the question of how important it is in applied bioethics to employ a decision making method aimed at identifying the best outcome.

Comments on a study by David Steinberg, which proposed a system that would reward people who agree to donate their kidneys after they die with allocation preference while they are alive. Moral implications of the proposed system; Potential reasons for the preference of a person to be an organ taker rather than an organ giver; Objections concerning the proposed system.

Comments on a study by R. M. Werner and colleagues, which highlighted the temptation for physicians to use deception to avail insurance coverage for their patients. Concerns over the design of the study; Issues concerning the subject of time pressure indicated in the study; Analysis of the correlation between actual time spent and perception of time spent.

Comments on a study by R. M. Werner and colleagues, which investigated the public's and physician's willingness to support deception of insurance companies in order to obtain necessary health care services in the U.S. Background on the context of deception throughout the history of medicine; Concept of informed consent that emerged during the twentieth century; Influence of the fiduciary obligation of physician to its decision to lie.

Criticizes an article on the provision of assisted reproduction for HIV-1 discordant couples. Review of a related case study; Justification for the provision of assisted reproduction for such couples; Issues on medical ethics.

Discusses the issue of using placebo controls in clinical trials. Arguments against the use of placebo in clinical trials; Consequence of using placebo on the subjects of research; Justifications for using placebo in clinical trials.

Comments on an article which proposed the involvement of families in negotiating and contracting the parameters of confidentiality in physician-patient relationships. Efforts to ensure medicine's commitment to confidentiality; Family-related issues in handling decisions about genetic information; Problems with family involvement in genetic information disclosure.

Presents an article about medical services provided to handicapped persons. Ethical issues on the care for the handicapped; Perception of disabled persons on health care services; Fundamental rights of disabled individuals; Implications of patients anger toward health services to bioethics.

The article reflects on the traditional teachings or seven gifts of the Seven Grandfathers and the importance of incorporating Native American values to bioethics to improve the health care of Aboriginal people and improve the discipline of bioethics. It discusses the association between and among the Ojibwa values of courage, truth or sincerity, respect, love, honesty, wisdom and humility from the Native perspective and stresses the need for personal transformation to embody these teachings.

The authors examines the reasons provided by James L. Bernat in his article "Whither Brain Death?" which concludes that brain-dead patients, even if stabilized and maintained in intensive care units (ICU), are dead. Topics covered include the damaging critiques to the view of Bernat which he calls biophilosophical justification of regarding brain death as death and the argument presented by R. M. Bonelli and colleagues about brain death in their article published in "Psychiatria Danubina."

The author argues against the argument of medical ethics professors Robert Truog and Frank Miller saying that the determination of death in the case of brain-dead potential organ donors should be understood as a legal fiction. Topics covered include the views of Miller and Truog concerning the status of brain dead organ donors who are candidates for vital organ donation and the model statute regarding the determination of death proposed in the 1981 monograph "Defining Death."

The author reflects on the use of nudging in the clinical decision making process in medicine. He suggests that medical professionals often nudge their patients without recognizing that they are doing so. He argues that the field of bioethics has shown the impact of several factors which influence patient and research subject decision making and that medical professionals need to be aware of the influences and of the impact that their language can have in the medical decision making process.

In this article the author reflects on competencies and standards concerned with health care ethics consultations which have been developed by a task force of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities. In the article the author offers his opinions on health care ethics consultations, on the credentialing of bioethicists and on the task force's standards.

The author reflects on the state of bioethics in the year 2000 and presents predictions for the field in the year 2025. Topics include the use of bioethics policy by U.S. President George W. Bush to restrict embryonic stem cell research, international cooperation on bioethics issues, and the role of bioethics in research into potential therapeutic applications of human genomics data.

The article discusses the article "The Difficult Patient Preconceived: An Expanded Moral Mandate for Clinical Ethics" by Autumn Fiester. In the article the authors offer their opinions on several points which are raised in Fiester's article and on methods that could be used to establish and maintain physician-patient relationships in cases which involve difficult patients.

The article reports on the moral and ethical issues raised with the use of the "slow code," a term which refers to cardiopulmonary resuscitation which is applied to a patient when the patient's family members insist upon its use despite the fact that the patient's physician feels that it is futile. In the article the author offers his opinions on the use of the "slow code" and on several points that are raised in the article "Should the 'Slow Code' Be Resuscitated?" by J. D. Lantos and W. L. Meadow.

The article discusses the article "Impairing Loyalty: Corporate Responsibility for Clinical Misadventure” by K. Kipnis, which focuses on the moral aspects that are associated with a physician's obligation to disclose information to a patient and the impact that influence from corporations can have on physicians. In the article the authors offer their opinions on Kipnis' article on the obligations that physicians have to disclose information to patients and on conflicts of interest in medicine.

In this article the authors discuss social considerations in research. They argue that an inquiry into the benefits from the analysis of social contexts within research programs should not be used to place limits on scientific research. Topics include an overview of U.S. patent law and how the U.S. biotechnology industry has fostered diverse innovation by allowing all possible inventions to be considered patentable subject matter regardless of social considerations and social contexts.

The article presents an overview of patient-centered opioid treatment agreements, which typically include both informed consent and documentation of a plan of care and are usually integrated into a single document. A discussion of the potential for coercion which exists with the use of the agreements is presented.

The authors present their comments on the article "The case of Samuel Golubchuk and the right to live," by A. Jotkowitz and others in a previous issue. They discuss the “Statement on Withholding and Withdrawing Life-Sustaining Treatment," by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Manitoba (CPSM). They maintain that removing treatment that causes suffering is justifiable even if it causes an earlier death.

The authors present their replies to comments about their essay "The case of Samuel Golubchuk and the right to live" in a previous issue. They discuss the issue of patient autonomy in both the research and clinical settings. They discuss the ethical concerns of attending physicians and the religious aspects of withholding and withdrawing medical care.

The author responds to the article "Transplant tourism in China: A tale of two transplants," by R. Rhodes and T. Schiano. The author suggests that Rhodes and Schiano are wrong in arguing that the two cases of transplant tourism were correctly handled differently by the hospital. In both cases, the author suggests, professional obligations were at stake.

The article offers the author's insight on the study conducted by Baum and colleagues on the use of public deliberation methods to inform challenging public health policies. She points out that the study provides knowledge about the issue in health policies and advance inquiry in health policy ethics's sub-discipline. She notes that the study raises crucial questions for public deliberation scholars about the composition and difference of deliberative method from other research methodologies.

The article presents the author's perspective on the medical treatment that terrorists should receive. The author states that the terrorists are worthy to receive a good medical treatment because other patients deserved the same. The author believes that everyone involved in medical education should go out their way to clarify that all medical personnel should treat wounded terrorists as they treat regular patients.

The article focuses on the study of Naik and colleagues regarding patient autonomy in bioethics. The author argues that the re-conceptualization by Naik on patient autonomy should be expanded to support its decisional and executive aspect. It discusses the concept of patient autonomy based on its three aspects such as decisional, executive, and informational. It discusses a notable study about executive autonomy in bioethics literature including "Knowing Your Own Strength," by Anderson and Lux.

The author reflects on the potential bias in bioethics research due to the funding of private industries. He argues that although there is a little evidence the proves on the direct influence of private industry on bioethics, it still has serious effects in medical ethics. The author also mentions the disclosures of the editors and publishers about the funds of their research.

The article comments on the report "Clash of definitions: Controversies about conscience in medicine," by R.E. Lawrence and F.A. Curlin, published in the "American Journal of Bioethics." The report addresses the issue of how the conscience of caregivers is informed and what role it should play in the complex arena of medical decision-making. It addresses a number of ways in which the conscience can be informed.

The article presents a commentary on an article on the role of altruism in parental decision about whether to enroll their children in pediatric oncology trials. The ethical implications of justifying clinical research in terms of altruism are explored. Conceptual confusions in the authors' discussion of altruism including children's decision-making capacities are described.

The author explores the controversy over a set of industry sponsored clinical trials for an artificial blood, PolyHeme®. The public criticisms that emerged against the clinical trials conducted by Northfield Laboratories, Inc. are discussed. The article also discusses the obligation of ethicists in checking a clinical trial that is unethical in character.

Comments on the article "Examining the Potential Exploitation of UNOS Policies" regarding the altruistic nature of organ donation and the ability of the medical community to maintain a system that is fair and equitable. Problem regarding the consent needed to donate to meet the needs of the waiting list; Solicitation from individuals needing an organ who do not want to wait; Need to establish an infrastructure of rules and protections for both parties from financial loss, physical harm and unintended negative consequences.

Argues that ethics trumps professionalism. Disadvantage of too much focus on the details of a professionalism curriculum; Difference between the impact of medical ethics education and professionalism on medical students; Goals of medical educators who have accepted the centrality of professionalism.

Emphasizes the role of medical educators in taking the history of medical ethics in teaching medical professionalism to medical students. Components of the concept of medicine as a profession; Influence of such concept to U.S. medical ethics; Implication of the concept for medical students.

Discusses the problem with the Student Athlete Testing Using Random Notification study from an ethical perspective. Zero-tolerance approach to substance use by an adolescent population; Breach of medical privacy; Protection of individuals during their participation in a voluntary or mandatory testing program.

Discusses the disparity between words and phrases in the public press that downgrade versus upgrade the moral status of human embryos. Considerations related to the well-being of the human subject in medical research; Language of moral uncertainty about human embryos; Emphasis on conventional approaches to pluralistic thinking in bioethics.

Evaluates the ethical rationale of exploiting human subjects for testing a new treatment when a proven treatment exists for a given condition. Conditions for assuming that research subjects are not being exploited in clinical trials; Definition of the term exploitation; Requirements for constituting fair terms for interacting with human research subjects.

Focuses on issues about the need for bioethics to focus on the disabled community. Problems facing bioethics; Factors that influence the survival of bioethics; Role of moral entrepreneur in bioethics; Ethical issues associated with caring for the disabled.

Comments on an article about the need to develop communication between bioethicists and people with disabilities. Benefits of interaction to bioethicists and patient advocates; Significance of bioethicists-disabled patient relationship.

Focuses on the values and attitudes bioethicists should possess in order to assume their roles on behalf of persons with disabilities. Significance of self-understanding and public perception; Influence of prejudice and discrimination on facilitating communication with the disabled community; Importance of understanding the rights of disabled persons.

Comments on a proposed family covenant framework to deal with ethical dilemmas facing genetic testing. Inefficiency of the framework; Concept of the proposed framework; Questions and concerns raised on the structure of the covenant.