Tag: ethics

Our Medical System Protects Wrongdoers and Punishes Whistleblowers: An Interview with...

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MIA’s Ayurdhi Dhar interviews Carl Elliott about scandals in psychiatry and the challenges faced by whistleblowers.

The Ethics of Antipsychotic Dose Reduction and Patient Rights

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New research highlights the ethical responsibilities of clinicians in supporting patients who choose to reduce or discontinue antipsychotic medication.

Philosophers Challenge Psychiatry and its Search for Mechanisms of Disorder

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Attempting to locate the mechanisms of psychiatric disorder is a step in the wrong direction and fails to challenge potentially unjust social practices.

Drug Treatment in Medicine and Psychiatry: Papering Over Important Differences

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The treatment of mental disorders with drugs is not the same sort of activity as the use of drugs in medicine. The ethical implications of the two situations are different. Insisting on equating the two obscures these differences and presents the use of drugs for mental distress as less controversial than it actually is.

Implant ‘Restores Consciousness’ to Man in Vegetative State

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From The Guardian: A 35-year-old man who had been in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) for 15 years has shown signs of consciousness after receiving...

Behaviour is Considered More Moral the More Common it is

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From Medical Xpress: New research demonstrates that our view of selfish and altruistic behaviors is dependent upon how common they are; we are more likely to...

Is Psychological Ethics in Crisis?

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From the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics: The American Psychological Association's participation in "enhanced interrogation" and other forms of torture is indicative of the need...

Doctor O’s Adventures in Wonderland

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I am a female physician who survived my own suicide attempt. I had managed to fly under the radar as a very progressive family MD for twenty years. And when I stumbled and bled, the sharks were there ready to devour the carcass. Do I believe that racism and sexism influenced charges being filed against me? I certainly do.

“Medical Research: The Dangers to the Human Subjects”

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Marcia Angell in the New York Review of Books writes about the inherent conflict in clinical trials between “the search for scientific answers," on one hand, and “the rights and welfare of human subjects,” on the other.

Bernie Sanders Opposes Califf for FDA Post Cites Industry Ties

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Bernie Sanders joins numerous public health groups and opposes Robert Califf's nomination to lead the FDA over industry ties.

“Former U.S. Detainees Sue Psychologists Responsible For CIA Torture Program”

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On Tuesday morning, the ACLU filed a lawsuit on behalf of three former detainees against the psychologists who collaborated with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to oversee the torture program. According to the Intercept, psychologists James Mitchell and John “Bruce” Jessen and their employees collected over $85 million dollars for designing and implementing techniques, based off of the work of Martin Seligman, that combatted torture-resistance techniques by creating a state of “learned helplessness.” There is, however, no evidence that these techniques gleaned any useful intelligence.

Videos from the 2014 “Transforming Mad Science and Re-Imagining Mental Health...

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The joint ISEPP/UCLA conference was held in Los Angeles on November 14-16, 2014. Today, ISEPP and the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs are delighted to bring you videos of 13 of the 15 invited plenary talks. Each video is accompanied by a crisply written interview with the speaker, focusing on the goals of their work, challenges facing their profession, and how they evaluate any salient changes in mental health practice and research. These smartly produced and edited videos range from 20 to 30 minutes in length and are freely available on www.TransformingMadScience.com

Nominee to Lead FDA Removed Name From Recent Publications

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Sheila Kaplan for the Boston Globe reports that Dr. Robert Califf, the Obama administration's nominee to lead the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), has removed his name from a series of scientific papers that he recently coauthored. The decision to remove his name, against publication ethics standards, has brought Califf under renewed criticism.

“The Life of a Professional Guinea Pig”

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In the Atlantic, Cari Romm describes “what it is like to earn a living as a research subject in clinical trials.” “Phase 1 trials are almost always where the money is,” she writes, but they are “also the least regulated” and “companies aren’t legally required to register a trial with Clinicaltrials.gov.” “It seems to me like if you were considering signing up for one of these things, you would at least want to know the data that’s out there about [safety],” said Carl Elliott, an author for MIA and expert on the ethics of human subject research.

“Unfortunate experiments” in New Zealand and Minnesota

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Carl Elliott writes on the discrepancy between New Zealand's response to a research scandal - which lead to a national debate and dramatic reforms - and the silence following clinical trial scandals in the U.S.