Monash Bioethics Review最新文献

Despite significant progress in the legalization and decriminalization of abortion in Australia over the past decade or more recent research and government reports have made it clear that problems with the provision of services remain. This essay examines such issues and sets forth the view that such issues can and should be seen as (bio)ethical concerns. Whilst conscientious objection-the right to opt-out of provision on the basis of clear ethical reservations-is a legally and morally permissible stance that healthcare professionals can adopt, this does not mean those working in healthcare can simply elect not to be providers absent a clear ethical rationale. Furthermore, simple non-provision would seem to contravene the basic tenants of medical professionalism as well as the oft raised claims of the healthcare professions to put the needs of patients first. Recognizing that much of the progress that has been made over the past three decades can be attributed to the efforts of dedicated healthcare professionals who have dedicated their careers to meeting the profession's collective responsibilities in this area of women's health and reproductive healthcare, this paper frames the matter as a collective ethical lapse on the part of healthcare professionals, the healthcare professions and those involved in the management of healthcare institutions. Whilst also acknowledging that a range of complex factors have led to the present situation, that a variety of steps need to be taken to ensure the proper delivery of services that are comprehensive, and that there has been an absence of critical commentary and analysis of this topic by bioethicists, I conclude that there is a need to (re)assess the provision of abortion in Australia at all levels of service delivery and for the healthcare professions and healthcare professionals to take lead in doing so. That this ought to be done is clearly implied by the healthcare profession's longstanding commitment to prioritizing the needs of patient over their own interests.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many advocacy groups and individuals criticized governments on social media for doing either too much or too little to mitigate the pandemic. In this article, we review advocacy for COVID-19 elimination or "zero-covid" on the social media platform X (Twitter). We present a thematic analysis of tweets by 20 influential co-signatories of the World Health Network letter on ten themes, covering six topics of science and mitigation (zero-covid, epidemiological data on variants, long-term post-acute sequelae (Long COVID), vaccines, schools and children, views on monkeypox/Mpox) and four advocacy methods (personal advice and promoting remedies, use of anecdotes, criticism of other scientists, and of authorities). The advocacy, although timely and informative, often appealed to emotions and values using anecdotes and strong criticism of authorities and other scientists. Many tweets received hundreds or thousands of likes. Risks were emphasized about children's vulnerability, Long COVID, variant severity, and Mpox, and via comparisons with human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV). Far-reaching policies and promotion of remedies were advocated without systematic evidence review, or sometimes, core field expertise. We identified potential conflicts of interest connected to private companies. Our study documents a need for public health debates to be less polarizing and judgmental, and more factual. In order to protect public trust in science during a crisis, we suggest the development of mechanisms to ensure ethical guidelines for engagement in "science-based" advocacy, and consideration of cost-benefit analysis of recommendations for public health decision-making.

Creating simulations of the world can be a valuable way to test new ideas, predict the future, and broaden our understanding of a given topic. Presumably, the more similar the simulation is to the real world, the more transferable the knowledge generated in the simulation will be and, therefore, the more useful. As such, there is an incentive to create more advanced and representative simulations of the real world. Simultaneously, there are ethical and practical limitation to what can be done in human and animal research, so creating simulated beings to stand in their place could be a way of advancing research while avoiding some of these issues. However, the value of representativeness implies that there will be an incentive to create simulated beings as similar to real-world humans as possible to better transfer the knowledge gained from that research. This raises important ethical questions related to how we ought to treat advanced simulated beings and consider if they might have autonomy and wellbeing concerns that ought to be respected. As such, the uncertainty and potential of this line of research should be carefully considered before the simulation begins.

There are ethical dilemmas faced by clinicians when responding to using unregistered medical devices, such as innovative internet technologies for managing type 1 diabetes mellitus. This chronic disease significantly impacts patients' health, requiring intensive daily activities like blood glucose monitoring, insulin injections, and specific dietary recommendations. Recent technological advances, including continuous glucose monitors and insulin pumps, have been shown to improve glycemic control. Di-it Yourself Artificial Pancreas Systems are emerging open-source automated delivery methods initiated by the diabetes community, although they are not clinically evaluated and present a liability challenge for healthcare providers. To use them or not? Should parents and healthcare providers use such technology that helps, but is not proven?Having all of that in mind, we argue that the World Health Organization's (WHO) definition of health is outdated, advocating for the "Extended Health Hypothesis". This hypothesis claims that health extends beyond traditional biological boundaries to include essential functional structures like diabetes-related technology, making technology a part of a patient's health. This view aligns with the "Extended Mind Hypothesis," suggesting that health should include elements beyond organic material if they are vital to a patient's functions.In the commentary, we highlight that both naturalist and normative conceptions of health support the extended health hypothesis, emphasizing that human health is not confined to organic material. This perspective raises critical questions about whether devices like insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitors are integral to a patient's health and whether their malfunction constitutes a form of disease. Devices are considered integral to health, there is no ethical dilemma in using unregistered medical devices for managing type 1 diabetes. Finally, we call for reevaluating the definitions of health and patients, particularly for children with type 1 diabetes using advanced technologies. It asserts that the optimal use of such devices represents a new form of health, creating a health-device symbiosis that should be evaluated with the child's best interests in mind.

Antimicrobial Resistance is a threat to individual and to population health and to future generations, requiring "collective sacrifices" in order to preserve antibiotic efficacy. 'Who should make the sacrifices?' and 'Who will most likely make them?' are ethical concerns posited as potentially manageable through Antimicrobial Stewardship. Antimicrobial stewardship almost inevitably involves a form of clinical cost-benefit analysis that assesses the possible effects of antibiotics to treat a diagnosed infection in a particular patient. However, this process rarely accounts properly for patients - above and beyond assessments of potential (non)compliance or adherence to care regimes. Drawing on a vignette of a pregnant woman of colour and migrant diagnosed with Mycoplasma genitalium, a sexually transmissible bacterium, this article draws out some of the ethical, speculative, and practical tensions and complexities involved in Antimicrobial Stewardship. We argue that patients also engage in a form of cost-benefit analysis influenced by experiences of reproductive and social (in)justice and comprising speculative variables - to anticipate future possibilities. These processes have the potential to have effects above and beyond the specific infection antimicrobial stewardship was activated to address. We contend that efforts to practice and research antimicrobial stewardship should accommodate and incorporate these variables and acknowledge the structures they emerge with(in), even if their components remain unknown. This would involve recognising that antimicrobial stewardship is intricately connected to other social justice issues such as immigration policy, economic justice, access to appropriate medical care, racism, etc.

In this article, building on our multidisciplinary expertise on philosophy, anthropology, and social study of microbes, we discuss and analyze new approaches to justice that have emerged in thinking with more-than-human contexts: microbes, animals, environments and ecosystems. We situate our analysis in theory of and practical engagements with antimicrobial resistance and climate emergency that both can be considered super-wicked problems. In offering solutions to such problems, we discuss a more-than-human justice orientation, seeking to displace human exceptionalism while still engaging with human social justice issues. We offer anthropological narratives to highlight how more-than-human actors already play an important role in environmental and climate politics. These narratives further justify the need for new ethical frameworks, out of which we, for further development outside the scope of this article, suggest a queer feminist posthumanist one.

Residential aged care facilities (RACF) are sites of high antibiotic use in Australia. Misuse of antimicrobial drugs in RACF contributes to antimicrobial resistance (AMR) burdens that accrue to individuals and the wider public, now and in the future. Antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) practices in RACF, e.g. requiring conformation of infection, are designed to minimise inappropriate use of antibiotics. We conducted dialogue groups with 46 participants with a parent receiving aged care to better understand families' perspectives on antibiotics and care in RACF. Participants grappled with value trade offs in thinking about their own parents' care, juggling imagined population and future harms with known short term comfort of individuals and prioritising the latter. Distributive justice in AMR relies on collective moral responsibility and action for the benefit of future generations and unknown others. In RACF, AMS requires value trade-offs and compromise on antimicrobial use in an environment that is heavily reliant on antimicrobial drugs to perform caring functions. In the context of aged care, AMS is a technical solution to a deeply relational and socio-structural problem and there is a risk that carers (workers, families) are morally burdened by system failures that are not addressed in AMS solutions.

Advancements in early diagnosis and novel treatments for children with complex and chronic needs have improved their chances of survival. But many survive with complex medical needs and ongoing medical management in the setting of prognostic uncertainty. Their medical care relies more and more on preference-sensitive decisions, requiring medical team and family engagement in ethically challenging situations. Many families are unprepared as they face these ethical challenges and struggle to access relevant ethical resources. In this paper, Timmy's narrative, situated in the context of what is known about ethical challenges in the care of children with chronic critical illness (CCI), serves as a case study of the gap in available ethical resources to guide families in their approach to difficult decision making for children with significant medical complexity and CCI. Our author group, inclusive of parents of children with complex medical needs and medical professionals, identifies domains of ethical challenges facing families of children with CCI and we highlight the development of family/caregiver-oriented ethics resources as an essential expansion of pediatric bioethics.

This paper contributes to the growing discussion about how to mitigate pharmaceutical pollution, which is a threat to human, animal, and environmental health as well as a potential driver of antimicrobial resistance. It identifies market approval of pharmaceuticals as one of the most powerful ways to shape producer behavior and highlights that applying this tool raises ethical issues given that it might impact patients' access to medicines. The paper identifies seven different policy options that progressively give environmental considerations increased priority in the approval process, identifies ethically relevant interests affected by such policies, and makes explicit tensions and necessary tradeoffs between these interests. While arguing that the current European regulation gives insufficient weight to environmental considerations, the paper highlights concerns with the strongest policy options, on the grounds that these may very well endanger patients' access to effective medication.

The COVID-19 vaccine has been a miraculous, life-saving advance, offering staggering efficacy in adults, and was developed with astonishing speed. The time from sequencing the virus to authorizing the first COVID-19 vaccine was so brisk even the optimists appear close-minded. Yet, simultaneously, United States' COVID-19 vaccination roll-out and related policies have contained missed opportunities, errors, run counter to evidence-based medicine, and revealed limitations in the judgment of public policymakers. Misplaced utilization, contradictory messaging, and poor deployment in those who would benefit most-the elderly and high-risk-alongside unrealistic messaging, exaggeration, and coercion in those who benefit least-young, healthy Americans-is at the heart. It is important to consider the history of COVID-19 vaccines to identify where we succeeded and where we failed, and the effects that these errors may have more broadly on vaccination hesitancy and routine childhood immunization programs in the decades to come.