As Asafa Powell faces the Jamaica Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panel, we already know his defence – that he was given a supplement called Epiphany D1 by his former physiotherapist, Chris Xuereb, without his…
Ethical issues are rife in medicine. Arguments about abortion, organ donation and euthanasia regularly take their turn in the headlines, normally prompted by media scare-stories or an arising controversy…
Russian forces detained all those aboard Greenpeace’s Arctic Sunrise after activists tried to hang a banner from an oil platform.
EPA/Igor Podgorny/Greenpeace
Should the Australian government require Colin Russell to repay at least some of its costs for acting on his behalf when the Russians imprisoned him and 29 other Greenpeace activists and journalists, known…
2013 was an auspicious year for medical research. A new vaccine for malaria was developed, there was a revolution in DNA analysis, and there was a major advance in human cloning when stem cells were produced…
Is it time to give Facebook the flick?
Ben K Adams
Breaking up is hard to do, especially with social media. But thousands of people are doing just that, and with the new year and its inevitable resolutions just around the corner, it might be a good time…
Choosing a mobile phone isn’t just about new features – it should also be about ethics.
Fairphone
Organic, cage-free or home-grown? We think about our purchasing ethics in many areas of daily life, but not often about technology. As with any product, though, we should think about the effects of our…
Protestors against Lynas mine processing in Malaysia
Peter Boyle
This week a dozen protesters travelled from Malaysia to Australia to protest outside the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of Lynas Corporation, an Australian rare earth mining company, for the third year running…
Ex-National Security Agency (NSA) employee Edward Snowden’s various leaks – the most recent being a slide showing that the NSA infected 50,000 of computer networks with remote-controlled spyware – confirm…
How do you explain finality to a child?
Daquella Manera
An article published in the journal of the British Medical Association, BMJ, earlier this week illustrates a devastating problem with the “evidence base” in the academic medical literature. A large proportion…
Should we favour physical integrity over respect for cultural difference?
Image from shutterstock.com
The Council of Europe’s resolution earlier this month to prohibit the circumcision of infant boys for religious reasons has ignited another round to the “foreskin wars”. This time it’s about the rights…
Tobacco use causes more than five million deaths every year across the world.
MilitaryHealth/Flickr
Reema Rattan, The Conversation e Isabelle Knight, The Conversation
Editors of journals published by the BMJ Group will no longer consider publishing research that is partly or wholly funded by the tobacco industry, the journals have said in an editorial published this…
If it’s common practice to pay bribes for contracts, is it alright? Not quite.
Sigurd Rage
You’d have thought corporate executives in a post-GFC world would have learnt, the hard way, the relevance of ethical behaviour. So it may come as a surprise that in a recent survey by Ernst & Young…
If a comet was heading for earth, would you just go about your life?
Mark Mathosian
Breaking news: scientists have discovered a comet that will collide with Earth in 30 years. Its impact will be devastating, killing millions, flooding coastal cities and disrupting civilisation as we know…
The scandal started with allegations that GlaxoSmithKline had made illegal payments to doctors and government officials.
Ian Wilson
China is in the midst of conducting a series of corruption investigations of pharmaceutical companies that have been operating in the country. It all started with the investigation of officials from pharmaceutical…
The recent tobacco tax rise showed the usual entrenched positions of public health advocates and libertarians.
Nick|Allen/Flickr
Predictable positions followed the recent announcement of an increase in tobacco tax by 12.5% a year for four years. Public health advocates praised the tax, labelling those questioning it as “tobacco…
Where does the Australian ‘fear’ of asylum seekers arriving by boat come from?
AAP/Scott Fisher
There’s a Latin word: misericordia. It’s usually translated “mercy” or “pity”. Thomas Aquinas took misericordia to be a kind of grief at the suffering of others as if that suffering were our own. Alasdair…
Damien Hirst has always made ripples with his work, but now he’s in too deep.
PA
Is it right to use the severed head of a newly dead man as a humourous prop for a photograph? And if such a snap exists is it right to display it in art galleries? A photograph of artist Damien Hirst at…
There could be good moral reasons to reject an opt-out organ donation system, but we’d better be clear about what they are.
Shutterstock
The National Assembly of Wales has legislated to introduce an “opt-out” system for human organ and tissue transplantation, which will come into effect in 2015. In doing so, Wales joins a host of other…
Visiting Professor in Biomedical Ethics, Murdoch Children's Research Institute; Distinguished Visiting Professor in Law, University of Melbourne; Uehiro Chair in Practical Ethics, University of Oxford
Professor of Bioethics & Medicine, Sydney Health Ethics, Haematologist/BMT Physician, Royal North Shore Hospital and Director, Praxis Australia, University of Sydney