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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Reema Rattan, The Conversation dan 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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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