Policy & Ethics

Currently on appeal before the 11th Circuit is the question of whether a federal Administrative Agency (here, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) has the power to mandate masking on public transportation.
Medical schools have been admitting unqualified or barely qualified applicants and dumbing down class content and graduation standards.
When negative reviews of their then-major product appeared in the Journal of the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA), the manufacturer claimed trade libel and sued. And lost. The basis for the Court’s decision revolved around the constitutional right of free speech of the researchers and editor. The Court got the decision right – but for the wrong reason. Does it matter?
Clinical researchers have recognized the therapeutic potential of psychedelics for decades. In recent years, veterans groups and some lawmakers have also begun to appreciate this. But none of that matters if law enforcement disagrees.
In March 2023, the EPA proposed controversial drinking water regulations for two “forever chemicals,” PFOA and PFOS - setting extremely low allowable levels for both. On May 30, the public comment period ended. How EPA responds to public comments could significantly shape the final rule. This article examines the Administrative Procedures Act (APA) requiring agencies to consider public comment and a few of the significant comments received on the proposed rule.
Carbon credits are tradable certificates entitling the bearer to emit one metric ton of carbon dioxide or its equivalent. In 2018, 98.4 million metric tons of CO2 (MgCO2) were marketed for a value to the seller of $296 million. A third of those credits were generated by a program called Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+). Does this market solution reduce our carbon footprint, or are we looking at something Bernie Madoff or Sam Bankman-Fried might be offering?
A recent prospective study of post-surgical patients confirms what many other studies have already shown: prescribing opioids to control pain carries a very low risk of addiction or misuse.
For the past five years, the DEA has classified fentanyl-related substances as Schedule 1 drugs, hoping it will reduce fentanyl-related overdose deaths . Deaths have nearly doubled since then. But, inexplicably, some in Congress think that placing fentanyl-related substances permanently on Schedule 1 will bring the overdose rate down.“
How to manage climate change remains a contested policy area, both nationally and internationally. Who will pick up the tab for the changes? One group of scientists has taken the moral high ground, saying “other agents bear substantial responsibility for the cost of redressing climate harm: the companies that engage in the exploration, production, refining, and distribution of oil, gas, and coal.”
“As the field of transgender health care has transitioned from pathologizing patients to a gender-affirming and patient-centered model and from an understanding of gender as binary to a fuller picture of gender as a spectrum, its associated diagnoses have similarly evolved.” An article in JAMA’s newest spinoff, Journal of Ethics, tries to explore the benefits and problems of a medical diagnosis.
Australia plans to turn e-cigarettes into prescription drugs and will ban people from buying them without a doctor’s prescription. Vaping retailers publicly vow they will move to the underground. We have seen this prohibition movie before. It doesn’t have a happy ending.
In December, a federal judge dismissed 50,000 Zantac cases because the scientific evidence establishing cancer causation didn’t pass legal muster. In March, a California state judge reached the opposite conclusion. What happens next?