I recently blogged about the appointment of Dr. Prigent, a VP of Pfizer Canada, to the governing board of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), and of the resulting objection raised by leading Canadian bioethicists. I’ll reiterate the problem here, for completeness. Dr. Prigent is a drug industry representative who works for Pfizer Canada. Pfizer [...]
Continue reading...Monday, November 30, 2009
I came across a great blog post detailing the Top 10 UNethical Psychology Experiments in modern history. It features one of my favourite examples, Little Albert, who I have blogged about in a previous post. This list includes animal studies as well as human studies, a point to keep in mind given that we still treat [...]
Continue reading...Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Yesterday I wrote about the appointment of Dr. Bernard Prigent to the governing board of the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR), Canada’s publicly funded health research branch. I also described some of the controversy surrounding that appointment. Today I received notice that a petition is being circulated calling “for the withdrawal of the appointment of [...]
Continue reading...Tuesday, November 24, 2009
The CMAJ recently reported that a Pfizer VP has been appointed to the governing council of the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR). Here are a couple of the criticisms raised over the appointment, as taken from the CMAJ article (I would encourage you to read it in its entirety): “The appointment is “very surprising and [...]
Continue reading...Friday, November 13, 2009
The Associated Press is reporting on a study in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) which finds that Pfizer seriously misrepresented drug trial results related to their epilepsy drug Neurontin. You can find a more complete report of both the NEJM article and the AP piece at Udo Schüklenk’s blog. It’s been a bad stretch for [...]
Continue reading...Friday, November 13, 2009
I’ve added some links to sections of the United Nation Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) web site. They have useful collections of information within their Social and Human Sciences section on hot topics, news and events, declarations, and reports organized around various themes, such as: Philosophy Ethics Bioethics Ethics of Science and Technology As with most of the United Nations [...]
Continue reading...Monday, November 2, 2009
As you read this blog post your eyes are capturing the light emitting from your computer screen. Your brain is busy taking in the information and processing it into meaningful sentences and ideas. You’re hard at work (don’t feel guilty if this is on company time). You and your computer are “turned on” so to speak, [...]
Continue reading...Sunday, April 26, 2009
Human dignity is often hailed as a reason to do such and such. But it is conspicuously available as a argumentative foundation to any side of an issue. This raises the question whether or not it is a useful concept, or fit for the bin.
Continue reading...Thursday, April 16, 2009
I’ll be presenting a paper on conscientious objection in healthcare education at this summer’s Canadian Bioethics Society conference. The has been quite a bit of interest on this topic of late, but the focus has been mainly on the professional practice side of the issue. Details to follow. Share/Save
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Thursday, December 3, 2009
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