Category: News

In this talk, Justin Clapp examines how familiar bioethics language—such as framing medical “decisions” around patients’ “values” and “preferences”—actually functions in real clinical settings, including surgical clinics and intensive care units. Drawing on ethnographic research, he illustrates how these concepts are often taken up in ways that diverge significantly from...

The UNC Center for Bioethics hosted a regional bioethics workshop on Friday, April 10, 2026. Participants came from North Carolina institutions, including Duke University, Eastern Carolina University, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIH), North Carolina State University, UNC-Charlotte, and Wake Forest University.  The event focused on participants’ works...

On April 9, 2026, the Animal Studies Project, with support from the Center for Bioethics, Parr Center for Ethics, and Philosophy Department hosted a panel discussion on animal research featuring distinguished speakers discussing history, policy, and ethics on this complex topic. The panel was organized around the recent publication of...

The recording of The “Equitification” of Rights: How COVID-19 Rewrote the Story of Health and Human Rights is now available.

On February 18, the UNC community came together for the 47th Merrimon Lecture, featuring distinguished speaker Robert Califf, MD, MACC. His talk, “Can We Balance Professionalism with the Extreme Financial Focus of U.S. Healthcare?”, encouraged attendees to reflect on the growing tension between clinical professionalism and the increasingly complex financial...

Abstracts are now being accepted for the 7th ELSI Congress, which will be held on June 22 – 24, 2026 in Chapel Hill, NC. The submission period is January 16 – February 16. For over three decades, the National Human Genome Research Institute’s Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications (ELSI) Research...

My name is Nanki Nagpaul, and I am a senior at the University of Rochester double-majoring in Bioethics and Psychology, and studying voice at the Eastman School of Music. Throughout my undergraduate years, I have become deeply interested in the intersection of public health, ethics, and health policy. This summer,...

The Hastings Center for Bioethics is pleased to announce the election of the 2025 Fellows. Hastings Center Fellows are a group of about 300 individuals of outstanding accomplishment whose work has informed scholarship and public understanding of complex ethical issues in health, health care, science, and technology. Jean Cadigan, PhD, is a professor...

Fights over Tylenol, SSRIs highlight the enduring lack of pregnant women in drug trials. – Anne Lyerly (STAT+) Note: the article is behind a paywall. How Private Equity Oversees the Ethics of Drug Research. – Jill Fisher (The New York Times) How do drug trials really work? I got dengue fever to...

WHO issued a Call to Action and Consensus Statement to prioritize pregnant and lactating women in TB research to urge the global health community to end the routine exclusion of pregnant and lactating women from TB research.  Dr. Lyerly was a member of the WHO working group that contributed to...