Jill A. Fisher. A book review of People’s Science: Bodies and Rights on the Stem Cell Frontier, Ruha Benjamin, 2013. Published May 2016 in Contemporary Sociology. At a time of profound social inequalities in the United States, high-tech medicine is nonetheless touted for its potential to save all lives through miracle cures. The fact that … Read more
Jill A. Fisher, Marci D. Cottingham. Published April 2016 in Public Understanding of Science. Fictional television shows and films convey cultural assumptions about scientists and the research enterprise. But how do these forms of entertainment portray medical research participants? We sampled 65 television shows and films released between 2004 and 2014 to determine the ways … Read more
Mara Buchbinder, Dragana Lassiter, Rebecca Mercier, Amy Bryant, Anne Drapkin Lyerly. Published April 2016 in the Hastings Center Report. “It’s almost like putting salt in a wound, for this person who’s already made a very difficult decision,” suggested Meghan Patterson (an alias), a licensed obstetrician-gynecologist whom we interviewed in our qualitative study of the experiences … Read more
Mary Beth Grewe, Yuntong Ma, Adam Gilbertson, Stuart Rennie, Joseph Tucker. Published January 2016 in the Journal of Virus Eradication. Women are underrepresented in HIV cure research. In this paper we discuss the rationale for including women and propose multilevel strategies to improve sex equity in HIV cure research. The inadequate inclusion of women in … Read more
Catherine Gliwa, Mary Beth Grewe, Stuart Rennie, Joseph Tucker, Raul Necochea. Published April 2016 in Pediatrics. Although many aspects of HIV cure research in pediatric populations are entirely without precedent, historical examples demonstrate how curative interventions may transform clinical practice and perceptions of disease over time. The history of pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) illustrates … Read more
The UNC Center for Bioethics and the Department of Social Medicine are hosting Dr. Susan E. Lederer this 2016 spring semester as the 2016 Nannerl Keohane Distinguished Professor at UNC and Duke University. Susan E. Lederer is the Robert Turell Professor of the History of Medicine and Bioethics at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine … Read more
Douglas MacKay. Published January 2016 in Social Theory and Practice. Many high-income countries have skill-selective immigration policies, favoring prospective immigrants who are highly skilled. I investigate whether it is permissible for high-income countries to adopt such policies. Adopting what Joseph Carens calls a “realistic approach” to the ethics of immigration, I argue first that it … Read more
Consensus statements from an international expert panel. Amita Gupta et al., including Anne Drapkin Lyerly, UNC Center for Bioethics. Published 15 March 2016 in Clinical Infectious Diseases. Tuberculosis is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in women of childbearing age (15–44 years). Despite increased tuberculosis risk during pregnancy, optimal clinical treatment remains unclear: safety, … Read more
John Conley, Jean Cadigan, Arlene Davis. In Discursive constructions of consent in the legal process. In this chapter we analyze the linguistic and discursive aspects of a specialized form of consent: informed consent given by people who contribute DNA samples to genomic biobanks, which are repositories of genetic material and derived data stored for present … Read more
Mara Buchbinder, PhD is Assistant Professor of Social Medicine at UNC, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Anthropology at UNC, and Core Faculty of the UNC Center for Bioethics. What does Bioethics mean to you? I think that bioethics is a broad interdisciplinary field for engaging ethical challenges in medicine and the life sciences. Why is it … Read more
