Protecting Sexual Minority Youth from Research Risks: Conflicting Perspectives

We describe the dilemmas we encountered in the informed consent process for an HIV prevention project targeting Black gay, bisexual, and non-gay identified young men. We highlight the complexities of applying informed parental consent procedures to sexual minority youth and identify some of the challenges that researchers who work with sexual minority youth face when they must balance the needs and rights of this population against the needs and rights accorded to parents by federal guidelines for protecting minor participants in research.     

Protecting Sexual Minority Youth from Research Risks: Conflicting Perspectives

This paper examines how a younger white female graduate student and an African American female undergraduate viewed the relationship between the graduate student and older African American working class women. This relationship was formed around a community garden project. The graduate student understood the relationship to be based on gender and class background similarities; the undergraduate viewed it based on race differences and unexamined white privilege. Both interpretations are challenged as unidimensional. Through this re-telling, questions are raised about why situating ourselves via our identities is not practiced more frequently. Possible explanations of this lack of attention to situativity include a Cartesian philosophy of science that separates objectivity and subjectivity, a general unawareness of privilege by those who have it, and a dominant scientific discourse that neglects the role of the researcher. This paper illustrates why reflexivity is crucial for the work of community psychology.     

纳米药物的风险及控制

纳米技术在药学领域的应用表现为药物的靶向传递和纳米级粒子药物.纳米药物的风险表现为对人健康的风险和对环境损害的风险.应对纳米药物带来的风险和伦理问题,需要创建风险评估标准;维护人的知情权和自主权;遵守自然规律,严格规范生产设计;强化政策导向、监督管理和法律保障.     

论开展亲属活体供肾移植的风险与对策

肾脏移植是救治终末期肾功能衰竭的最佳手段。亲属活体捐献肾脏是扩大供肾来源的有效手段。当前国内开展亲属肾移植存在伦理、法律和健康风险,主要来自供体和医疗两方面。为防范风险,医务人员应严格审查供受者的血缘关系,签署完整规范的法律文书,进行全面细致的术前评估,制定完善的手术方案。     

The Risks,Benefits, and Ethics of Trauma-Focused Research Participation

With the rising interest in the field of trauma research, many Institutional Review Boards, policymakers, parents, and others grapple with the impact of trauma-research participation on research participants' well-being. Do individuals who participate in trauma-focused research risk experiencing lasting negative effects from participation? What are the potential benefits that may be gleaned from participation in this work? How can trauma research studies be designed ethically, minimizing the risk to participants? The following review seeks to answer these questions. This review indicates that most studies in this area have found that only a minority of participants experience distress when participating in trauma-focused research. Furthermore, these negative feelings tend to dissipate quickly over time, with the majority of participants self-appraising their participation as positive, rewarding, and beneficial to society. Design characteristics that may serve to minimize participants' risk of experiencing distress are discussed, as well as implications for public policy and future research.     

The Risks of Absolute Medical Confidentiality

Some ethicists argue that patient confidentiality is absolute and thus should never be broken. I examine these arguments that when critically scrutinised, become porous. I will explore the concept of patient confidentiality and argue that although, this is a very important medical and bioethical issue, this needs to be wisely delivered to reduce third party harm or even detriment to the patient. The argument for absolute confidentiality is particularly weak when it comes to genetic information and inherited disease.     

Risks and Benefits of Pediatric Bone Marrow Donation: A Critical Need for Research

Healthcare providers assume that there are minimal risks and potential psychosocial benefits for children who undergo a bone marrow harvest for the benefit of their critically ill siblings. Ethical justifications for the use of children as donors rely on there being minimal risks since donors receive no direct medical benefits from the intervention. There is little empirical research regarding psychosocial consequences. This article reviews relevant research in three contexts: a) psychosocial outcomes for adults and children who donate tissue and organs; b) psychosocial impacts on a sibling of a pediatric cancer patient; and c) children's decision-making regarding medical decisions. The relevant research literature supports the belief that the psychosocial impact on a child bone marrow donor will be influenced by the survival of the recipient, the age of the donor, and the donor's participation in the decision to donate. In order to empirically validate the actual psychosocial risks (and benefits) for donors, it is argued that direct research is needed so that a donor's well-being can be protected.     

The Risks of Revolution: Ethical Dilemmas in 3D Printing from a US Perspective

Additive manufacturing has spread widely over the past decade, especially with the availability of home 3D printers. In the future, many items may be manufactured at home, which raises two ethical issues. First, there are questions of safety. Our current safety regulations depend on centralized manufacturing assumptions; they will be difficult to enforce on this new model of manufacturing. Using current US law as an example, I argue that consumers are not capable of fully assessing all relevant risks and thus continue to require protection; any regulation will likely apply to plans, however, not physical objects. Second, there are intellectual property issues. In combination with a 3D scanner, it is now possible to scan items and print copies; many items are not protected from this by current intellectual property laws. I argue that these laws are ethically sufficient. Patent exists to protect what is innovative; the rest is properly not protected. Intellectual property rests on the notion of creativity, but what counts as creative changes with the rise of new technologies.     

Ethical Considerations for Clinical Research and Off-label Use of Ketamine to Treat Mood Disorders: The Balance Between Risks and Benefits

Previous research conducted in 1999 highlighted ethical concerns behind challenge studies inducing psychosis with ketamine and made recommendations to enhance ethical standards. Recently, a plethora of clinical trials have evaluated the efficacy of ketamine to treat mood disorders, which lead to complex ethical issues. Pharmaceutical companies and researchers hope to profit by developing patentable variations on ketamine for treating depression. Media have labeled ketamine as a “miracle” antidepressant. Some clinics offer expensive off-label use of ketamine to treat mood disorders. This article examines the ecological validity of ketamine trials, measures to protect patients, informed consent procedures, financial inducements to participants and conflict of interest of researchers, therapeutic misconception, concealment, and deception. Further recommendations are purposed to improve ethical standard of clinical research involving ketamine.     

Intergenerational Transmission of Risks for Problem Behavior

The intergenerational transmission of risk factors for problem behaviors was examined across three generations. Two hundred fifty-four 2-year-old toddlers, one or two of their parents, and one grandmother of each toddler were studied. Grandmothers and parents were individually interviewed. Data were analyzed for the male and female toddlers combined. Correlations and hierarchical multiple regression analyses were performed. Findings indicate that the grandmother–parent relationship, parental personality attributes, marital harmony, and drug use and the parent–toddler relationship, predict the toddlers' behavior. The investigation provides evidence for a longitudinal, intergenerational process whereby the grandmother–parent relationship and the parents' personality and behavioral attributes are transmitted across generations through their association with the parent–child relationship.     

The Effect of Genetic Counseling on Knowledge and Perceptions Regarding Risks for Breast Cancer

In 1994, a clinic for cancer risk counseling was opened at Hadassah University Hospital in Jerusalem. Most of the counselees have been women who had breast cancer and/or a relative with breast cancer. In order to evaluate the effect of this counseling on women's knowledge and perceptions regarding the risks for breast cancer, a questionnaire was given before and after the counseling session to 60 healthy women who came to the clinic because they have relatives with breast cancer. According to the genetic counselors' estimations, most of these women had a significantly increased risk (compared to the general population) of developing cancer. Before counseling, the women overestimated the population risk for breast cancer, the contribution of heredity to morbidity of cancer, and their own risks to get cancer. After counseling session, they gave reduced estimates, closer to the real ones. The subjective perceptions regarding these risks were reduced after counseling, except for the perceptions regarding their relativerisks which have not changed after the counseling. About 90% of the women who came to the clinic wanted to be tested for genetic predisposition to cancer. For most of these women, the expectations that the test can rule out a genetic predisposition to cancer became more realistic after the counseling. The option to first test an affected relative was offered to all families, and a test was actually conducted in 75% of the families.