Reading the Mail of Others

Blog, Medicine & Health / /

D. Joy Riley, M.D., M.A.

Executive Director

Reading other people’s mail is usually and appropriately considered unethical.  There are a few exceptions.  One of those is when the correspondence is publicly available, even if not easily discovered.  A communication sent at the end of January, 2025, to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is a case in point.  The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), The Society of Family Planning, and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine together submitted a “Citizen Petition” to the FDA about Mifepristone.  Mifepristone is the first of two drugs taken to induce an abortion in a pregnant woman.  The petitioners were urging ...read more

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Return of the Dire Wolf: Science Fiction or Science?

Blog, Genomic & Genetics Issues, uncategorized, United States / /

By Joyce A. Shelton, Ph.D.

The dire wolf has been the movie star of the media scene in recent days. Colossal Biosciences, a private US biotech company, has claimed in a jaw-dropping  press release to have brought back into existence an ancient animal that has been extinct for centuries. The dire wolf was recently popularized in the sci-fi/fantasy series, Game of Thrones. G of T author, George R.R. Martin, and other celebrities are donors to Colossal Biosciences.  Colossal says they have “de-extincted” the dire wolf using genetic technology. They isolated and sequenced some fragments of dire wolf DNA from a fossil tooth and skull. They then selected ...read more

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Read the Fine Print and Do NOT Be Afraid to Ask Questions

Blog, End of Life, Medicine & Health, United States / /

D. Joy Riley, M.D., M.A.

Executive Director

iStock photo

Medically-assisted suicide (MAS), under a variety of names including physician-assisted suicide, is continually pushed by the group, Compassion and Choices. Other proponents include individuals who are facing a particularly difficult diagnosis or prognosis themselves, or have been asked by loved ones to seek changes in the law that would make MAS legal. It seems this last case was operative in the presentation of HB 0598 in the Tennessee State House Population Health Subcommittee on 4 March. The MAS bill (HB 0598) was summarized as creating “a process whereby an adult ...read more

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Choppy Waters in the Gene Pool: 23andMe is Going Under

Blog, Genetic Data / /

by Joyce A. Shelton, Ph.D.

Professor of Biology Emerita Trinity International University 

23andMe, the personal genetic testing company is drowning. Around this time a year ago, we wrote about the massive database hack in which the genetic profiles of 6.9 million 23andMe customers were stolen and offered for sale on the internet, a severe attack on their privacy. Since then, the once thriving company has been on a steadily downward trajectory. Pretty quickly they were hit with a $30 million class action lawsuit resulting in $10,000 individual payouts to victims. Two months ago their stock was in serious trouble and their entire ...read more

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Trust

Blog, Other Voices, United States / /

   

Guest Column* by Janet Liljestrand, M.D., M.A.  

Trust, once lost, is difficult to regain.  In last month’s Tennessee CBC article Credibility and How to Lose it, Dr. D. Joy Riley questioned if the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) risks its credibility for recommending “gender affirming care” in the treatment of gender dysphoria.  Such treatment involves radically and unnaturally changing the body and is not based on scientific data.  The AAP is indeed an influential organization.  It makes recommendations, but pediatric practitioners and Children’s Hospitals put those recommendations into practice for minors.  Children’s Hospitals ...read more

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Credibility — and How to Lose It

Blog, United States / /

by D. Joy Riley, M.D., M.A.

Executive Director

Is the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) behaving badly? This is a cogent question. Recently (24 September 2024), the Attorneys General of twenty states, along with the President of the Arizona Senate and the Speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives wrote to the AAP with multiple concerns:

Re: AAP’s Compliance with State Consumer Protection Laws 

. . . When the American Academy of Pediatrics speaks, its 67,000 pediatrician members, the broader medical community, the public, and especially parents are listening. Since its founding in 1930, it has exercised great influence on the practice ...read more

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Medical Education and Complicity with Evil

Blog, Other Voices / /

By Dennis Sullivan, MD, MA (Ethics) Professor Emeritus of Pharmacy Practice Cedarville University Moral complicity, sometimes called “moral taint,” is the moral guilt attached to a person by their association with a moral wrong. Complicity requires that a person have some association with the act committed, even if they do not personally perform the deed.[1] However, complicity is complex. For many of us, the perception of cooperation with evil seems to diminish with the passage of time. For example, almost all physicians still recommend the vaccine against Rubella (“German measles”), even though tissue from aborted fetuses was used to develop the ...read more

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Seeing Patients Through Medical AI

Blog, C. Ben Mitchell, Emerging Technologies, Medicine & Health, uncategorized / /

C. Ben Mitchell, Ph.D.

Distinguished Fellow

The Tennessee Center for Bioethics & Culture

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is being integrated within the practice of medicine in leaps and bounds. Fields such as radiology, telehealth, and emergency medicine are increasingly implementing AI in diagnostics and treatment. Doubtless, AI will eventually enhance patient care, prognostics, and clinical practice generally. But at what cost to the physician-patient relationship and trust?

Keeping the patient in view as a whole person is already a challenge for contemporary medicine. Patients are often objectified by their body parts, disease, or location. “That’s the ovarian cancer in ...read more

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Rational Thinking Revisited: The Cass Review

Blog, Other Voices / /

      Joyce A. Shelton, Ph.D. Professor of Biology Emerita Trinity International University     In April of this year, the National Health Service (NHS in the UK) released a long anticipated definitive report:  The Cass Review: Independent review of gender identity services for children and young people. Four years ago, seeking an evidence-informed way forward in the wake of rising controversy regarding the escalating prescription of puberty blockers, cross-sexualizing hormones and radical gender-altering surgeries for young children experiencing gender confusion, the NHS commissioned this comprehensive review headed by Hilary Cass. Dr. Cass is one of the most highly respected pediatric ...read more

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How Much Power Does WHO Need?

Blog, WHO / /

by D. Joy Riley, M.D., M.A.

Executive Director

If all goes according to the current plan, much of the world’s power will be concentrated in the hands of one man: Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO).

The World Health Assembly (WHA), which governs the WHO, is set to meet beginning 27 May, in Geneva, Switzerland. Their agenda includes, among other items,

   1. an “investment round”: Note that the majority of the WHO’s funding comes from philanthropies (think Gates Foundation,      among others)

   2. a draft climate and health resolution

   3. approving ...read more

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