Two chat bots have a conversation.

AI Mental Health Chatbots May Not Be So Healthy

Blog / /

by C. Ben Mitchell, Ph.D

Professor and Author of Bioethics and Medicine: A Short Companion

Apparently, AI therapy chatbots do not know that the first principle of medical ethics is primum non nocere (first, do no harm). Actually, they don’t know anything. Chatbots are not knowing beings; they are computational large language models (LLMs) that scrape data, predict how to respond to prompts, and spit out sometimes accurate and sometimes completely erroneous information (so-called hallucinations). Properly speaking, they are neither artificial nor intelligent. But many people, even in clinical medicine, seem to want to give AI the benefit of the doubt.

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Scotland the Brave

Blog / /

Joyce A. Shelton, Ph.D.

Professor of Biology Emerita

Trinity International University

Recently, the Parliament of Scotland (building pictured above) displayed an uncommon act of “Scotch courage”, which had everything to do with moral fortitude and nothing to do with whiskey.  On 17 March 2026, following months of debate, the Scottish Parliament voted independently from the rest of the United Kingdom to reject a bill that would allow medical assistance in dying to terminally ill adults.  Apparently, this bill, when originally proposed over two ...read more

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A Step in the Right Direction

Blog / /

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

Executive Director

The National Organ Transplantation Act (NOTA) of 1984 established the not-for-profit Organ Procurement Organizations (OPOs). These facilitate the organ donation process in a variety of ways — from public education to “clinical management of organ donors and assessment of medical suitability.” There are 56 OPOs in the United States. Hospitals are assigned to a specific OPO; there is no choice involved. In recent years, OPOs have come under scrutiny due to various negative reports, including the harrowing experience of one family ...read more

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A Time to Embrace and a Time to Refrain from Embracing — Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Blog / /
D. Joy Riley, M.D., M.A.

Executive Director

The day before Thanksgiving, I needed just a few items for the feast preparations. My mother accompanied me to the grocery store, and we, along with a large sector of the local population, searched the shelves. When it was time to check out, I saw the lines peopled by the harassed clerks, and opted for the self check-out region. After scanning a couple of the larger items, I clicked the “Skip Bagging” button on the screen, and placed them back into the cart. Nearing the end of the self check-out level of Purgatory, the machine ...read more

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Making Babies? An IVF Primer

Blog / /

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

Executive Director

The first successful in vitro (in glass) fertilization (IVF) resulted in the birth of Louise Joy Brown in 1978 in England. Here is a brief account of that event.

Cambridge embryologist Robert Edwards gave a frank interview with The Times‘ reporter Anjana Ahjuga 25 years after the birth of Louise Brown. Edwards said, “The Vatican called Louise’s birth ‘an event that can have very grave consequences for humanity’ because it divorced the conjugal sexual act from procreation.” Edwards is quoted further:

“It was a fantastic achievement but it was about more than infertility,” ...read more

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Bioethics and Medicine: A Short Companion by C. Ben Mitchell

Blog, Book Reviews / /

A Book Review

By R. Henry Williams, M.D., M.A.

Chairman of the Board

The Tennessee Center for Bioethics & Culture

What is the essence of medical ethics as it may or should be practiced today? What is an ethical physician? What is Christian ethics? How does one’s faith impact how medicine can be practiced? These questions along with a broad look at medical ethics, from Hippocrates to today’s practicing professional, are masterfully addressed in C. Ben Mitchell’s new volume, Bioethics and Medicine – A Short Companion.

Mitchell draws on his experience as a pastor early on, who moved into his career as a bioethicist and professor, partly due ...read more

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Who Is WHO?

Blog, WHO / /

A Visual Primer on the World Health Organization

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

Executive Director

The World Health Organization (WHO) arose in the aftermath of WW II. Its aim as a global organization was sound “health” for everyone, whatever his/her socioeconomic position. The word health was wide-ranging in its definition: “Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”

First Director-General of the WHO: George Brock Chisholm

George Brock Chisholm, a Canadian, served his country during WWI. After returning home, he trained in medicine and then Freudian psychiatry. He advanced to become the first Director ...read more

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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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23andMe is Sold to Regeneron:  What happens now? 

Blog, Genetic Data, Genomic & Genetics Issues, United States / /

Joyce A. Shelton, Ph.D.

Professor of Biology Emerita

Trinity International University

The direct to consumer genetic testing company 23andMe, has been in bankruptcy. On May19th of this year they announced that they have sold the company and all of its assets to Regeneron Pharmaceuticals for 256 million dollars. This sale means that Regeneron acquires 23andMe’s gigantic genetic databank garnered from approximately 15 million customers. Given the uniquely personal identifying information about themselves and family members that consumers share when they submit their genetic samples to companies like 23andMe, issues surrounding data security and privacy have long been a cause for ...read more

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