BioethicsPub Date : 2026-10-01Epub Date: 2026-08-20DOI: 10.1111/bioe.70174
Giorgio Sirugo, Amadou Gaye
{"title":"Population-Stratified Human Genetic Studies Are Not Eugenics: A Response to Donohue and Myles.","authors":"Giorgio Sirugo, Amadou Gaye","doi":"10.1111/bioe.70174","DOIUrl":"10.1111/bioe.70174","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":55379,"journal":{"name":"Bioethics","volume":" ","pages":"941-944"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13570775/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148802194","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
BioethicsPub Date : 2026-10-01Epub Date: 2026-05-19DOI: 10.1111/bioe.70130
Daniel Aillaud-De-Uriarte
{"title":"Blaming the Patient: The Ethical Failures of Responsibility-Based Liver Transplant Policy in Alcohol Use Disorder.","authors":"Daniel Aillaud-De-Uriarte","doi":"10.1111/bioe.70130","DOIUrl":"10.1111/bioe.70130","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Responsibility continues to shape how many transplant programs evaluate liver transplantation for patients with Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD), even in settings where the traditional 6-month abstinence rule has been abandoned. This article argues that using past drinking to lower transplant priority, or to break ties between candidates, is ethically mistaken and clinically harmful. Appeals to personal responsibility often misrepresent the nature of addiction and overestimate the degree of knowledge and control individuals possess when harmful drinking patterns begin and escalate. Early onset of alcohol use, trauma, and psychiatric comorbidity frequently constrain the range of meaningful options available long before transplantation becomes relevant. When these histories are treated primarily as evidence of blameworthy behavior, stigma is reinforced and patients may have fewer incentives to be honest about relapse risk or struggles in treatment. The article examines several influential arguments that defend the use of responsibility in transplant allocation and explains why they fail in practice. It then proposes an alternative framework. Allocation should rely on forward-looking criteria that are relevant to clinical outcomes and fairness, including medical urgency, expected benefit, engagement in treatment, reliability in follow-up care, and the presence of social support. These considerations can be assessed more transparently than retrospective judgments about deservingness and avoid penalizing patients for circumstances that contributed to their illness. The article concludes by considering the implications for transplant committees. Policies should reward engagement in care and support recovery rather than rely on retrospective moral judgments about past behavior. Doing so strengthens trust between clinicians and patients, improves adherence to treatment, and allocates a scarce resource on grounds that are ethically relevant to the success of transplantation.</p>","PeriodicalId":55379,"journal":{"name":"Bioethics","volume":" ","pages":"900-907"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13570757/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147977229","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
BioethicsPub Date : 2026-10-01Epub Date: 2026-08-11DOI: 10.1111/bioe.70172
Miguel Ángel Cuervo Pinna
{"title":"Safeguards Are Not Suspicion: A Clinical Palliative Care Perspective on Autonomy in Medical Assistance in Dying.","authors":"Miguel Ángel Cuervo Pinna","doi":"10.1111/bioe.70172","DOIUrl":"10.1111/bioe.70172","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":55379,"journal":{"name":"Bioethics","volume":" ","pages":"945-946"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13570733/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148708520","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
BioethicsPub Date : 2026-10-01Epub Date: 2026-07-15DOI: 10.1111/bioe.70162
Animesh Ghimire
{"title":"Who Pays the Heat Debt? Ethics, Labour, and Governance in a Warming World.","authors":"Animesh Ghimire","doi":"10.1111/bioe.70162","DOIUrl":"10.1111/bioe.70162","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Extreme heat is emerging as one of the most consequential occupational hazards of the 21st century. More than 2.4 billion workers, over 70% of the global labour force, are exposed to excessive heat, with more than 22 million heat-related occupational injuries and nearly 19,000 deaths each year. By 2030, heat stress is projected to reduce global working hours by 2.2%, equivalent to 80 million full-time jobs, with the heaviest losses concentrated in low- and lower-middle-income countries. This paper argues that these figures disclose not only a climate and labour crisis, but also a problem of health justice. To conceptualise this, the article develops the framework of 'heat debt' to articulate the physiological, economic, and temporal burdens disproportionately imposed on workers to sustain global production, supply chains, and essential services in a warming world. Synthesising evidence from agriculture, construction, garment manufacturing, informal urban labour, and healthcare, this paper demonstrates that this debt is systematically offloaded onto low-wage, migrant, informal, and feminised workforces. The analysis proceeds in three parts. First, it argues that excessive occupational heat must be analysed through the lenses of distributive and reparative justice. Second, it demonstrates how current labour law, climate policy, and corporate supply chain governance institutionalise thermal inequality. Third, it interrogates health systems in their dual capacity: as primary responders to heat-related morbidity, and as occupational environments that actively reproduce heat vulnerability among clinical staff. The article concludes by advancing a bioethical mandate of 'cooling as care,' positing that occupational thermal protection is an indispensable prerequisite for climate justice, decent work, and ethically defensible healthcare delivery.</p>","PeriodicalId":55379,"journal":{"name":"Bioethics","volume":" ","pages":"922-930"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13570764/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148450701","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
BioethicsPub Date : 2026-10-01Epub Date: 2026-05-19DOI: 10.1111/bioe.70131
Junsik Yoon
{"title":"Reply to Letter to the Editor \"Humanoid Children: An Anti-Natalist Response to Aging, Suffering, and the Climate Crisis\".","authors":"Junsik Yoon","doi":"10.1111/bioe.70131","DOIUrl":"10.1111/bioe.70131","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":55379,"journal":{"name":"Bioethics","volume":" ","pages":"939-940"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13570736/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147977256","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
BioethicsPub Date : 2026-10-01Epub Date: 2026-06-06DOI: 10.1111/bioe.70136
Didde Boisen Andersen, Andreas Brøgger Albertsen, Sarah Wadmann, Mickael Bech
{"title":"Size Does Matter! Prioritizing Rare Diseases for Luck Egalitarian Reasons.","authors":"Didde Boisen Andersen, Andreas Brøgger Albertsen, Sarah Wadmann, Mickael Bech","doi":"10.1111/bioe.70136","DOIUrl":"10.1111/bioe.70136","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Rarity provides a challenging case for contemporary priority setting. On the one hand, many philosophers and economists argue that rarity has no inherent moral value, and thus that rare diseases merit no special treatment in priority setting decisions simply because they are rare. On the other hand, existing priority-setting practices demonstrate a higher willingness to pay for rare disease treatments. We argue that special priority for rare diseases might be justified on egalitarian grounds. Specifically, we develop and defend what we call the \"bad numbers luck\" argument for prioritizing rare diseases. This is a variant of the luck egalitarian idea of bad price luck. We conclude by discussing how higher willingness to pay, adjusted priority-setting processes, and a broader societal focus on rare diseases could address such injustices. Recognising bad numbers luck clarifies the relationship between fairness and efficiency in health care priority setting.</p>","PeriodicalId":55379,"journal":{"name":"Bioethics","volume":" ","pages":"908-914"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13570746/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148195176","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
BioethicsPub Date : 2026-10-01Epub Date: 2026-06-03DOI: 10.1111/bioe.70137
Man Teng Iong
{"title":"Ethical and Legal Challenges of Partially and Fully Autonomous AI in Healthcare: Reinterpreting Liability and Preserving Trust.","authors":"Man Teng Iong","doi":"10.1111/bioe.70137","DOIUrl":"10.1111/bioe.70137","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly embedded in healthcare in a variety of ways, ranging from semi-autonomous decision support systems to the various visions of completely autonomous clinical systems. This article explores the ethical and legal issues that accompany this shift and argues that traditional ways of understanding medical responsibility and the physician-patient relationships have been strained in light of the increasing autonomy of AI. Ethically, AI raises very acute concerns around transparency and informed consent in the case of \"black-box\" systems, the persistence and amplification of bias, privacy risks arising from data-intensive uses in system development, as well as the harmful effects of automation bias and professional de-skilling. The article also brings to foreground an underexplored concern-the weakening of relational trust in contexts where clinical judgment and interactions are mediated by an AI, particularly where human oversight of the situation is reduced. Legally, this article outlines challenges of liability across the autonomy spectrum and criticizes proposals that would see AI as an independent liable agent. It promotes a human-accountability model that includes clinical responsibility for assistive AI, coupled with enterprise measures of liability and post-market oversight for ever-more autonomy, backed by mutually appropriate insurance and governance measures. The article ends with some regulatory and institutional recommendations in order to facilitate safe, ethical, and equitable integration of AI in healthcare.</p>","PeriodicalId":55379,"journal":{"name":"Bioethics","volume":" ","pages":"915-921"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13570762/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148151373","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
BioethicsPub Date : 2026-10-01Epub Date: 2026-07-15DOI: 10.1111/bioe.70160
Philipp Sprengholz
{"title":"Slow Codes, Ethics, and Empirical Inquiry: A Reply to Lu and Lederman.","authors":"Philipp Sprengholz","doi":"10.1111/bioe.70160","DOIUrl":"10.1111/bioe.70160","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Slow codes occupy a contested position in clinical ethics, yet systematic evidence on public attitudes toward this practice remains limited. In response to criticisms raised by Lu and Lederman (2026), this article clarifies the aims, assumptions, and methodological limits of my original study on public moral judgments of slow codes. I argue that the original findings are not undermined by nonrepresentative sampling, gaps in lay knowledge, or framing artifacts, but rather reflect how nonprofessionals reason about end-of-life decisions under uncertainty. The response positions empirical moral psychology as a complementary contribution to clinical ethics and invites continued interdisciplinary dialogue on ethically contested practices such as slow codes.</p>","PeriodicalId":55379,"journal":{"name":"Bioethics","volume":" ","pages":"931-933"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13570768/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148450650","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
BioethicsPub Date : 2026-09-29DOI: 10.1111/bioe.70198
Dr Zohar Lederman
{"title":"On the Immunity of Hospitals in Gaza: A Response to Lucas.","authors":"Dr Zohar Lederman","doi":"10.1111/bioe.70198","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/bioe.70198","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":55379,"journal":{"name":"Bioethics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149082967","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
BioethicsPub Date : 2026-09-22DOI: 10.1111/bioe.70194
Benjamin Capps, Iva Hauptmannova, James Yeates
{"title":"An Enquiry on the Ethics of One Medicine.","authors":"Benjamin Capps, Iva Hauptmannova, James Yeates","doi":"10.1111/bioe.70194","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/bioe.70194","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>One Medicine is not One Health. Although both concepts connect animal and human health, One Health has arguably become a frame for public health. This paper argues that One Medicine uniquely centres on animal and human patients and speaks to the equal interdependence of their health, though it has also (historically) been adopted as a response to the circumstances of living in and with nature. The evolution of One Medicine can be seen as 'jumping together,' or the consilience of ideas and disciplines over time, giving a new sense in theory that unifies previously unconnected phenomena found in nature. Practically, education and oversight can be developed towards its purpose of enhanced clinical and veterinary health care; and just as clinical medicine and public health are related, there is a role for One Medicine to support One Health's focus on the ecological determinants of health. This paper takes the first step towards defining One Medicine's emergent ethical frame, creating space between it and One Health.</p>","PeriodicalId":55379,"journal":{"name":"Bioethics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149018822","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}