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Issues in bioethics: ethics in health policy and guidelines in healthcare.

The development of policies in health and healthcare should incorporate ethical premises as well as thoughtful consideration of the values pertinent to the particular society and the goals to be achieved by specific policies. Social inequalities, changing values, and emergent challenges to traditional beliefs, add complexities that require a thorough analysis to compile policies that are fair and equitable. This article provides some recommendations for clinicians, health administrators, policy makers and technocrats who often grapple with complex health issues.

Bioethical Issues↗

Reflections on bioethics: consolidation of the principle of autonomy and legal aspects.

The author highlights the importance of emotions in all ethical reflections. He describes the most common positions of ethicists employing duties and rights as the basis for ethical thought. The author, goes to Freudian theory as viewed by the utilitarians, stating that the 'quest for pleasure' is not necessarily egocentric, especially for adults. For example, the feeling of solidarity emerges 'from the inside out', making irrelevant all the emphasis laid on obedience to duty (from the outside in). The article questions the essence of Kantian theory, based exclusively on 'reason' with disregard for feelings, by establishing what he considers a 'positivist' view of rational thought. It emphasizes the principle of autonomy, which it seen as basically opposing the principles of beneficence and fairness. It is proposed that the latter should be seen as what he calls heteronomy (a concept different from that of the rational ethicists). In theory, autonomy is not assigned to anyone on the basis of an external assessment. Any intervention in individual autonomy must be made (by the intervenor) when it becomes imperative in the defense of social or cultural values. The article distinguishes between ethics and morals) and states that the sole acceptable ethical principle is that ethics (theoretically) has no principle.

Adult↗

[Bioethical principles in public health: limitations and proposals].

We propose to analyze the specificity of ethical problems in public health issues and to elucidate the applicability of principlism as a problem-solving strategy in this realm. Although well-established in clinical ethics, principlism is not an adequate model to be used in public health, since it is basically intended to serve as a moral guide in the physician-patient encounter. We discuss the possible adequacy of principles like "solidarity", "ontic responsibility" (as proposed by Jonas), and "caring or diaconal responsibility" as presented by Lévinas. Solidarity appears to be insufficiently specified, whereas the other two perspectives may be adapted to public health issues by bringing together Jonas' ontological and Lévinas' transcendental concerns to form a principle of protection that might better serve the purposes of such an ethics. This principle would help to identify more clearly the goals and agents involved in the implementation of public policies that are expected to be both morally correct and pragmatically effective.

Bioethics↗

[Bio-terrorism, bio-defense, bioethics].

The terrorist attacks launched on September 11, 2001, ignited fear of further aggression with biological weapons, leading to a discourse and allocation of resources for both defensive and dissuasive/ offensive use in order to counteract such threats. Many such measures involved the investigation and production of biological agents, and the public health field has been called upon to participate in these strategic efforts. Participation by health programs is in moral contradiction with military tactics and should be limited to protecting the health of the purportedly threatened population, in itself a difficult task due to the numerous imponderable factors. The additional resources being made available to public health are largely conditioned on their strategic military application, leaving traditional public health care in its chronic state of insufficient funding and non-egalitarian allocation.

Bioethics↗

[Conversations on the "good death": the bioethical debate on euthanasia].

Despite extensive current debate on euthanasia, many open and apparently unsolvable issues persist, awaiting a better conceptual treatment. The area includes "prejudices and fundamentalisms" in relation to the theme, still viewed as taboo by a major share of society, specifically in the case of Brazil, while semantic imprecision in the term and argumentative tensions surround the issue, focusing on the principles of sacredness of life, quality of life, and autonomy and the so-called "slippery slope" argument. The purpose of the current essay is thus to serve as a sphere of inquiry concerning euthanasia, moving from historical antecedents towards a better solution to the problem and the demarcation of necessary future perspectives for enhanced understanding of the issue.

Attitude to Death↗

Embracing bioethics in neonatal intensive care, part I: evolving toward neonatal evidence-based ethics.

Ethical treatment dilemmas are not new to the NICU. With technologic advances over the past 20 years, NICU care has developed rapidly, and survival rates have improved for some of the tiniest and most critically ill infants. In guiding clinical practice, however, standards in evidenced-based medicine have often superseded standards in evidence-based ethics. Part I of this article presents a historical review of neonatal care and an overview of cases that have set precedents in neonatal ethical debate. It also includes recommendations for enhancing the skills of neonatal nurses as patient advocates in NICU ethical issues, an area that is, at times, controversial and baffling to clinicians.

Bioethics↗

Quality of life: the bridge from the cholinergic basal forebrain to cognitive science and bioethics.

Our paper on loss of neurons in the Nucleus Basalis of Meynert (now considered part of the cholinergic basal forebrain) in Alzheimer disease (AD) stimulated scientific interest in this little studied brain region. Our subsequent studies associated pathology in the basal forebrain with other dementias, such as Parkinson's disease, and with neurotransmitter receptor changes, such as in nicotinic receptors. We and many others worked to develop medications to treat AD through cholinergic mechanisms and eventually four cholinesterase inhibitors were approved. However the effect sizes of currently available drugs are modest and ethical issues in conducting research in dementia are challenging. In Cleveland we came to focus on the goals of improving quality of life and the importance on non-pharmacological approaches to treatment. International efforts were organized to improve the efficiency of drug development and to focus on important cultural and pharmacoeconomic issues. Eventually I became concerned about the very way we conceive AD and related concepts like MCI (mild cognitive impairment). As the hundredth anniversary of the first case approaches I am helping to organize meetings to reflect deeply on what we have learned and how to imagine creating a more positive future for persons affected by what I used to call AD.

Alzheimer Disease↗

[Brain death, bioethics and organ transplantation].

The concept of death has evolved medically, legally and culturally since the introduction of life support technologies in the middle of the 20th century. The traditional cardiopulmonary and the new neurologically based brain death criterions of death are examined. We conclude that brain death, defined as total and irreversible loss of function of the whole brain, fulfills better "the permanent cessation of functioning of the organism as a whole" definition of death. Brain death diagnosis, based on standard neurologic clinical examination performed accurately, is unequivocal. Transplantation medicine, mostly based on organ donation of brain dead people, has become a routine and universally accepted therapeutic intervention nowadays, which benefits many people. Ethics foundations of organ transplantation are reviewed. Even though brain death and organ donation are widely accepted in medical, legal, religious and public opinion today, the whole society and medical community need to be further educated about these matters, so that unavoidable changes of traditional concepts might be better understood. Permanent education should be the best way to dissipate social fears and distrust towards organ donation and brain death.

Bioethics↗