Allegedly, there are over 8.000 so called predatory journals out there. Instead of supporting readers and science, these journals serve their own economic interests first and at best offer dubious merits for scholars. We believe that scholars working in any academic discipline have a professional interest and a responsibility to keep track of these journals. […]
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What really can start feverish thought activity is facing an unclear threat. We do not really see what it is, so we fill the contours ourselves. At the seminar this week, we discussed what I think was such a case. A woman decided to test if she possibly had calcium deficiency. To her surprise, the […]
Continue readingTrusting yourself, what does it mean? It can of course mean thinking that you always know best, trusting your strength to prevail over whoever and whatever you may meet in life. There is another form of trust in yourself, where you trust your uncertainty rather than your certainty. You respond to your uncertainty not by […]
Continue readingDebates on euthanasia, abortion or embryonic stem cell research frequently invoke slippery slope arguments. Here is an example of such reasoning: Legalizing physician-assisted suicide (PAS) at the end of life pushes healthcare morality in a dangerous direction. Soon, PAS may be practiced even on people who are not at the end of life and who […]
Continue readingLast year I wrote a post about resignation syndrome in children in families who are denied asylum in Sweden. I described a hypothesis about the syndrome suggested by Karl Sallin, PhD student at CRB in the field of neuroethics and neurophilosophy. An intuitive explanation is that the syndrome is a reaction to prolonged stress and […]
Continue readingConsent to research participation has two dimensions. On the one hand, the researcher wants to do something with the participant: we don’t know what until the researcher tells. To obtain consent, the researcher must provide information about what will be done, what the purpose is, what the risks and benefits are – so that potential […]
Continue readingBiobank and registry research comes with particular sets of legal and ethical issues. We explore some of them in our Biobank Perspectives newsletter. In this issue, you can read about some of the challenges that arise when biobanking stem cells in relation to a new project on the legal and ethical aspects of using stem […]
Continue readingStem cells are perhaps not what first springs to mind as biobank material. Yet, even stem cells can be biobank material and there are biobanks that focus on stem cells. The use of this biobank material, however, has some unique features. Stem cell researchers process not only data from human material. The material itself is […]
Continue readingThere is a picture of stem cell therapy: It is in harmony with the body’s own way of functioning. Damaged tissue is regenerated as the body always regenerates tissue: through stem cells maturing into new body cells. Patients can then hope for a body without a trace of disease: a healed body that takes care […]
Continue readingIn a previous post, I tried to make the point that the pharmaceutical industry can support altruism between research participants and patients, despite the fact that the industry itself is not altruistic but is driven by profit. Medical research will not benefit patients, unless results are developed into commercially available treatments. However, this presupposes, of […]
Continue readingTHE ETHICS BLOG
A research blog from the Centre for Research Ethics & Bioethics (CRB)
We write for researchers, healthcare staff, officials, politicians, patient organisations and anyone interested in ethics.
We comment on the research ethics and bioethics debate and discuss our own research. We address issues from current debates in the research community and in the press.
MEET THE EDITOR
Pär Segerdahl is editor of the Ethics Blog and Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Centre for Research Ethics & Bioethics.