What makes certain scientific research controversial? And when does scientific research go beyond being merely controversial to be something far worse? We propose a diagnostic framework for distinguishing between scientific research that is merely controversial and that which is abhorrent. Our framework places research projects along two axes of a value‐harm map. Most research, fortunately, is both valuable and harmless. However, research may be controversial if it is either valuable but harmful or harmless but valueless. The most concerning quadrant of (...) our value‐harm map includes research that is both valueless and harmful, which is abhorrent science. The article's analysis considers a series of case studies, highlighting “new genomic race science” as an exemplar of abhorrent science. (shrink)

In this article, we tackle the epistemological and ethical issues related to the use of race concepts in the genomics of sport performance and sport-related concussion (SRC). In the first part of the article, we show how the concept of race is ubiquitous in scientific literature, besides the fact that ‘race’ as other analogous population descriptors like ‘ancestry’ and ‘continent’ carry ancestral genetic heterogeneity and therefore they cannot be used to infer any kind of genetic or physiological property. Then, we (...) investigate the question of whether genomics research focusing on racial categories and race-specific genes of sport performance and of risk of health outcomes due to repetitive head impacts (RHI) is justified from an epistemological point of view, arguing that it is not; we show that the evidence supporting the existence of genetic variants determining an elite athlete status or a predisposition to health outcomes after SRC is scarce, and the use of racial categories (e.g. African or Black, Caucasian or White, Asian, etc.) as proxies for genetic variants associated with an elite athlete status/a predisposition to health outcomes after SRC is ill-conceived. In the second part of the article, we analyze the main ethical issues concerning the reification of race concepts in sport genomics, also considering the more general issue of the ethical and social impact of the use of a genetic framework in the explanation of individual differences in sport performance and SRC. (shrink)

It is well-known that racism is encoded into the social practices and institutions of medicine. Less well-known is that racism is encoded into the material artifacts of medicine. We argue that many medical devices are not merely biased, but materialize oppression. An oppressive device exhibits a harmful bias that reflects and perpetuates unjust power relations. Using pulse oximeters and spirometers as case studies, we show how medical devices can materialize oppression along various axes of social difference, including race, gender, class, (...) and ability. Our account uses political philosophy and cognitive science to give a theoretical basis for understanding materialized oppression, explaining how artifacts encode and carry oppressive ideas from the past to the present and future. Oppressive medical devices present a moral aggregation problem. To remedy this problem, we suggest redundantly layered solutions that are coordinated to disrupt reciprocal causal connections between the attitudes, practices, and artifacts of oppressive systems. (shrink)

Events in the US in 2020 have laid bare the reality that racism and its effects continue to take a heavy toll on the lives of Black Americans. The three articles in this issue of AJOB each provide...

Definition of the problem Medical ethics is increasingly faced with issues that result from power asymmetries and epistemic injustice. However, medical ethics lacks the epistemic lenses for analyzing these social context factors of clinical practice. A theoretical and conceptual reconfiguration is necessary in order to be able to address these issues. Arguments This paper discusses the foundations of critical medical ethics, which takes perspectives and epistemic categories from critical theories. This includes the Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School as well (...) as those approaches from social sciences and cultural studies that reflect on power asymmetries. By drawing on these theories, the epistemic spectrum of medical ethics could be broadened in order to better include real power relations into normative analyses. The paper starts by outlining the contribution of social sciences to empirical medical ethics. This shows that an empirical approach as such cannot bridge the epistemic gap. In a further step, epistemic lenses and concepts from critical theories are discussed, such as Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School, feminist approaches, postcolonial approaches, queer theory, gender studies, and science and technology studies (STS). The conclusion sums up the foundations of critical medical ethics and discusses its limitations. Conclusion Critical medical ethics possesses the epistemic categories and broader social perspective needed to address issues in medicine that result from power asymmetries and epistemic injustice in society. (shrink)

Earp et al. provide a robust justification for the decriminalization of drugs based on the systemic racism that fuels the “war on drugs” and the ongoing harms of drug policies to individuals...

In their target article, Zamina Mithani, Jane Cooper, and J. Wesley Boyd make a compelling case for the importance of “counter storytelling” in bioethics. They obse...

“Hypertension in Blacks is a salt disease,” Dr. Anderson1 explained. “Too much salt overloads their renin-angiotensin system and their kidneys can’t handle it. It’s just the way their bodies work....

“Ignorance,” Jim Hudson, the art dealer, declares shortly before the climactic scene in the 2017 film, Get Out. “They mean well, but they have no idea what real people will go through”...

There are some long-standing social issues that imperil Black Americans’ relationship with health and healthcare. These issues include racial disparities in health outcomes, provider bi...

In this article, I begin by describing what I call this Black Lives Matter moment in the US. I then offer three reasons for considering racism as a bioethical issue, the least discussed of which is the way in which racism acts as a barrier to the creation of better healthcare systems. Next, I argue that the concept of race itself constitutes a bioethical issue in a way that is not fully reducible to racism. Finally, I discuss how we, both (...) bioethicists and health care professionals, might meet this moment by identifying individual points of responsibility (beyond liability) for structural injustice. (shrink)

It is urgent that we address the causes and harmful effects of racism in health care. We propose that building diversity competence in the way we deliver health care services is key to this effort....

This commentary discusses how racism can be perpetuated in two of the areas discussed in Sabatello et al: research for identifying remedies and contact tracing. Racism is a social system where the...

Black women and their babies matter. In this commentary, we explore the current challenges that Black women face when pregnant and what is needed to ensure an anti-racist approach to prenatal and p...

Research into epistemic injustice, the practice of discrediting people as knowers based on their social identity, has gained broad popularity in ethics. Racism in medicine often mani...

As the twin pandemics of COVID-19 and state violence against Black Americans dominated our national landscape in the spring of 2020, many in medicine, nursing, and public health made renewed calls...

The three important target articles make a strong case for regarding racism as a public health crisis. Each calls for advocacy by the bi...

Liao and Carbonell explore how oppressive medical technologies constitute materiality insofar as they reflect past oppression, embody oppression in the present day, and carry oppression into the fu...

Bioethicists in healthcare institutions have the skills and insights and can and must facilitate and promote measures that address deeply ingrained structural issues that exacerbate health inequity...

In a plenary presentation on structural racism at the 2019 American Society of Bioethics and Humanities Annual Meeting, invited speaker Mary T. Bassett asserted that there is no solidarity without...

Racial inequities in medicine are the consequence of intersecting, multidimensional factors. As detailed in the articles by Braddock, Mithani, Cooper, and Boyd, and Yearby, the...

In this commentary, we take up Yearby’s call for racism-sensitive research and apply this to the discourse regarding race and diversity in COVID vaccine research. We consider whether efforts...

Volume 24, Issue 10, October 2024, Page 20-23.