Casebook On Benefit And Harm

I. Defining "research"--II. Issues in study design . -- III. Harm and benefit -- IV. Voluntary informed consent -- V. Standard of care -- VI. Obligations to participants and communities -- VII. Privacy and confidentiality -- VIII. Professional ethics.

This open access book provides original, up-to-date case studies of “ethics dumping” that were largely facilitated by loopholes in the ethics governance of low and middle-income countries. It is instructive even to experienced researchers since it provides a voice to vulnerable populations from the fore mentioned countries. Ensuring the ethical conduct of North-South collaborations in research is a process fraught with difficulties. The background conditions under which such collaborations take place include extreme differentials in available income and power, as well as a past history of colonialism, while differences in culture can add a new layer of complications. In this context, up-to-date case studies of unethical conduct are essential for research ethics training.

Institutions matter for the advancement of human rights in global health. Given the dramatic development of human rights under international law and the parallel proliferation of global institutions for public health, there arises an imperative to understand the implementation of human rights through global health governance. This volume examines the evolving relationship between human rights, global governance, and public health, studying an expansive set of health challenges through a multi-sectoral array of global organizations. To analyze the structural determinants of rights-based governance, the organizations in this volume include those international bureaucracies that implement human rights in ways that influence public health in a globalizing world. This volume brings together leading health and human rights scholars and practitioners from academia, non-governmental organizations, and the United Nations system. They explore the foundations of human rights as a normative framework for global health governance, the mandate of the World Health Organization to pursue a human rights-based approach to health, the role of inter-governmental organizations across a range of health-related human rights, the influence of rights-based economic governance on public health, and the focus on global health among institutions of human rights governance. Contributing chapters each map the distinct human rights efforts within a specific institution of global governance for health. Through the comparative institutional analysis in this volume, the contributing authors examine institutional dynamics to operationalize human rights in organizational policies, programs, and practices and assess institutional factors that facilitate or inhibit human rights mainstreaming for global health advancement.

This open access book addresses a variety of issues relating to bioethics, in order to initiate cross-cultural dialogue. Beginning with the history, it introduces various views on bioethics, based on specific experiences from Japan. It describes how Japan has been confronted with Western bioethics and the ethical issues new to this modern age, and how it has found its foothold as it decides where it stands on these issues. In the last chapter, the author proposes discarding the overarching term ‘Global Bioethics’ in favor of the new term, ‘Bioethics Across the Globe (BAG)’, which carries a more universal connotation. This book serves as an excellent tool to help readers understand a different culture and to initiate deep and genuine global dialogue that incorporates local and global thinking on bioethics. Bioethics Across the Globe is a valuable resource for researchers in the field of bioethics/medical ethics interested in adopting cross-cultural approaches, as well as graduate and undergraduate students of healthcare and philosophy.

This book presents and elaborates on how the teaching of global ethics in healthcare contributes to furthering ideals of cosmopolitanism: solidarity, equality, respect for differences and concern with what human beings, and specifically patients have in common, regardless of where they live and who they are. Global problems such as pandemic diseases, disasters, lack of care and medication, homelessness and displacement call for global responses. The new area of global bioethics is providing answers by arguing that ethical discourse should first of all criticize the structures of violence and injustice that underlie many threats to global health. Education of health professionals should articulate that they are ‘citizens of the world’, like their patients. This book first demonstrates that a moral vision of global education is necessary to gain a global dimension. It is argued that a global framework of ethical principles is available; the challenge is to elaborate and specify that framework into specific educational approaches and models. The book subsequently analyzes goals and challenges of global education in biomedicine and healthcare. It is shown how such challenges (e.g. inequities and cultural differences) can be overcome. Finally, the book presents concrete examples (cases, methods, and practices) of global education in bioethics. The unique feature of the book is that it addresses global education challenges specifically in the area of healthcare, medicine, and medical science. It combines two areas of research and experience that are usually not connected: global bioethics and global education. This book is written for all those involved in global ethics teaching in medicine, nursing, ethics, philosophy, law, and theology courses.