Medical Ethics
Sexually Transmitted Diseases and Contact Tracing
MG is a 27-year-old graduate student, recently married, who comes into the student health clinic for a routine pelvic exam and Pap smear. During the course of the exam, the gynecology resident performing the exam obtains the Pap smear, but also obtains cervical cultures for gonorrhea and chlamydia. The examination concludes uneventfully. Several weeks later, MG receives a postcard indicating that the Pap smear was normal, with no evidence of dysplasia, but that the cervical culture for gonorrhea was positive. The card instructs her to come into the clinic to discuss treatment, and that "public health authorities" have been notified for contact tracing, which refers to the identification and diagnosis of sexual partners, as required by law. The young woman is terrified that her husband will be contacted. Is contact tracing ethically justified?
While it is definitely not a good thing that the woman has gonorrhea and there is a chance that she is the one whose behavior that is spreading it, there are a lot of assumptions that could be made and most of them would be wrong regardless of the actual reason she has contracted gonorrhea. Indeed, it may be because of unprotected sex on the part of the woman with more than one partner but the same could be true of the husband. While whomever the victim of all of this happens to be, it is a bridge too far...
It would therefore be a major breach of ethics for the status of individuals in the study to be leaked. Another ethical challenge would be keeping the status of individuals from their significant others. Women are often in relationships where the power and economic disparities require them to remain in those relationships for mere survival. Should their status become known by their partner this may threaten the longevity of the
Ethics and Computing in Computer Science EMPOWERMENT AND RESPONSIBILITY Errors and Hazards and Their Consequences Despite the best of care and talent, computation is subject to uncertainties, which experts call "errors (Landau, 2008)." Some of these errors are man-made and some are produced by the computer itself. The four classes of errors are blunders or bad theory, random errors, approximation or algorithm errors, and round-off errors. Blunders are typographical errors or errors caused
Ethics and Morality -- Ethics and Development The problem of "development" (or, perhaps "progress" and "advancement" also fits in this context) is that while many millions of citizens of the world have been blessed by dramatic progress (technological, industrial, and communications) over the past few decades, many millions are being left behind. Indeed, while millions are living better, living more comfortable lives, countless millions are not benefiting in the least from
All these charters that have clearly defined the boundaries of what both the positive i.e. natural rights and negative i.e. The unjust exploitative rights of the people are and how no institution or research domains have the right or power to violate them (Dierkes, Hoffmann and Marz, 1996). Based on the above fact, we have to consider all the concerns related towards security of an individual as well as his
The Vaccination Dilemma The rights of individuals to refuse vaccinations, and the rights of parents to refuse their children vaccinations, has been increasingly called into question because of the way individual autonomy conflicts directly with the rights of the general public. For example, outbreaks of vaccine-preventable illnesses have increased, with serious outbreaks of measles in the United States being a prime example. Although the United States Centers for Disease Control and
Chickens never see the light of day nor set foot on solid ground. They are raised in wire cages no bigger than this page -- often three to a cage -- and thus are never able to spread their wings or to establish a normal pecking order. They are so unable to move that their feet grow around the wire (Spira, 2005). Packed confinement makes them try to kill each
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