Pregnant women are often not listened to, but pathologising pregnancy isn't the solution.

Smajdor and Rasanen (2024) argue that pregnant women are routinely denied appropriate treatment because pregnancy is seen as normal, and so they are denied 'patient status'. They claim that formally classifying pregnancy as a disease may lead to better treatment for pregnant women. In this response, we argue that pathologising pregnancy and classifying all pregnant women as 'diseased patients' won't reconfigure care in ways that benefit all women.

Sport-related concussion research agenda beyond medical science: culture, ethics, science, policy.

The Concussion in Sport Group guidelines have successfully brought the attention of brain injuries to the global medical and sport research communities, and has significantly impacted brain injury-related practices and rules of international sport. Despite being the global repository of state-of-the-art science, diagnostic tools and guides to clinical practice, the ensuing consensus statements remain the object of ethical and sociocultural criticism. The purpose of this paper is to bring to bear a broad range of multidisciplinary challenges to the processes and products of sport-related concussion movement.

Do Neurobiological Understandings of Smoking Influence Quitting Self-Efficacy or Treatment Intentions?

Introduction: Addiction is increasingly defined as a "brain disease" caused by changes to neurochemistry. While nicotine addiction has historically been excluded in the brain disease model of addiction (BDMA), it is beginning to be labeled a chronic brain disease. We investigated whether Australian smokers endorse brain-based explanations of smoking, and whether these beliefs are associated with quitting self-efficacy or treatment intentions.

Australian University Students' Coping Strategies and Use of Pharmaceutical Stimulants as Cognitive Enhancers.

Background: There are reports that some university students are using prescription stimulants for non-medical 'pharmaceutical cognitive enhancement (PCE)' to improve alertness, focus, memory, and mood in an attempt to manage the demands of study at university. Purported demand for PCEs in academic contexts have been based on incomplete understandings of student motivations, and often based on untested assumptions about the context within which stimulants are used. They may represent attempts to cope with biopsychosocial stressors in university life by offsetting students' inadequate coping responses, which in turn may affect their cognitive performance.

Researchers' perspectives on scientific and ethical issues with transcranial direct current stimulation: An international survey.

In the last decade, an increasing number of studies have suggested that transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) may enhance brain function in healthy individuals, and ameliorate cognitive and other symptoms in patients suffering from various medical conditions. This, along with its presumed safety, simplicity, and affordability, has generated great enthusiasm amongst researchers, clinicians, patient populations, and the public (including a growing "do-it-yourself" community). However, discussion about the effectiveness and ethics of tDCS thus far has been confined to small groups of tDCS researchers and bioethicists.

Why Don't Smokers Want Help to Quit? A Qualitative Study of Smokers' Attitudes towards Assisted vs. Unassisted Quitting.

The development of prescription medication for smoking cessation and the introduction of evidence-based guidelines for health professionals has increasingly medicalised smoking cessation. There are debates about whether medicalisation is a positive development, or whether it has devalued unassisted quitting. In this debate the views of smokers have been neglected.

How is acceptance of the brain disease model of addiction related to Australians' attitudes towards addicted individuals and treatments for addiction?

Background: We investigated whether beliefs about addiction being a 'disease' or 'brain disease', and holding certain beliefs about addiction aetiology, are associated with public views about addicted persons and support for different types of treatment, coerced treatment and punishment for addiction.

Methods: Data were collected as part of the 2012 Queensland Social Survey, a computer assisted telephone interview of 1263 residents of Queensland, Australia. Participants were presented with scenarios of two addicted males, one who was addicted to heroin and the other addicted to alcohol.

Over-diagnosed and over-treated: a survey of Australian public attitudes towards the acceptability of drug treatment for depression and ADHD.

Background: Over the last decade the use of psychotropic medications to treat common mental health problems has increased in Australia. This paper explores: 1) public attitudes towards the acceptability of using prescription drugs to treat depression and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and 2) beliefs about over-diagnosis of depression and ADHD.

Method: 1293 members of the general public were surveyed about their attitudes towards drug treatment for depression and ADHD through the Queensland Social Survey (QSS), an omnibus state-wide survey of households in the state of Queensland.

Public attitudes in Australia towards the claim that addiction is a (brain) disease.

Introduction And Aims: We investigated the Australian public's understandings of addiction to alcohol and heroin and the factors predicting support for the idea that these types of addiction are 'diseases' and specifically 'brain diseases'.

Design And Methods: Data were collected as part of the 2012 Queensland Social Survey, a computer-assisted telephone interview of 1263 residents of Queensland, Australia. Participants were presented with scenarios of two addicted persons, one who was addicted to heroin and the other addicted to alcohol.

Dazed and confused: sports medicine, conflicts of interest, and concussion management.

Professional sports with high rates of concussion have become increasingly concerned about the long-term effects of multiple head injuries. In this context, return-to-play decisions about concussion generate considerable ethical tensions for sports physicians. Team doctors clearly have an obligation to the welfare of their patient (the injured athlete) but they also have an obligation to their employer (the team), whose primary interest is typically success through winning.

Addiction: Current Criticism of the Brain Disease Paradigm.

To deepen understanding of efforts to consider addiction a "brain disease," we review critical appraisals of the disease model in conjunction with responses from in-depth semistructured stakeholder interviews with (1) patients in treatment for addiction and (2) addiction scientists. Sixty-three patients (from five alcohol and/or nicotine treatment centers in the Midwest) and 20 addiction scientists (representing genetic, molecular, behavioral, and epidemiologic research) were asked to describe their understanding of addiction, including whether they considered addiction to be a disease. To examine the NIDA brain disease paradigm, our approach includes a review of current criticism from the literature, enhanced by the voices of key stakeholders.

Australian university students' attitudes towards the use of prescription stimulants as cognitive enhancers: perceived patterns of use, efficacy and safety.

Introduction And Aims: Recent, high profile articles in leading science journals have claimed that the enhancement use of prescription stimulants is a common practice among students worldwide. This study provides empirical data on Australian university students' perceptions of: (i) the prevalence of prescription stimulant use by their peers for cognitive enhancement; (ii) motivations for such use; (iii) efficacy; and (iv) its safety.

Design And Methods: Participants were 19 Australian university students with an average age of 24 who were recruited through emails lists, notice board posters and snowball sampling.

Public attitudes towards the acceptability of using drugs to treat depression and ADHD.

Objective: This paper examines public attitudes towards the acceptability of using prescription drugs to treat depression and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and whether attitudes are influenced by familiarity with the use of pharmacological treatments for these disorders.

Method: Participants were 1265 members of the general public aged 18-101 years (50% female) participating in the Queensland Social Survey (QSS), an omnibus state-wide survey of households in the state of Queensland. The survey was administered through a CATI (computer-assisted telephone interviewing) system.

Better evidence for safety and efficacy is needed before neurologists prescribe drugs for neuroenhancement to healthy people.

In this paper we question the guidance offered to neurologists by the Ethics, Law and Humanities Committee of the American Academy of Neurology (Larriviere, Williams, Rizzo & Bonnie, 2009) on how to respond to requests for "neuroenhancement": the use of pharmaceuticals to enhance cognitive function in cognitively normal people. The guidance assumes that the benefits of using neuroenhancers will prove to outweigh the risks in the absence of any evidence that this is the case. However, the principle of nonmaleficence dictates that the use of these drugs by healthy people should not be condoned before reliable evidence for their short and long term safety and efficacy is at hand.

Listening to public concerns about human life extension. The public view of life-extension technologies is more nuanced than expected and researchers must engage in discussions if they hope to promote awareness and acceptance.

Technologies to extend the human life span have gained media, scientific and commercial attention, but the public remains cautious. This wariness may in part be caused by the failure of scientists to communicate what is known and unknown about ageing.

Anticipating the use of life extension technologies.

The first effective life extension technologies might well become available within the next few years. Experts from the University of Queensland, Australia, explore the possible public reaction to these therapies and the ethical and social concerns they raise, drawing on the experience of assisted reproduction technologies

Ethical concerns in the community about technologies to extend human life span.

Debates about the ethical and social implications of research that aims to extend human longevity by intervening in the ageing process have paid little attention to the attitudes of members of the general public. In the absence of empirical evidence, conflicting assumptions have been made about likely public attitudes towards life-extension. In light of recent calls for greater public involvement in such discussions, this target article presents findings from focus groups and individual interviews which investigated whether members of the general public identify ethical issues surrounding life-extension, and if so, what these ethical issues are? In this study, while some participants were concerned primarily with the likely personal consequences of life-extension, for others the question of whether or not to pursue interventions to extend longevity, and how they should be implemented, clearly raised important ethical issues, many of which have been prominent in debates among bioethicists.

Ethical, social, and personal implications of extended human lifespan identified by members of the public.

There are a number of ethical, social, and personal implications generated by the potential development and use of technologies that may extend human longevity by intervening in aging. Despite speculations about likely public attitudes toward life extension, to date there have been few attempts to empirically examine the public's perspective of these issues. Using open-ended survey questions via telephone interviews, this study explored the attitudes of 605 members of the Australian public toward the implications of life extension.