The rise in bilateral mastectomies: Evidence, ethics, and physician's role.

This viewpoint reviews double mastectomies' trend, medical evidence and ethical considerations, as well as the role of the physician in counseling the patient. It concludes that physicians should encourage patients to pursue alternative preventive measures, and promote bilateral mastectomies only for high-risk patients for whom the potential benefits of the surgery are sufficient to justify the surgery's increased risks.

Just compensation: a no-fault proposal for research-related injuries.

Biomedical research, no matter how well designed and ethically conducted, carries uncertainties and exposes participants to risk of injury. Research injuries can range from the relatively minor to those that result in hospitalization, permanent disability, or even death. Participants might also suffer a range of economic harms related to their injuries.

Finding Fault? Exploring Legal Duties to Return Incidental Findings in Genomic Research.

The use of whole-genome sequencing in biomedical research is expected to produce dramatic advances in human health. The increasing use of this powerful, data-rich new technology in research, however, will inevitably give rise to incidental findings (IFs)-findings with individual health or reproductive significance that are beyond the aims of the particular research-and the related questions of whether and to what extent researchers have an ethical obligation to return IFs. Many have concluded that researchers have an ethical obligation to return some findings in some circumstances but have provided vague or context-dependent approaches to determining which IFs must be returned and when.

Research-related injury compensation policies of U.S. research institutions.

Federal research regulations require participants to be informed about whether medical care or compensation for injury is available in more than minimal risk studies and prohibit language in informed consent documents that waives, or appears to waive, legal rights. The objectives of this study were to compare data collected in 2000 and 2012 to identify significant changes in types of institutional compensation policies at U.S.

In need of remedy: US policy for compensating injured research participants.

There is an emerging ethical consensus that injured research participants should receive medical care and compensation for their research-related injuries. This consensus is premised on notions of beneficence, distributive justice, compensatory justice and reciprocity. In response, countries around the world have implemented no-fault compensation systems to ensure that research participants are adequately protected in the event of injury.

Recovering from research: a no-fault proposal to compensate injured research participants.

National advisory committees have considered the obligations owed to research participants in the event of research-related injuries. These committees have repeatedly concluded that injured research participants are entitled to compensation for their injuries, that the tort system provides inadequate remedies, and that the United States should adopt no-fault compensation. But because the advisory committees have made no concrete proposals and have taken no steps toward implementing no-fault compensation, the United States continues to rely on the tort system to compensate injured research participants.