Off-Label Prescription of COVID-19 Vaccines in Children: Clinical, Ethical, and Legal Issues.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of the biologics license application for the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus disease 2019 vaccine (Comirnaty) on August 23, 2021, opened the door to the off-label vaccination of children younger than the age range currently covered by either the biologics license application (16 years old and older) or the emergency use authorization (12 to 15 years old). Although prescribing medications at doses, for conditions, or in populations other than those approved by the FDA is generally legal and is common in pediatrics, the FDA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the American Academy of Pediatrics have recommended against off-label prescription of the coronavirus disease 2019 vaccine. Several commentaries consider a case in which parents ask their child's pediatrician to prescribe the vaccine for their 11-year-old with special health care needs before approval or authorization in her age group.

Teaching Ethics and Professionalism: A National Survey of Ophthalmology Residency Program Directors.

 While ethics and professionalism are important components of graduate medical education, there is limited data about how ethics and professionalism curricula are taught or assessed in ophthalmology residency programs.  This study aimed to determine how U.S.

When Specialty Care Is Unavailable to Rural Families.

We present the case of a 2-year-old boy with epidermolysis bullosa and supraglottic stenosis whose parents refuse an elective tracheostomy because of the significant care the tracheostomy would require. The patient's family lives in a rural area with few health care resources and his parents are already handling hours of daily skin care for his epidermolysis bullosa. In an attempt to convince the parents to pursue the intervention, the medical team recommends that the family move to an area with additional resources to assist in the child's care.

Systematic Review of Typologies Used to Characterize Clinical Ethics Consultations.

Introduction: Classifying the ethical issues in clinical ethics consultations is important to clinical practice and scholarship. We conducted a systematic review to characterize the typologies used to analyze clinical ethics consultations.

Methods: We identified empirical studies of clinical ethics consultation that report types of ethical issues using PubMed.