Could ADHD drugs like Adderall be accurately described as strengthening a person's will?

Over the past few years, my wife has become a staunch antivaccinationist. (We have a son on the autism spectrum; she has bought into the discredited vaccine causation theory of autism.) She is unreachable on this topic; no facts or reason will move her from her position. Unfortunately, she has decided that our children are to have no further vaccinations. She will not compromise on this. I, of course, want our children to be protected from dangerous diseases and thus want them to be vaccinated. My question: What are my ethical obligations in this situation--to my wife, to my children, and to society? Going behind my wife's back and having the children vaccinated without her knowledge does not seem ethical. Agreeing to her demand that the children receive no further shots also seems unethical--this would put my kids at risk of disease, as well as other people. Telling my wife up front that I'm taking the children to get their shots, despite her objections, also seems problematic--they are her children...

Would the possibility of women competing on equal footing with men be thinkable without contraceptives, birth control, and access to abortion?

Hello, and thanks for this amazing site. I am a 17 year old guy in a relationship. My girlfriend (although the word comes with a certain stigma of immaturity, which I don't like) and I have been together for well over a year. We have had a very successful relationship, even though we've had our bumps and bruises. However, our relationship is now in turmoil. My girlfriend is trying to end the relationship - although we both still love each other very much, enjoy each other's company, and feel the same as day one. The reason is her commitment issues. They come from a very troubled past, but I will not betray her privacy and give further details. This has been an issue which she has avoided for a long time. Never could we have a productive discussion on the issue. In truth, she needs therapy. She admits this, she knows this. She discontinued therapy (for PTSD and other things) a couple years ago. The reason why she refuses to go to therapy, why she is driven to break apart our relationship rather then go to...

There was a debate recently about organ donation, and one group of people adamantly opposed the notion of making organ donation mandatory or even opt-out, because, and I quote, "They're my organs and nobody else gets to decide what to do with them." Considering organ donation only ever occurs when a person is deceased and no longer has any use for the organs, how is ownership of organs even relevant to the discussion? Why shouldn't it be acceptable to make organ donation opt-out, or even mandatory?

Is it ethical for a pharmaceutical company to keep the results of a negative clinical trial secret? Patients participate in clinical trials of an investigational drug for many reasons. One of these reasons may be the desire to benefit society. If a pharmaceutical company keeps clinical trial results secret, society will not benefit. (Companies keep negative results secret because they want to avoid benefiting a competitor or simply because there is a cost to releasing the information.) There are many adverse consequences of the failure to make negative data public. For example, other companies may unwittingly conduct clinical trials on drugs that work by the same biological mechanism subjecting many people to risks without the possibility of benefit. In addition, the negative results represent important scientific information that may guide researchers to the development of drug strategies that do provide a positive benefit for patients. When pharmaceutical companies enroll patients in a clinical trial,...

I am now taking a medication once a month to manage a symptom of a slow-growing cancer that I have. I just started Medicare last year and see by my statements that the cancer center charges my Medicare an enormous sum of money for this treatment and my oncologist says that there is not a generic equivalent that can be administered this way. Is it ethical for them to charge this sum (over $10,000) for an injection and is it morally "acceptable" for me to take this, at great cost to my fellow taxpayers?

Is it paradoxical for the US government to render embryonic stem cell research illegal, in a country where abortion is legal??

Definitions of health tend to focus on the absence of non-health, as in "health is the absence of disease," or in terms of what health affords us, as in "health allows one to lead a vital life." These approaches seem to avoid consideration of what health is. Why do we do this? Is it possible that something can only be defined in terms of what it is not, or what it leads to? How would we go about considering a definition of health?

I'd like some help for a panel discussion next week on "What makes a good doctor". My weekly reading of the BMJ online (which I access through a university library) yields a spate of articles, and over 70 criteria and still counting. An epidemiologist proposed "a doctor who is interested not only in the individual patient but also in the likely health of other relevant people. This of course recalls the poem of the 6 blind Hindoo scholars describing an elephant (qg, which is shorthand for "google this for more", similar to qv). A coffee-time discussion today foussed on whether a doctor should be "touchy-feely" or not. The answer is, of course, it all depends. No for an intensivist at the bedside of a gravely ill patient, yes when s/he is talking to the relatives about possible outcomes of proposed treatments or withholding them. There is of course William Osler's Aequanimitas, which advises emotional detachment. Are there other useful talking points like "touchy-feely" to convince or suggest to other...