Ethics of Eating

Here are three articles on the ethics of eating.

Grace Mican is an environmental studies student at Bellarmine University in Kentucky. She writes about the research and thinking that has inspired her to forgo eating meat in What is Responsible Eating?

Jay Hollman is a physician in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. In Are We Too Obsessed with Food?, Dr. Hollman writes about the ambiguity in nutritional and dietary research, and calls for an end to the obsession with restrictive diets.

Here is another story about a man named Sumner Wemp. Sumner declined to eat with his buddies because he wanted to influence the cook at the local Denny's. 

Secular Quebec is Poised to Euthanize

QUEBEC CITY — Quebec is North America’s most European jurisdiction, but this doesn’t appear to be an asset in terms of valuing human life, economic health or the preservation of its Catholic heritage.

The predominantly French-speaking Canadian province has this continent’s lowest birth rate, at 1.5 children per woman, the highest debt-to-GDP ratio at 94%, the lowest weekly church attendance at 6% of residents — and soon, if its separatist Parti Quebecois government has its way, it will add euthanasia to the list of dubious similarities.

However, the term “euthanasia” doesn’t appear anywhere in the Quebec government’s Bill 52, “An Act Respecting End-of-Life Care.” While it offers doctor-applied fatal injections to those wishing to escape painful, terminal illnesses, it calls this “palliative care … including terminal palliative sedation and medical aid in dying.”

Read it all here.

Palliative Care Undermined by Euthanasia

Palliative care is undermined by euthanasia and assisted suicide, according to many palliative care organisations. In Australia, where end-of-life issues are hotly debated, the peak palliative care body has joined the chorus of opposition.

The Australia and New Zealand Society for Palliative Medicine (ANZSPM) has released a new position statement on the practices, arguing that they are not a solution to patient suffering, and that legalising the procedures would take attention away from the real issue - a lack of access to palliative care.

In the document the ANZSPM emphasises, "There is a clear distinction between good care for the dying and active interventions instituted in order to deliberately end the life of a patient." Instead of providing VE or PAS, doctors should try to alleviate symptoms: "When requests for euthanasia or assisted suicide arise, particular attention should be given to gaining good symptom control, especially of those symptoms that research has highlighted may commonly be associated with a serious and sustained 'desire for death' (e.g. depressive disorders and poorly controlled pain)."

Out of a the ten point policy statement, three points stressed "the significant deficits in the provision of palliative care in Australia and New Zealand". ANZSPM called for new government "health reform programs", as well as increased carer support for respite care, so as "decrease the sense of burden for many patients at the end of life."

Source: BioEdge

Quote of the Week - George MacDonald

"The part of philanthropist is indeed a dangerous one; and the man who would do his neighbour good must first study how not to do him evil, and must begun by pulling the beam out of his own eye."-- George MacDonald (Lillith, Chapter XIV)

Should the War on Terror Trump Medical Ethics?

An independent report has highlighted ongoing violations of medical ethics at Guantánamo Bay and called on the Department of Defense (DoD) and the medical community to conform to ethical principles. The Task Force on Preserving Medical Professionalism in National Security Detention Centers claims that medical staff have been forced to act unethically.

"As a doctor who has been to Guantánamo and examined detainees, I am appalled that medical care there is controlled by command and security prerogatives," said Vincent Iacopino, of Physicians for Human Rights, a member of the task force. "It is time for the administration to end the inhuman and degrading practice of force-feeding and restore the ability of medical staff to act independently and according to their clinical and ethical obligations."

The 269-page report, Ethics Abandoned: Medical Professionalism and Detainee Abuse in the 'War on Terror', follows two years of review of public records by 19 medical, military, ethics, public health, and legal experts.

It discusses how medical personnel established and participated in torture. It also outlines how the DoD committed a number of ethical breaches, including improperly using health professionals during interrogations; implementing rules that permitted medical and psychological information obtained by health professionals to be used during interrogations; requiring medical staff to forgo independent medical judgment and force-feed competent detainees; and failing to adopt international standards for medical reporting of abuse against detainees.

The report also says that the CIA's Office of Medical Services played a critical role in torture, including waterboarding. It had advised the Department of Justice that "enhanced interrogation" methods, such as extended sleep deprivation and waterboarding, were medically acceptable. CIA medical personnel were present during waterboarding, the Task Force claims.

"Putting on a uniform does not and should not abrogate the fundamental principles of medical professionalism," said David Rothman, of the Institute for Medicine as a Profession, a sponsor of the report. "'Do no harm' and 'put patient interest first' must apply to all physicians regardless of where they practice."

Adding to the criticism, more than 35 prominent doctors and public health professionals - including a former US surgeon general, six Nobel laureates, and 18 deans of public health and medical schools - have asked President Obama to end force-feeding at Guantánamo Bay. "Force-feeding undermines appropriate medical care and ethical responsibilities because physicians act as agents of command - a fundamental violation of professionalism," they say in an open letter.

Source: BioEdge

Quote of the Week - Chesterton on anarchy

"Complete anarchy would not merely make it impossible to have any discipline or fidelity; it would make it impossible to have any fun."--G.K. Chesterton ("The Eternal Revolution," Orthodoxy, Chapter 7)

"It is the fashion to talk of institutions as cold and cramping things. The truth is that when people are in exceptionally high spirits, really wild with freedom and invention, they always must, and they always do, create institutions. When men are weary they fall into anarchy..." (Manalive, Chapter 3)

Nigerian Bishop speaks on Boko Haram

Fascinating and informative interview.

http://www.anglican.tv/content/gafcon-ii-interview-ben-kwashi