Description:

The Master of Arts in Medical Humanities & Bioethics

presents

A Montgomery Lecture

Moral Panics and Bioethics

In two separate—but thematically linked—lectures the relationship of moral panics and bioethics is examined. Special attention will be paid to the way the discipline both participates in and, in some ways, depends upon moral panics.

• Witches, Punks, and Bioethicists
Tod Chambers, PhD
Associate Professor, Medical Education
Faculty, Medical Humanities & Bioethics Graduate Program
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

• Moral Entrepreneurs and the Epithet of Infanticide
Katie Watson, JD
Associate Professor of Medical Social Sciences, Medical Education, and Ob/Gyn
Faculty, Medical Humanities & Bioethics Graduate Program

Description:

The Master of Arts in Medical Humanities & Bioethics

presents

A Montgomery Lecture

Setting Off an Outcry:
Maternal-Fetal Transmission of HIV Research in the 1990s

Sarah Rodriguez, PhD
Senior Lecturer, Global Health Studies, Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences
Lecturer, Medical Education, Feinberg School of Medicine
Faculty, Medical Humanities & Bioethics Graduate Program
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

On September 18, 1997, a New York Times cover story stated that for the past two years, the United States government had been funding and conducting “controversial” studies “on pregnant women infected with H.I.V.” with some women “given drugs that can prevent transmission of the deadly virus” while others received “only dummy pills.” The article was prompted by an editorial that threw “a harsh spotlight on the research” appearing that same day in the New England Journal of Medicine. In her editorial, Marcia Angell condemned as unethical 16 studies occurring in countries in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean where rates of transmission of HIV from an HIV-positive pregnant woman to her fetus – so-called vertical transmission – were higher than in North America and Europe. The studies were designed to see if AZT reduced vertical transmission; fifteen of the studies compared a reduced course of AZT against a placebo rather than comparing a reduced course of AZT against the full course of AZT, the latter of which had been found to be highly efficacious in studies conducted in the United States and France. Angell’s editorial instigated a debate regarding both this particular study and regarding the ethics of conducting all international research, in particular regarding the use of placebos when an existing therapy exists and when the standard of care differed between the country sponsoring the research and the country hosting the research. In this talk, I consider the debate launched by Angell’s editorial, particularly why it focused on (and continues to be used as example of) the ethics of clinical research, before considering additional possibilities regarding how to see the maternal-fetal HIV prevention trials of the 1990s.

Description:

The Master of Arts in Medical Humanities & Bioethics

presents

A Montgomery Lecture

Return to the Dark Zone: Panic, Complacency, and Ebola

Catherine Belling, PhD
Associate Professor, Medical Education
Faculty, Medical Humanities & Bioethics Graduate Program
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

This presentation will compare US public and media responses to the current Ebola epidemic in the Democratic Republic of the Congo with that of the West African outbreak of 2014, focusing on the representational moves made in the recent National Geographic TV adaptation of Richard Preston's The Hot Zone (1994), as well as Preston's follow-up book, Crisis in the Red Zone (2019).

Description:

How Do I Decide?:  Surrogate Decision-Making in Practice - Debjani Mukherjee

The Master of Arts in Medical Humanities & Bioethics

presents

A Montgomery Lecture

Debjani Mukherjee, PhD
Director, Donnelley Ethics Program, Shirley Ryan AbilityLab
Associate Professor, Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation and Medical Education
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
Faculty, Medical Humanities and Bioethics Program

When clinicians ask someone to make a medical decision on behalf of another, it can be fraught with uncertainties. The uncertainties are on many levels—medical outcomes, the patient’s wishes, the relationships between the surrogate and patient. Moreover, our ability to make a “substituted judgment” or to make a decision for another as you believe they would if they could, has serious limitations. In this talk, Dr. Mukherjee, a clinical psychologist and clinical ethicist who has been involved in over 550 ethics consultations, will draw on her clinical experience and work from psychology and disability ethics to explore the contextual features of surrogate decision-making.

Description:

The Medical Humanities & Bioethics Program and IPHAM

presents a co-sponsored lecture

Can We Control Drug Prices?

John Lantos, MD
Director of Pediatric Bioethics; Professor of Pediatrics
University of Missouri, Kansas City School of Medicine
Research Professor of Pediatrics,
Kansas University Medical Center Children’s Mercy Hospital

The learning objectives of this lecture are:

1.  Discuss the long history of political efforts to control drug prices
2.  Analyze the difficulty of determining what is a "fair" price
3.  Compare policies to control drug prices in the US with those in the rest of the world.