The worldwide shortage in the supply of donor organs and tissues is becoming more pronounced. Xenotransplantation may probably give the hope to overcome the problem ultimately. However, it gives rise to a number of social and ethical issues, among them, the pig appears to be a likely source for human transplantation because it entails least social and ethical issues than no-human primates or other animals and the pig is similar to human in many aspects. The ethical and economic aspects must also be taken into consideration. Patient and his family’s privacy may be stripped because the patient has received a new or unusual treatment. Xenograftings will squint towards a kind of commodities which are different from human graftings and it is a challenge to human transplantation. Xenotransplantation brings a risk of creating new human disease and pandemic, so, it is necessary to formulate a policy and provide input to draft guidelines on the regulation of xenotransplantation.
In recent two decades, the incidence and severity of medical disputes have been dramatically increasing in China which has a negative influence for patients, doctors and hospitals. It must be seriously regarded that 80% of the medical disputes are caused by the bad attitude of health care professionals, ethical problems, and poor communication skill with patients. Chinese health care professionals should be aware of how to establish a good doctor-patient relationship. The development of evidence-based medicine (EBM) will help us bridge a gap between medical science and clinical practice, revise our opinions, update our knowledge and improve our service. Cooperation with the Chinese Evidence-Based Medicine Center (CEBMC), and the Chinese Medical Doctor Association (CMDA) will help doctors practice legally and in an evidence-based manner so as to protect both rights of patients and doctors.
In the clinical trials, the rights and interests of participants must be considered. Ethical principles including the Declaration of Helsinki for clinical research have been established, and the institutional review board (IRB) and informed consent are important for protecting the rights and interests of participants. Whether a clinical trial is in accordence with the ethics depends on if the available clinical evidence is valuable and credible. The better candomize controlled trial (RCT) is one of the best evidence which will make different results equal between the treatment group and the controlled group. Thus benefits and risks of participants are allocated equitably and useless treatment is prohibited when the effective treatment affirmed at the same time. Economic health evaluation and outcome measurements are emphasized in EBM, and the clinical evidence is updated regularly. It is EBM and its emphasis of evidence that need the high-quality clinical trials, therefore the problems of ethics involved in clinical trials is important.
In order to promote the responsible development of precision medicine in China, the current situation of precision medicine in three major fields (clinical, research and commercial) was briefly introduced, and key ethical issues or disputes in each field (including informed consent, return of incidental findings, and allocation of medical resources in the clinical field; informed consent, return of research results, and data use and sharing in the research field; genetic counseling, clinical utility of genetic testing, and use of data in the field of direct-to-consumer genetic testing) were discussed. It is necessary to actively meet these ethical challenges for the development of precision medicine in China.
Objective To explore whether the placebo-controlled trials in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) were scientific and ethical. Method An electronic search concerned with placebo-controlled trials of TCM was performed at Chinese Journal Full-text Database, Chinese Scientific and Technological Periodical Database (VIP), Wanfang Database and Chinese Bio-medicine Database (CBM) from January 1979 to April 2008. In addition, we handsearched the trials in specialized journals of TCM. The trials were assessed regard with their scientificalness, ethic and traits of TCM of placebo-controlled trials. Results A total of 231 trials were included, occupying about 2.09% of all the randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of TCM; among which there were 79 (34.20%) with sequence generation, 10 (4.33%) with allocation concealment, 129 (55.84%) with blind methods; 106 (45.89%)with basic intervention, 13 (5.63%) with criteria of intervention quality control, 139 (60.17%) with preparation of placebo, 10 (10.33%) with aggravating scheme, 70 (30.30%) with syndrome type of TCM, 48 (20.78%) with the outcome measurement of TCM. There were 48 RCTs (20.78%) were not scientific. There were 221 RCTs without institutional review board and 187 RCTs without informed consent. Conclusion Placebo-controlled trials of TCM are not applied extensively, and some of them are not scientific. Most of than do not meet the ethical requirements.
In order to fully implement the ethical principles of biomedical researches and to better safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of the subjects, this paper begins from the research design and closely combines with the ethical practice of biomedical research review, seriously analyzes the key implementation points of the ethical free and compensation principles in biomedical research, including intervention study, random allocation, follow-up research and new medical techniques and so on, also will provide the beneficial reference for comprehensive formulation of enforcement regulation of ethics principle of biomedical research in the future.
Medicine bears the responsibility for human health. Technical competence, service standards, professional ethics and social accountability constitute the soul of this profession. The principles of nonmaleficence, beneficence, respect for autonomy and justice help to establish good doctor-patient relationship and regulate medical services, which has been fixed by international and domestic professional norms. Besides to ensure its truth, effectiveness and safety, medical research also should require certain rendering of subject's autonomy, minimizing risks and maintaining social justice. Some procedures have established for supporting it. Modern medical education furnishes suitable human resources for medical profession, which directly affects the accessibility and outcomes of health services. Its objectives, operations and assessments are increasingly taking shape. Faced with the current issues of healthcare equity, worsening doctor-patient relationship, scandals and ethical controversies in medical research, and the failing of medical education to fully match social needs, evidence-based medical methodology is extending to policy and social sciences for identifying and creating high-quality scientific evidence to improve the quality of decision-making.
ObjectiveThis study investigates the adherence to ethical principles in doctoral dissertations focused on human as the research subject, aiming to provide a foundation for enhancing ethical awareness among medical doctoral candidates. MethodsUtilizing the Chinese database of doctoral dissertations, a total of 1 733 relevant papers published in 2021 were collected. The study compared ethical considerations among double first-class universities, other high-ranking institutions, different university types, various disciplines, diverse training orientations, enrollment types, and medical doctoral dissertations from different regions. ResultsIn 2021, among Chinese medical doctoral dissertations involving human as the research subject, 73.34% mentioned ethical considerations, and 86.27% mentioned informed consent. Dissertations reporting ethical approval descriptions, approval numbers, ethical approvals, and informed consent constituted only 2.19%. Notably, 12.52% of medical doctoral dissertations failed to incorporate ethical considerations and informed consent details in their content. ConclusionThe ethical awareness of medical doctoral candidates in China and the reporting of ethical information in their dissertations require urgent enhancement and improvement.
Ethical issues in clinical research are receiving increasing attention. The application of research projects, the registration of clinical trials and the publication of scientific researches have always been involved with ethical issues. This paper elaborates ethical development and changes in Chinese clinical research from the aspects of the development of medical ethics, the establishment of ethics laws and regulations, international certification of medical ethics committee, the advantages, challenges, opportunities and innovation and development of TCM clinical research ethics as well as the certification system of TCM research ethics.
Artificial intelligence-enhanced brain-computer interfaces (BCI) are expected to significantly improve the performance of traditional BCIs in multiple aspects, including usability, user experience, and user satisfaction, particularly in terms of intelligence. However, such AI-integrated or AI-based BCI systems may introduce new ethical issues. This paper first evaluated the potential of AI technology, especially deep learning, in enhancing the performance of BCI systems, including improving decoding accuracy, information transfer rate, real-time performance, and adaptability. Building on this, it was considered that AI-enhanced BCI systems might introduce new or more severe ethical issues compared to traditional BCI systems. These include the possibility of making users’ intentions and behaviors more predictable and manipulable, as well as the increased likelihood of technological abuse. The discussion also addressed measures to mitigate the ethical risks associated with these issues. It is hoped that this paper will promote a deeper understanding and reflection on the ethical risks and corresponding regulations of AI-enhanced BCIs.