Journal of medical ethics
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Journal of medical ethics · Dec 1998
ReviewTransfusion-free treatment of Jehovah's Witnesses: respecting the autonomous patient's motives.
What makes Jehovah's Witnesses tick? What motivates practitioners of medicine? How is benevolent human behaviour to be interpreted? The explanation that fear of censure, mind-control techniques or enlightened self-interest are the real motivators of human conduct is questioned. Those who believe that man was created in "God's image", hold that humanity has the potential to rise above selfishly driven attitudes and actions, and reflect the qualities of love, kindness and justice that separate us from the beasts. A comparison of general medical ethics and disciplines, and those of the Jehovah's Witness community, is made in this context. ⋯ Of course, "...few dilemmas are likely to be resolved wisely or satisfactorily by a blinkered adherence to abstract principles alone. Solutions to most cases will be dictated by a combination of factors. The support of medical ethics by Jehovah's Witnesses, and their willingness to share in reasoned and ethical debate, while at the same time holding firm to their religious and conscientious principles are emphasised.
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Journal of medical ethics · Dec 1998
ReviewCan unequal be more fair? Ethics, subject allocation, and randomised clinical trials.
Randomised clinical trials provide the most valid means of establishing the efficacy of clinical therapeutics. Ethical standards dictate that patients and clinicians should not consent to randomisation unless there is uncertainty about whether any of the treatment options is superior to the others ("equipoise"). ⋯ Minimising the tension between science and ethics is an obligation of investigators and clinicians. This article briefly reviews several techniques for addressing this issue and suggests that unbalanced randomisation, a technique rarely employed in current clinical trial practice, may be useful for enhancing the ethical design of human experimentation.