Health and Medicine

Obamacare Recusal Wars: Right and Left Are Equally Deluded

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Note to Drudge: Cheering your boss's victories is not unethical. It's not unusual. It is not even meaningful. It's called "smart."

I hadn’t written about the dual efforts to knock Justice Kagan and Justice Thomas off the Supreme Court panel considering the constitutionality of Obamacare’s individual mandate, because it is so obviously politics masquerading as ethics. I also though they would stop soon, since there is no chance either Justice will recuse at this point, and neither should.

The controversy is still occupying newspapers, blogs and talking heads, however, so I suppose it is worth discussing, especially to make this point: what concerns those seeking recusal is that they know, or think they know, how each Justice will vote on the issue, and they want to rig the process by finding a technicality that will prevent one or the other from participating. Does anyone really think that Kagan’s previous work as Solicitor General under Obama will bias her already liberal leanings? No. Does anyone really believe that Clarence Thomas would vote for an interpretation of the Constitution that opens that door for Congress to demand that we buy whatever it tells us to, were he not trying to please his conservative wife? Tell me another. Both recusal arguments are intellectually dishonest attempts to interfere with full judicial consideration of a politically explosive matter. Continue reading →

Five Ethics Lessons from Jerome Cardano (“Who?”), and One More

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Remember his name?

A chance reference in a book I was perusing yesterday reminded me of a fascinating historical figure whom I hadn’t thought about in decades—which still gives me an edge over most people, who have never thought about him at all. He is Jerome Cardano, or, in the Italian version of his name, Gerolamo Cardano, an archetypical Renaissance man from Italy who walked the earth between 1501 and 1576. When I first learned about him those many years ago, his remarkable life didn’t give me any ethical insights because I wasn’t thinking about ethics then. Now, reviewing the facts of his remarkable life, I find that it carries at least five lessons with value for anyone who strives to live in a more ethical culture, and to have his or her own life contribute to making the world a better place.

Lesson 1 : Diligence—Play the hand you are dealt the best you can.

Cardano’s mother attempted to abort him by taking various poisons, but succeeded only in making him unhealthy. He stuttered; he was incapable of sexual relations, and had chronic insomnia, supposedly resulting in an “annual period” where he got little or no sleep for two to three months. He was afflicted at various times with the plague, cancer, dysentery, and many lesser ailments, yet he led a life full of extraordinary accomplishments and adventures, and continued to be active and breathing for 75 years, when most of his class and era died before they reached 45. Continue reading →

Post-Thanksgiving Ethics Quiz: Is This Ethical? (Giant Lips Edition)

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Jessica also apparently has only one eye…

Look at the bright side: at least she didn’t have octuplets.

Kristina Rei, 22, of St. Petersburg, Russia, wants to look like Jessica Rabbit, so naturally she opted to get herself a pair of huge—lips.She has undergone over 100 silicon-injection procedures, and considers it just the initial step in her quest to look like Roger Rabbit’s

Kristin’s hickies are deadly.

Toon wife from “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?”. “When I can afford it I want to enlarge my breasts from a C-cup to a DD, change the shape of my nose and I want to make my ears pointed like an elf,” she told reporters. “It’s good to be different.”

Well, she’s different, all right.

Your Post-Thanksgiving Ethics Quiz: Was it ethical for a plastic surgeon to give her the lips she wanted?

Plastic surgeons are subject to the Hippocratic Oath like other doctors, but in  cases of elective surgery the standards of what constitutes doing substantive harm to a patient are extremely elastic. None of the Codes of Ethics for plastic surgeons would clearly prohibit giving a patient lips that look like they belong on a Macy’s helium balloon, or similar exaggerated features. These lips make Kristina happy. Is she mentally ill? A doctor who suspected so would be wrong to submit to her wishes if they were based on clinically defective judgment, but the fact that a doctor thinks a patient will look like a freak if he does what she wants isn’t ethically dispositive. Continue reading →

The Selfish, the Irresponsible and the Cowardly, Pushing the US to Fiscal Disaster

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

Greek food, America! Better get used to it, becuase we'll have to swallow what the Greeks are swallowing we can't find some leaders with courage.

Failure is now all but ensured by the so-called Super Committee, a gimmick designed by our leadership-averse President and his pathetically inept legislative counterparts in Congress (both parties, now) to provide themselves with bi-partisan political cover when they again ducked their obligation to solve the nation’s fiscal mess. For those of you who, like me, have wondered how Greece and Italy could reach their current miserable status when the fiscal disaster now facing them was obvious years ago, the answer is plain. They tolerated a fatal combination of selfish interest groups, pampered and lazy voters, and elected leaders who distorted, dithered and ducked their duties, until it was too late. And that is exactly what happening here.

There is no need to waste invective on the committee itself, which is beneath contempt. What they have come to was predictable, and I, along with many others, predicted it. But the predictions still did not have to come true, if, for example, these hostages to toxic ideologies really cared about the country as much as keeping the power to ruin it, or if President Obama hadn’t calculated that his best chances of re-election would be to let the committee founder with him being able to claim no role in its betrayal. rather than to do his job—leading–and try to make sure it succeeded at the risk of failing himself…again.

Betrayal is the word that I use, and that is what it is. Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: Apologies For A Sandusky Joke?

/ Jack Marshall / 38 Comments

My uneasy relationship with the TSA continues.

Yes, I've sunk so low that I actually seek this out...

Today I was returning home from Atlanta, and its monster of an airport has one the cattle pen systems for going through security–a long, ling, line to all gates that keeps dividing and dividing, ultimately sending you down one of about 20 chutes to be scanned, stripped and yelled at. It is difficult to pick your chute, but in my case, it is crucial: Atlanta doesn’t have the full-body scanning devices in every line, and without it, I get gated, beeped, and sexually molested, thanks to my artificial hip.

It took ducking under a couple of barriers, but I finally got to an x-ray conveyor belt near a scanner, and had removed my laptop (separate bin) belt, jacket and shoes (not allowed in a bin in some cities, allowed in others) and lined them all up with my bag and brief case when an agent (none too politely) told me that they were closing that line, and directed me to another one, two lanes over. I lugged the three bins, bag and brief case over to that line, only to discover that it didn’t have a scanner.

That did it. I erupted at one of the agents, telling her that I did not care to be felt up at 8 in the morning, thanks, and had made a good faith effort to direct myself to a scanner, being foiled by the agent and by the fact that there are no signs warning people like me where a testicle massage is the only option.

“Why aren’t there signs?” I asked.

“I don’t know. There should be,” she said, as she helped me move my stuff to a scanner accessible line. “You should write the TSA and the airport.”

I laughed bitterly. “I’m sure that will do a lot of good. Do you all jsut like feeling up passengers? Is that the reason?”

A woman behind me laughed and said, “It sure seems like it!”

“Well, you know,” I said to her, “I hear Jerry Sandusky is trying to get a job as a screener!”

Her guffaw was interrupted by 7’8″ TSA agent, who said, loudly, “No he’s not, and I’m offended by that statement.”

My response, after a second’s consideration, was this: “I’m sorry I offended you. But I’m not apologizing.”

Your ethics quiz of the day: Should I have apologized? Continue reading →

Not That It Will Do Any Good To Say So, But U.S. Acceptance of Prison Rape Is An Ethics Outrage

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

LOL?

I keep an informal score each television season of how often one of the heroes in a cop or other law enforcement drama will pointedly tell a finally-cornered criminal that he can now look forward to being raped in prison. Of course, this is only representative of the shows I actually see. Even counting only them, however, I have heard such a speech four times in 2011. (The all-time champs in this celebration of prison rape are Dick Wolf’s Law and Order dramas.)

Think about what this means. The scriptwriters are presuming that such a forecast of impending sexual abuse will be enjoyed by the audience, a case of just desserts for the wicked. The casual acceptance of prison rape in America’s penitentiaries is a continuing scandal, and an indictment of our society’s compassion and commitment to the Constitution. Continue reading →

“Excuse Me, Sir? You’re About To Die” Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

I had a strange experience as I was leaving a plane a couple of weeks ago.

A distinguished-looking man, older than I, tapped me on the shoulder, and said, “I apologize for the intrusion, but I have been sitting behind you, and I noticed that your earlobes have clear creases in them. This is a sure sign that you either have heart disease or will have it, and are at risk of a heart attack. I just thought you should know.”

Now, as it happens, I know about the supposed link between heart attacks and earlobe creases, and even asked my cardiac specialist about it. He said that 1) some studies had found a statistical link; 2) no study had proposed any good reasons for the link, if there was one; 3) it wasn’t worth worrying about; and 4. one can only address the cardiac risk factors that can be changed, and one can’t change the creases in one’s earlobes. Continue reading →

McDonalds, Germs, and the Zealot

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Erin Carr-Jordan went to a McDonald’s with her children this summer, and was horrified by the condition of the restaurant’s play area. The professor of child development then set out to shame the McDonald’s into cleaning up, posting a video she made showing her findings and the lab results of samples she took, showing a space teeming with pathogens and bacteria.

McDonald’s corporate finally got into the act, agreeing with the mother and explaining to the Los Angeles Times that the conditions were “unacceptable, completely unacceptable … but not reflective of our business and our restaurants” and that the company had “immediate corrective action to thoroughly sanitize the PlayPlace.” That might have qualified as a victory for most moms, but not Prof. Carr-Jordan. She began a full-fledged crusade, investigating McDonald’s and other fast food restaurants in 11 different states in recent months to test them for cleanliness. These were her family vacations: “Kids, forget about Walt Disney World. We’re going to spend the next three weeks going to  filthy fast food joints!”  What fun. She swabbed  at each location and sent the samples off to a microbiology professor who analyzed the samples and usually stated his results as “OH—MY—GOD!!!!” Continue reading →

Getting Scrod* in Boston: The Ravages of Seafood Fraud

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

“Why, certainly that’s a red snapper, sir! Just came off the boat today!!”

If there is an opportunity for profitable dishonesty that nobody is paying attention to, the overwhelming likelihood is that it will flourish to the point of becoming standard practice.

Isn’t that discouraging? I hate to write that sentence, as I hate to think or accept the conclusion behind it. Yet when I come upon a topic like seafood fraud (or fish fraud), it is hard to deny.

The Boston Globe just published the results of a wide-ranging, five-month investigation into the mislabeling of fish in the Greater Boston area and other parts of Massachusetts. The shocking results showed that Bay State consumers:

“…routinely and unwittingly overpay for less desirable, sometimes undesirable, species – or buy seafood that is simply not what it is advertised to be. In many cases, the fish was caught thousands of miles away and frozen, not hauled in by local fishermen, as the menu claimed. It may be perfectly palatable – just not what the customer ordered. But sometimes mislabeled seafood can cause allergic reactions, violate dietary restrictions, or contain chemicals banned in the United States.

“The Globe collected fish from 134 restaurants, grocery stores, and seafood markets from Leominster to Provincetown, and hired a laboratory in Canada to conduct DNA testing on the samples. Analyses by the DNA lab and other scientists showed that 87 of 183 were sold with the wrong species name – 48 percent.” Continue reading →

Herman Cain’s Unethical Abortion Doubletalk

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

Republican presidential contender Herman Cain’s explanation of his position on abortion while chatting with CNN’s Piers Morgan is causing his growing legion of fans and supporters discomfort, and with good reason. It was ethically incoherent at best, unethical at worst. In either case, his comments show that he hasn’t devoted sufficient serious analysis to the issue to allow him to have a responsible and consistent approach. That is status quo for most Americans. It is not acceptable for a President of the United States.

Here is the relevant section of the interview (emphasis mine):

PIERS MORGAN: Abortion. What’s your view of abortion?

CAIN: I believe that life begins at conception. And abortion under no circumstances. And here’s why —

MORGAN: No circumstances?

CAIN: No circumstances. Continue reading →