Health and Medicine

NOW Do You Get It, Bachmann Fans?

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

Bachmann finally jumped it, as we knew she would!

When I called Rep. Michele Bachmann unethical for her repeated uses of erroneous information in her speeches—announcing that the Battle of Concord occurred in New Hampshire, declaring the Founders spent their lives fighting slavery (and later justifying this whopper by saying that Founding Father’s Son John Quincy Adams qualified as a Founding Father himself), the Bachmanites were furious. “Anyone can make a mistake!” they argued.

Not these kinds of mistakes. As I wrote in July: Continue reading →

The Worst Humanitarian Award Winner of the Year

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Michael Brown---wife-beater, humanitarian.

Michael Brown founded Houston’s Brown Hand Center, which specializes in the treatment of carpal tunnel syndrome. He is now on trial for assault, after being arrested last year for attacking his his wife, twisting her arm behind her back and, among other things, hurling his 2010 Joanne King Herring Humanitarian Award at her.

I have often thought that those who give out humanitarian awards for specific instances of good conduct have an ethical obligation to make sure that recipients conform to the definition of “humanitarian” in their overall conduct. One of the definitions of humanitarian is “ethical.” Official pronouncements that an individual is ethical can be very effective false advertising for the character of someone who is anything but. Mr. Brown illustrates my concerns.

By 2010, when Brown received his award, he had already pleaded no-contest in 2002 to aggravated assault for beating then-pregnant wife, Darlina Brown, with a bed post. Call me a stickler, but I think there should be an automatic “Beating a pregnant woman with bedpost” disqualification provision for humanitarian awards. Then, in 2006, Dr. Brown’s medical license was revoked after he tested positive for cocaine use. So to summarize, at the time he was deemed worthy of the honor of being the 2010 humanitarian of the year, Brown was already an admitted wife-beater and an ex-doctor found unfit for the continued practice of medicine.

What a guy!

How about a rule that if you try to kill someone with your humanitarian award, it is automatically revoked?

Too strict?

 

Unethical Quote of the Month: Canadian Judge Joanne Veit

/ Jack Marshall / 44 Comments

“…While many Canadians undoubtedly view abortion as a less than ideal solution to unprotected sex and unwanted pregnancy, they generally understand, accept and sympathize with the onerous demands pregnancy and childbirth exact from mothers, especially mothers without support…Naturally, Canadians are grieved by an infant’s death, especially at the hands of the infant’s mother, but Canadians also grieve for the mother.”

—- Canadian Judge Joanne Viet, announcing that Katrina Effert, who strangled her newborn child and threw the body over a fence into the neighbor’s yard when she was 19, will serve a three-year suspended sentence with no jail time for the murder, reflecting a “fair compromise of all the interests involved.”

This is a cautionary ethics tale indeed for those who deny that a callous attitude toward human lives in the womb, giving them no standing against a mother’s desires and convenience, will gradually, inevitably, coarsen and warp a culture’s respect for life and its comprehension of wrong. [Addition: Many commenters have pointed out that Canada had designated infanticide as a relatively minor crime before fully legalizing abortion. That is a strange progression, though once infanticide had been declared “understandable,” abortions days were numbered. In the US, the gradual de-valuing of young life is moving in the more obvious way, from younger to older. The process, however, is the same.] Continue reading →

Unethical Quote of the Week: Nutrition Advocate Marion Nestle

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

"First the came for the Frankenberry, and I said nothing..."

“The intent of the First Amendment was to protect political and religious speech. I cannot believe that the intent of the First Amendment was to protect the right of food companies to market junk foods to kids.”

—- Nutrition advocate, NYU professor and blogger Marion Nestle, arguing that the government should censor advertising “aimed directly at children,” in the interests of public health.

I should not need to lay out the slippery slope perils of accepting a definition of the First Amendment’s free speech guaranty that limits its protection only to “political and religious speech.” For a professor at a prestigious university to advocate this because it would make her own pet crusade easier should send chills up the spines of every citizen. Let’s see…what kind of speech isn’t political or religious? Commercial speech…artistic speech…workplace speech…academic speech… To zealots like Prof. Nestle, all of this, as well as the liberty it bolsters, should be put at risk in the pursuit of skinnier children, by designating the government to assume the parental function of teaching good eating habits. Continue reading →

Hole-in-the-Roof Ethics: If Obama Asks For Massive Infrastructure Renewal, the GOP Must Support It.

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

Seldom is a solution to a problem so obvious, and so conducive to bi-partisanship. It is a solution to two problems, really: America’s dangerously rotting infrastructure, and the nation’s dismal unemployment rate. Spend the money, trillions if necessary, to repair and replace existing roads, railway beds, waterways, sewer systems, airports and bridges.  It still won’t get us where we need to be, but we’ll be much better off than if we let the current deterioration continue, and we’ll save money in the long run, too—real savings, not phony health care reform savings that evaporate once reality kicks in.

There is no justification not to do this, nor is there any legitimate excuse for any elected official not to vote for it. (And no, not wanting to give the President a victory is not legitimate…or ethical, or patriotic.) Repairing the infrastructure isn’t “discretionary spending,” it is essential, unavoidable and cost-effective spending, unless it is diverted into new boondoggles and pork. No new structures, unless they replace unrepairable old ones. No light rail systems or bullet trains; what is needed is basic maintenance and repair….everywhere. It is already late, but “better late than never” has seldom been as appropriate. Continue reading →

How Can Anyone Justify Attacking Chaz Bono on “Dancing With the Stars”?

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Apparently ABC’s message boards, e-mail inbox and phone messages have been over-flowing with “Dancing With the Stars” fans and others protesting the addition of Cher’s transgendered son to the slate of competitors. Why are they so upset, you ask?

That’s what I’d like to know. I have watched Chaz Bono in several interviews, and he impressed me as a smart, down-to-earth, articulate and thoroughly likable young man in every way. He is straightforward in answering the most delicate questions, and appears to have no other objective than to be happy and, if possible, to provide comfort, inspiration and hope for others who have gender confusion issues.

Now Chaz has been added to the cast of the upcoming installment of America’s favorite competition/reality show, which has always included an odd stew of American cultural figures, from tabloid targets to star athletes to nostalgia cases to reality show comets to novelty choices from the worlds of politics and media. He fits right in (tabloid target/nostalgia division) , and in many ways is an upgrade from the usual B and C-List denizens who usually do the dancing. What in the world is so objectionable about Chaz Bono? Continue reading →

Ethics Train Wreck Warning: Affirmative Action for the Hideous

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

You won't need that portrait any more, Dorian...the Americans with Disabilities Act has you covered!

It is rare that an ethics train wreck of culture-wide proportions can be prevented with a firm, “Shut up, and go away!” This appears to be one of those times, however, and if anyone is reluctant, I hereby volunteer for the job.

Daniel S. Hamermesh, a professor of economics at the University of Texas, is shilling for his book, “Beauty Pays,” in which he proves the unremarkable fact that being attractive is an advantage in society , and being unattractive is an impediment. He recently hit the op-ed pages of the New York Times, writing, among other things, this:

“Why this disparate treatment of looks in so many areas of life? It’s a matter of simple prejudice. Most of us, regardless of our professed attitudes, prefer as customers to buy from better-looking salespeople, as jurors to listen to better-looking attorneys, as voters to be led by better-looking politicians, as students to learn from better-looking professors. This is not a matter of evil employers’ refusing to hire the ugly: in our roles as workers, customers and potential lovers we are all responsible for these effects.”

“How could we remedy this injustice?”

Whoa! There it is, the magic words that open the door for ham-handed social architects to do what they always to do, try to remedy the results of natural human proclivities and preferences with laws. Continue reading →

Trust Isn’t a Game

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

DON'T DO IT!!!!

Shawn Bomgardner, an MBA student at Seattle University, has sued the school and the training firm Teams and Leaders Inc. for making him participate in a required leadership class that included various “trust exercises.” In one of them, he was told to submit to a “trust-fall” from bleachers into the arms of his classmates.

They didn’t catch him. He hit his head on the ground, hard, and now has permanent brain damage.

The injuries forced Shawn to drop out of school and quit his job as an auditor for Costco.  Bomgardner’s wife has had to take time off work to “undertake additional responsibilities as a result of Shawn’s continued deficits, persistent depressive symptoms and diminished cognitive functioning,” the law suit says, adding that  “Shawn’s injuries have caused loss of enjoyment of life and have impacted his relationship with Becky and his daughter. While Shawn’s symptoms have improved over time, he continues to experience the effects of his injuries,” according to the complaint.”

Maybe this tragedy will have one good result: stopping idiotic seminar and retreat trust exercises, especially the “trust-fall.”

Trust isn’t a game. Trust is earned. That’s all there is to it. Putting one’s health and welfare into the hands, literally, of someone you barely know and who is not trained or certified to do what an exercise requires is madness, and any organization that suggests, forces or requires such symbolic but meaningless nonsense should be run right out of business.

It is true: trust is an absolute necessity for any functioning and healthy society, organization or team. Trust, however, cannot exist in a vacuum. It must be supported by experience, competence, dedication, mutual caring, loyalty and good will.

As someone who has refused to partake in trust exercises more than once, I feel terrible about what happened to Shawn Bomgardner. He was the victim of charlatans who taught that something as vital and complex as trust could be taught with stunts and parlor tricks.

Unethical Plaintiffs in the Case Of the Shortened Penis

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Ronnie had it easy in "King's Row"---he just woke up missing his legs.

A Kentucky truck-driver, 64-year-old Phillip Seaton, went into surgery to remove his inflamed foreskin in what began as a simple circumcision.  Dr. John Patterson, the surgeon, began the procedure and saw that Seaton’s penis was riddled with cancer. He amputated more than just the foreskin, and Seaton awoke one full inch shorter than when he arrived. And Extenz wasn’t going to help.

He and his short-changed wife sued Patterson for malpractice, arguing that he had been mutilated and unmanned without his consent, and that Patterson should have performed only the circumcision, sewn him up, and consulted with the truck-driver and his wife regarding their options.

Clever law suit. We can’t blame the lawyer who took it on: a sawed-off penis is a good bet to get jury sympathy. All that is required for a lawsuit to be ethical from a lawyer’s perspective is for there to be a good-faith and reasonable belief that the suit could prevail under the law. This one could have. Generally it’s a good idea, and only polite, to ask before cutting off a piece of someone’s penis. I know it’s the rule in our house. Continue reading →

The Ethicist, the Farkel Family, and the Perils of “Maybe”

/ Jack Marshall / 45 Comments

This photo is completely relevant to this post, but if you are under 50, you probably haven't a clue why. Pity. See below for an explanation.*

One of the reasons I started the Ethics Scoreboard, and continued with Ethics Alarms, was my frustration with the ethics profession’s reluctance to render useful opinions on complex ethical problems…unless, of course, the ethicist was being paid for them. Instead, ethicists are prone to issue obtuse and jargon-filled discussions allowing for every possible eventuality and interpretation, usually concluding with vague, equivocal pablum that allows the ethicist to avoid criticism and accountability. The result of this craven preference for “maybe” as the answer to every dilemma is that ethics are rarely included in public discourse or media coverage, as it solidifies its reputation for being technical, ambiguous, and pointless.

A perfect example of the reticence to make a clear choice occurs in this week’s installment of “The Ethicist,” the New York Times Magazine’s ethics column. An understandably anonymous inquirer writes that he unknowingly fathered a child with a married woman in his neighborhood, who raised the child as the offspring of her and her husband.  The mother asked the biological dad to have no contact with the girl, and he has complied. Now he asks, “Does she have a right to know her true parentage upon reaching adulthood? Sooner? Over the objection of the mother? Only when the husband dies? Who can make these decisions and when?” Continue reading →