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The article proposes paired publication as a way to address the barrier between philosophical insight and bioethics. Four models for achieving paired publications of philosophical bioethics include adapting existing interdisciplinary bioethics journals, ethics appendices in medical, public health and scientific journals, policy summaries in philosophy journals and coordinated publications in medical and philosophy journals.

Although informed consent is important in clinical research, questions persist regarding when it is necessary, what it requires, and how it should be obtained. The standard view in research ethics is that the function of informed consent is to respect individual autonomy. However, consent processes are multidimensional and serve other ethical functions as well. These functions deserve particular attention when barriers to consent exist. We argue that consent serves seven ethically important and conceptually distinct functions. The first four functions pertain principally to individual participants: (1) providing transparency; (2) allowing control and authorization; (3) promoting concordance with participants' values; and (4) protecting and promoting welfare interests. Three other functions are systemic or policy focused: (5) promoting trust; (6) satisfying regulatory requirements; and (7) promoting integrity in research. Reframing consent around these functions can guide approaches to consent that are context sensitive and that maximize achievable goals. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the dependence on digital medical devices like electronic adherence monitors (EAM) in resource-limited settings in the article by Klugman and colleagues in 2018. Topics covered include its risks to health and potential loss of trust in digital medicine, the intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in medical device dependency, and its issues of optimal functionality versus access and compatibility. Also noted are concerns on technology malfunction and unavailability.

In many countries worldwide, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, a shortage of physicians limits the provision of lifesaving interventions. One existing strategy to increase the number of physicians in areas of critical shortage is conditioning medical school scholarships on a precommitment to work in medically underserved areas later. Current practice is usually to demand only one year of service for each year of funded studies. We show the effectiveness of scholarships conditional on such precommitment for increasing physician supplies in underserved areas. Then we defend these scholarships against ethical worries that they constitute slavery contracts; rely on involuntary, biased, or unauthorized early consent by a young signatory; put excessive strains on signed commitments; give rise to domination; and raise suspicion of slavery contracts. Importantly, we find that scholarships involving far longer commitment than current practice allows would also withstand these worries. Policymakers should consider introducing conditional scholarships, including long-term versions, as a means to increasing the supply of physicians to medically underserved areas. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Commentators on the ethics of translational research find it morally problematic. Types of translational research are said to involve questionable benefits, special risks, additional barriers to informed consent, and severe conflicts of interest. Translational research conducted on the global poor is thought to exploit them and increase international disparities. Some commentators support especially stringent ethical review. However, such concerns are grounded only in pre-approval translational research (now called T1). Whether or not T1 has these features, translational research beyond approval (T2: phase IV, health services, and implementation research) is unlikely to and, when conducted on the global poor, may support development. Therefore, insofar as T1 is morally problematic, and no independent objections to T2 exist, the ethics of translational research is diverse: while some translational research is problematic, some is not. Funding and oversight should reflect this diversity, and T2 should be encouraged, particularly when conducted among the global poor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author offers comments on the article "Shared vulnerabilities in research," by Eric Chwang which appeared in "American Journal of Bioetics." Topics include shared vulnerability in research as difficulty providing informed consent and as elevated liability to be wronged, the vulnerability of ethnic, racial and economic minorities in being more often wronged than other people in research, and the personalization of reviewers' risk-benefit ration determinations.

The article discusses the article "Problems with Prioritization: Exploring Ethical Solutions to Inequalities in HIV Care" by Kjell Arne Johansson and Ole Norheim. In the article the authors offer their opinions on several points which are raised in Norheim and Johansson's article and on the moral and ethical issues that are faced in the allocation of resources for treating patients with HIV and AIDS.

A letter to the editor is presented in response to the article "The Diverse Ethics of Translational Research," by N. Sofaer and N. Eyal.