Medical students are encouraged to participate & all are welcome to join!
Last time, when asked whether the FDA should prevent blood products from being donated on the basis of sexual orientation, 100% of respondents said no. On the basis of whether the FDA should be screening donors based on sexual risk, 80% of respondents said yes and 20% said no. As it is today, the FDA does screen blood donors based on sexual orientation without emphasis on sexual risk. An interesting question that came up was whether it was ethical to lie about sexual orientation in order to donate blood to save lives.
MedPride recently started a movement to end the blood ban based on sexual orientation; please email Britt Gratreak (grat@email.arizona.edu) if you would like to join the Slack group to stay up-to-date and help write a public letter to the FDA.
Medical Ethics Reality Forum (MERF) is continuing our weekly Friday night series, PubMed Ethics which occurs every Friday at 6:00PM through the end of May. The next discussion that we will have will be based around Experimental Treatments. In the context of COVID-19, we will be discussing the ethics of prescribing hydroxychloroquine. We hope to cover topics within this such as the ethical obligations of experts to the public, the potential for harm in discussions of experimental treatments, etc. This discussion has been postponed to the next Friday, May 1st in light of the upcoming exam for the class of 2023. Please make sure to fill out our weekly pre-discussion poll before the event!
PubMed Ethics: COVID-19 On-Screen!
Where: In the comfort of your own home via Zoom
When: Friday 4/17 at 6:00PM
What: A chance to virtually grab a drink together and discuss this crazy world we live in.
This week’s topic:
5/1 Ethics of experimental treatments
Food for Thought:
- Lupus Patients & the shortage of hydroxychloroquine
- Remdesivir shows promise for treating COVID-19
- Early discussion around cloth masks
Next week’s topic:
5/8 Racial and Ethnic Disparities in the COVID-19
If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for topics for us to cover, don’t hesitate to reach out! Let Medical Ethics Reality Forum Leadership know if you are interested in facilitating discussion for a topic.
Zoom - please email Rebecca Allen for the link & password