J. Wesley Boyd, MD, PhD

Excellent article on Physician Health Programs here by Frieda Klotz. One problem of PHPs is that they operate with little oversight and almost no ways of meaningfully appealing they’re recommendations. Additionally, they have bidirectional conflicts of interest with the evaluation/treatment centers they utilize. They say these centers specialize in treating physicians which is why they send doctors to all corners of the country, but in reality any good academic department or addition psychiatrist could do what these centers do, only better. And finally, when PHPs say they don’t control licensure but instead that state licensing boards do, that is disingenuous beyond belief, because boards of medicine generally defer every single question of ability to practice to PHPs. Thus, PHPs control licensure decisions for MDs/DOs who have questions of impairment.

https://www.kevinmd.com/2024/06/ai-ethics-in-medical-education-podcast.html

I just published a review of Carl Elliott’s latest book here in the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics. Here are my concluding chapters from the review:

Elliott notes that many whistleblowers start out as idealists. Indeed, that idealism is at the core of what drove them to blow the whistle in the first place. But in the end, whistleblowers can end up with their idealism in tatters: “(Whistleblowers) talk about disillusionment, loneliness, and anger, about their struggles with guilt and shame, about a sense of betrayal and crushed idealism.”

Given this reality, by the end of The Occasional Human Sacrifice, we see that its title refers not just to the research subjects who have died at the hands of researchers, but also to the whistleblowers themselves, who are compelled to proceed even while hurling themselves towards their own demise.

At its heart, The Occasional Human Sacrifice is a testament to the enduring power of the human spirit, a reminder that even in the darkest of times, there are some who refuse to be silenced, and it serves as a clarion call for ethical accountability in an age where the pursuit of scientific advancement, personal aggrandisement, and greed often eclipses the upholding of basic moral principles.

In conclusion, The Occasional Human Sacrifice is a must read for everyone who cares about principles and doing right, but especially for bioethicists, IRB committee members, and others interested in human experimentation gone awry, and the price some pay to shed light on the malfeasance and injustices therein.

Requiring FDA approval for laboratory developed tests would be an overreaction to the Theranos debacle and would ultimately harm patients

See my opinion piece about proposed new oversight and regulation of lab developed tests by the FDA here: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/an-fda-overreaction-to-theranoss-implosion-would-harm-patients

Federal whistleblower Ellen Gallagher has been decrying the use of solitary confinement on individuals in immigration detention for a decade, but little has changed to date despite her beyond courageous efforts. Today, a report, found here, co-authored by Katherine Peeler at Harvard Medical School, along with others at Harvard Medical School, Harvard Law School, and Physicians for Human Rights, amplifies the message that Ellen Gallagher has brought to attention, namely that US immigration authorities routinely lock thousands of people in solitary confinement and flout international human rights standards in its sprawling network of immigration detention facilities.

Many news outlets, such as this one, have reported the release of Dr. Peeler’s report.

I am beyond ecstatic that the use of solitary confinement in immigration detention is now in the open air and I completely support calls for reform.

Kudos to my friends, colleagues, and sometime co-authors (lucky me!), Katie Peeler and Ellen Gallgaher, for their tireless efforts to expose and report this travesty of justice and all norms of human rights.

From the article, which you can find here:

“Professor J Wesley Boyd works as part of the faculty at the Center for Bioethics and is an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He spoke to The Mirror about Smith’s upcoming execution, and what the convict could experience as he is suffocated using nitrogen gas.

“87 per cent of the air that we breathe is nitrogen and 21 per cent is oxygen, so nitrogen is by no means a foreign substance for us,” he explained. “When one is executed by nitrogen hypoxia, they are breathing only nitrogen with no oxygen whatsoever, and because they are deprived of oxygen they suffocate.”

The state has maintained that the nitrogen gas, which will be administered through a mask placed over Smith’s face, will cause him to quickly lose consciousness before he dies from a lack of oxygen. However, with this being the first execution using this method, many have compared Smith to a “guinea pig” as much of what’s known about nitrogen hypoxia comes from medical journal records about industrial accidents and suicide attempts, not executions.

Looking at what Smith’s experience will be like, Professor Boyd said: “The short answer is that we don’t know what dying by nitrogen hypoxia will be like because it is novel and untested in humans as a means of execution. As a result, it might be incredibly painful and/or distressing, and to my knowledge, there is no scientific evidence to suggest otherwise.”