Medical Ethics Archives - The Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University

TV host, Dr. Oz, and the FDA have gone to war over apple juice after he claimed on his show that the arsenic levels in many brands are poisoning consumers. According to a recent Atlantic Wire article, the FDA is failing miserably to debunk this latest health hysteria despite its best attempt. It looks like in this battle royale between a bureaucratic governmental agency and a charming TV personality, the TV personality is winning. The FDA just doesn’t have the same adoring legion of (mostly) female fans.

The deeper issue (believe it or not) lies beyond whether your apple juice is killing you. Rather, I think this latest incident calls to question the intentionality and the repercussions of Dr. Oz’s proclamation. Is it morally reprehensible that Dr. Oz is fanning the health hysteria if he truly believes it? Debatable. Is it sad that so many Americans are brain-washed by what they see on TV? Definitely.

Continue reading “Your Apple Juice May be Killing You…Seriously”

In recent years, Duke Medicine has toed the line on an ethical issue that has come into the spotlight this week.

Dr. Victor Tapson – a researcher and faculty member here at Duke – has been unfavorably singled out in a report produced by the Senate Finance Committee because of his financial ties to pharmaceutical company Sanofi.

It’s definitely not out of the ordinary for a medical researcher to act as a sort of pharmaceutical sponsor – giving presentations on behalf of certain drugs in return for large sums of money. In fact, as the Duke Chronicle reported last December, the University is proud of its policies regarding such relationships. However, in a presentation to the Federal Drug Administration, Tapson allegedly did just what these policies try to prevent – he showed undue bias in favor of a Sanofi product while conveniently failing to mention his $260,604 tie to the company.

Continue reading “Side effects of capitalism”