Susan Gilbert
@susangilb.bsky.social
Communications Director, The Hastings Center for Bioethics. I edit Hastings Bioethics Forum, an online publication of commentary.
From “file not found” to too many files, lots has changed since we launched Bioethics Forum. Tod Chambers wrote the first and latest piece. www.thehastingscenter.org/what-if-ai-c...
What If AI Could Be a Bioethics Scholar? : The Hastings Center for Bioethics
Twenty years ago, I wrote the first essay published in Hastings Bioethics Forum. At that time, online publications were new and many people were suspicious of them. Recently, I reflected on my reflect...
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Today’s the deadline. www.thehastingscenter.org/submit-a-com...
Submit a Comment: Keep Politics Out of Science Funding : The Hastings Center for Bioethics
Bioethicists and others should submit comments on the Office of Management and Budget proposal to revise its rules on how the government awards and manages federal grants.
thehastingscenter.org
www.thehastingscenter.org/science-will... Facts aren’t enough. If you support the legal right to abortion, make the moral case for it. @cchoglueck.bsky.social in Hastings Bioethics Forum @hastingscenter.bsky.social
Science Will Not Save the Abortion Pill : The Hastings Center for Bioethics
The facts are not enough. In addition to using evidence, people who support the legal right to abortion must make the moral case for it.
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Hard cases make bad law. How should that concern shape how we control the flesh eating screwworm, which returned to U.S last week? www.thehastingscenter.org/flesh-eating...
Flesh-eating Worms Grab Attention. How Should Attention Affect Policy? : The Hastings Center for Bioethics
Hard cases make bad law. Does a flesh-eating worm really help us think about how to use genome editing in the wild?
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www.thehastingscenter.org/50-years-aft... Before the Quinlan case, doctors who withdrew life support risked being charged with murder. And advance directives were unheard of.
50 Years After Quinlan: The Woman Who Changed American Medicine : The Hastings Center for Bioethics
Karen Ann Quinlan’s surrogate decision-makers – her parents – won the right to turn off the ventilator that had been keeping their comatose daughter alive.
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www.thehastingscenter.org/we-need-a-fa... The goal is to balance patient autonomy — which American law strongly favors — with an approach that allows a limited but meaningful role for families.
We Need a Family Bill of Rights for Mental Healthcare : The Hastings Center for Bioethics
Across the country, families plead with medical professionals and courts for intervention when loved ones with serious mental illness refuse psychiatric treatment.
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Planning to watch “The Pitt” tonight? Read this bioethics take on a recent episode.https://www.thehastingscenter.org/what-the-pitts-ice-episode-gets-right-and-wrong/
What The Pitt’s ICE Episode Gets Right (and Wrong) : The Hastings Center for Bioethics
In a recent episode of The Pitt, two ICE agents bring a patient into the ER who was apprehended in a raid. While the episode gets a lot right, it has some shortcomings. And those shortcomings largely ...
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Should we ever eradicate a species, even an awful one? Listen to what my colleague Greg Kaebnick has to say on Radiolab. radiolab.org/podcast/retu...
Return of the Flesh-Eaters
Can a species be so terrible…we need to wipe it out?
radiolab.org
Alex Pretti used his ICU training to help someone in need. He was abiding by the Code of Ethics for Nurses. Read this moving piece by 3 nurses: Connie Ulrich, Mary Naylor, and @maqc.bsky.social www.thehastingscenter.org/honoring-ale...
Honoring Alex Pretti’s Moral Courage and the Cost of Caring : The Hastings Center for Bioethics
The death of Alex Pretti has shaken the nursing profession to the core.
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When a #pregnant person is declared #braindead, should fetal rights take precedence over those of the patient? ⚖️ New paper in AJOB co-authored by HC Research Scholar Virginia A. Brown and Faith Fletcher, HC Fellow. 📖 https://bit.ly/4r4MBXm #endoflifecare #healthlaw
www.thehastingscenter.org/whispered-co... Doctors and bioethicists agree that deception in medicine is unethical. And yet the practice of faking CPR persists—and may be increasing—in complicated situations. John Lantos explains in Hastings Bioethics Forum.
Whispered Compassion: Slow Codes, Ritual, and the Moral Limits of Transparency : The Hastings Center for Bioethics
Would it ever be acceptable to agree not to withhold CPR, yet when the moment comes, either forgo it altogether or perform it less vigorously than usual?
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A powerful message from a physician/bioethicist who lives and works in Ukraine. The photo shows a drone strike on her hospital. www.thehastingscenter.org/bioethics-is...
Bioethics is Not a Luxury in Ukraine : The Hastings Center for Bioethics
The question, Do we still need bioethics? sounds almost absurd in Ukraine. I insist: Not only do we need bioethics; it is vital.
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The reproductive technologies that are being promoted by the tech-elite #pronatalists are new. The push to have as many babies as possible—and the best babies—is not. @daphmarts.bsky.social and @juliaehbrown.bsky.social explain in Hastings Bioethics Forum. www.thehastingscenter.org/more-and-bet...
More and “Better” Babies: The Dark Side of the Pronatalist Movement : The Hastings Center for Bioethics
There is growing concern that falling fertility rates will lead to economic and demographic catastrophe. The social and political movement known as
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Hospitals and doctors are ignoring RFK Jr.’s new vaccine schedule and relying on pediatricians’ guidance instead www.statnews.com/2026/01/15/n...
Hospitals and doctors are ignoring RFK Jr.’s new vaccine schedule and relying on pediatricians’ guidance instead
Their decisions underscore a growing divide between federal health authorities and major medical groups.
statnews.com
www.thehastingscenter.org/the-benign-z... Attention neuroethicists, a TV show for you.
The Benign Zombies of Pluribus : The Hastings Center for Bioethics
Whatever disagreements neuroethicists have, they all presuppose the annoying multiplicity of brains that somehow generate minds. Not so in Vince
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www.thehastingscenter.org/your-study-i... The unprecedented reality of NIH terminating studies creates an urgent need for protocols to communicate with and support research volunteers.
Your Study is Terminated: Researchers Need to Prepare Participants : The Hastings Center for Bioethics
At this unprecedented time for medical research, there is an urgent need for protocols to prepare for and communicate the termination of a study to all research stakeholders.
thehastingscenter.org
www.thehastingscenter.org/what-researc... you would think that research scandals and abuses would draw bioethicists’ attention, but they don’t. Why? @carlelliott.bsky.social explores this question in Hastings Bioethics Forum.
What Research Scandals? Welcome to the Bioethics Memory Hole : The Hastings Center for Bioethics
It is striking how many notorious cases of abuses of human research subjects go almost entirely unmentioned in the bioethics literature.
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www.thehastingscenter.org/schoolchildr... With attention focused on misinformation about Tylenol and pregnancy, let’s not lose sight of other “baseless” statements from our leaders that put children’s health at risk.
Schoolchildren Deserve Better : The Hastings Center for Bioethics
One of the Trump administration's latest targets is children's mental health services. Recently, Education Secretary Linda McMahon and Health and Human
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Most troubling part about removing uncomfortable truths from history is the whitewashing that follows. If you disagree, the answer isn’t to erase them,it’s to challenge them w/ thoughtful counterarguments.🤔 NEW HC Bioethics Forum essay by Barron Lerner https://bit.ly/47EEFFN
🎙️ Episode 4 of Bioethics Chats is OUT NOW! @varditravitsky.bsky.social chats with Dorothy Roberts, George A. Weiss Professor at UPenn, on the “trifecta of violations of reproductive justice” & what bioethicists & healthcare providers must do to address them. 👩🏾⚖️📚 https://bit.ly/45sYBdn
Health insurance premiums for people with employer-provided coverage have more than quadrupled since 1999. From 2023 to 2024 alone, they rose more than 6% for both individuals and family coverage — a steeper increase than that of wages and overall inflation. kffhealthnews.org/news/article...
The Price Increases That Should Cause Americans More Alarm - KFF Health News
The cost of health insurance is rising faster than the price of eggs or gasoline.
kffhealthnews.org
The NIH's longstanding commitment to funding research that uncovers and addresses health disparities has not only advanced our understanding of cancer outcomes across different populations but has also led to improvements that benefit all patients.
Experts Advise on How to Study DEI in Cancer
Clinicians acknowledge significant barriers to conducting DEI-related medical research, but they also provide a glimmer of hope, suggesting how to find funding in these uncertain times.
medscape.com
www.thehastingscenter.org/ethical-cons... The first clinical trial involving pig kidney transplants has been approved. There are many ethical issues. Read recommendations on how to address them. New in Hastings Bioethics Forum
Ethical Considerations for First-In-Human Pig Kidney Xenotransplant Clinical Trials : The Hastings Center for Bioethics
The first clinical trial transplanting gene-edited pig kidneys into humans could start this year. They raise important ethical issues.
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undark.org/2025/07/21/a... Generating some kinds of humor is easier for AI than driving a car safely. Still, much of AI-generated comedy is mediocre. Interesting article by Jyoti Madhusoodanan.
AI Can Make You Laugh. But Can It Ever Be Truly Humorous?
As people turn to AI for therapy and companionship, some say the models still need to learn the nuances of human humor.
undark.org
www.thehastingscenter.org/collecting-m... The latest expansion in the use of DNA samples for law enforcement raises ethical and legal concerns. James Hazel explains.
Collecting Migrant Children’s DNA: A Troubling, but Predictable, Trend in the U.S. : The Hastings Center for Bioethics
Recent reports reveal that the U.S. government is systematically collecting DNA from migrant children, some as young as 4 years old, and storing it
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Can we be sure that the research that is to this achievement would be possible now? Jonathan Moreno’s latest in Hastings Bioethics Forum www.thehastingscenter.org/sweet-vindic...
Sweet Vindication for Stem Cell Research, and American Science : The Hastings Center for Bioethics
A small group of people with a severe form of type 1 diabetes have been successfully treated with pancreatic cells derived from human embryonic stem cells. This moment should not pass without recognit...
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Beautiful piece. Read with a box of tissues. www.thehastingscenter.org/a-clinical-e...
A Clinical Ethicist Reflects on the Life and Death of a Beloved Pet : The Hastings Center for Bioethics
In my role as a clinical ethicist, I regularly explore the risks and benefits of proposed treatments, especially for terminal diseases. But for Sheba this moral question felt unique.
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More needs to be made of the distinction between trust and trustworthiness. Lower levels of trust in vaccines and ACIP are more likely a function of attempts to actively undermine trust from the likes of RFK Jr and company, not the trustworthiness of ACIP.
Helen Branswell 🇨🇦@helenbranswell.bsky.social · last yr.This is the big one: Kennedy is firing the entire #ACIP in a move he says is needed to restore confidence in vaccines. "It scares me to think of what’s ahead,” Mike Osterholm of CIDRAP told me. www.statnews.com/2025/06/09/r...
www.thehastingscenter.org/civil-death-... Making comparisons with the Nazis and their rise to autocracy is tricky, but we must learn from history.
Civil Death: Unethical in 1933 and Today : The Hastings Center for Bioethics
The rhyme of history is disturbing, especially when played out by the professionals whom we rely on for ethical leadership, not for unethical manipulation of the law.
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🚨 Hastings in the spotlight! 🚨 HC President Vardit Ravitsky featured on 60 Minutes, where she discusses the growing trend of #eggfreezing and the opportunities and risks it raises about pausing the biological clock. 🧬⏳ Watch: cbsn.ws/3Z1owoI #Bioethics