Mirror life, artificial wombs, MAHA & chronic disease, medical ethics & climate change
Latest News
July 24, 2025
Look Before You Leap Navigating research's slipperiest slopes
Scientists have started work toward creating mirror life, biological entities that are mirror images of their natural counterparts. But several of the world’s most influential scientists say that this research is so potentially devastating that it should be banned. Hastings Center senior research scholar Gregory Kaebnick and colleagues argue for a more nuanced approach—“a strategy that titrates risks and benefits in a way that avoids the harms motivating a ban while still pursuing the benefits that motivate the science,” they write. “Such a framework can also be useful in thinking about other potentially dangerous technologies.” Read the article.
Making America Healthy Again Remedies for RFK Jr.'s campaign against chronic disease
Chronic diseases impose enormous health and economic burdens in the United States, especially on marginalized populations, and demand evidence-based, equity-focused interventions. To combat chronic disease, the Trump administration established the Make America Healthy Again Commission, chaired by Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. But the MAHA Commission appears to be both ideologically driven and scientifically unsound, states an essay in the Hastings Center Report by Hastings Center Fellow Lawrence O. Gostin, Alexandra Finch, and Peter Lurie. They dig into the MAHA agenda, discuss the ethics of chronic disease prevention, and identify evidence-based policies that would be effective in combating chronic diseases. Read the essay.
Should They Be Considered Patients? Assessing the moral status of "developing entities" in artificial wombs
Artificial womb prototypes are being developed and tested on animals with the aim of improving the medical care of extremely premature infants. But there is persisting debate about the moral status of fetuses transferred to artificial wombs--and disagreement about how they should be treated and how decisions should be made about them. Hastings Center President Vardit Ravitsky and colleagues argue in an article in Bioethics that these “developing entities” should be considered patients, thus, “the moral obligations of beneficence and non-maleficence owed by physicians to their patients would apply to [them], ethically guiding their treatment and decision-making toward them.” Read the Bioethics article.
Climate Conscious Healthcare Practice in the Caribbean Why clinical ethics should pay attention
Clinical medical ethics concepts should be expanded to address the ethical issues that climate change poses to clinical practice, states a commentary in AJOB by Hastings Center research scholar Carolyn Neuhaus and colleagues. This expansion is necessary and especially relevant for many small island developing states in the Caribbean where the impact of climate change is felt most acutely. Read the commentary.
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