New Hastings Resource Counters Misinformation on Human Genomics Featured in Nature Genetics
New research on the genomic influences on traits such as intelligence, household income, and sexual behavior captures public attention, but it is also used to justify beliefs in racial and social inequalities. To counter bias and other misinformation, The Hastings Center announces an open-access repository that aggregates and enhances FAQs – frequently asked questions – by the genomics researchers themselves that explain what their studies do, and do not, show. The current issue of Nature Genetics features an article on the resource written by the scholars who created it, including Daphne Oluwaseun Martschenko, a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University and a member of a Hastings Center project on social and behavioral genomics, and Lucas J. Matthews, an assistant professor of bioethics at Columbia University and a newly appointed presidential scholar at The Hastings Center. Learn more and access the resource. Read the Nature Genetics article. Learn about the Hastings Center’s project on social and behavioral genomics, led by senior research scholar Erik Parens and Michelle Meyer, of Geisinger. Learn more about ethical issues raised by genomic studies of human behavior in “Genomics, Behavior, and Social Outcomes,” a chapter in the Hastings Center Bioethics Briefings.
With Evictions Looming, Should Medicaid Subsidize Housing?
Millions of people in the United States could face eviction now that the Supreme Court has ended a moratorium on evictions, adding to the 568,000 people in the U.S. who are homeless on a given day and the 211,000 who are “unsheltered.” To address the crisis of homelessness and housing insecurity as a powerful social determinant of poor health and a driver of the use of health care, “federal policymakers should consider allowing states to directly subsidize housing for those experiencing or at risk of homelessness as an optional Medicaid benefit,” concludes a recent article co-authored by Michael Gusmano, a Hastings Center research scholar and a professor at Lehigh University. Read the article in Milbank Quarterly.
From Hastings Bioethics Forum: Community-Building During Covid; Vaccination Status Triage
Covid’s challenge to our collective well-being “becomes the communitarian justification for public health measures like vaccine or mask mandates,” writes Joseph J Fins. “What is needed is a little love for our neighbors in these perilous times.” Read “Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself: Building Community During Covid.”
Should hospitals straining to provide adequate critical care consider patients’ Covid vaccination status when making triage decisions? A recent Bioethics Forum post took up this question after a leaked internal memo revealed that the North Texas Mass Critical Care Guideline Task Force was considering using patients’ vaccination status as a factor to assign intensive care beds. The authors conclude that this triage approach is neither clinically nor ethically justified at this time. Read “Should Vaccination Status Be Used to Make Triage Decisions?”
Upcoming Events
"Democratic Deliberation and Gene Editing," a presentation by Hastings Center research scholars Michael Gusmano and Karen Maschke at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association. September 29.
"Creating Health Care Systems of Safety for Immigrants and Refugees," a presentation by Hastings Center research scholar Nancy Berlinger at the Division of Medical Ethics series at Weil Cornell Medicine. September 30.
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