Minors are generally considered incompetent to provide legally binding decisions regarding their health care, and parents or guardians are empowered to make those decisions on their behalf. Parental authority is not absolute, however, and when a parent acts contrary to the best interests of a child, the state may intervene. The best interests standard is the threshold most frequently employed in challenging a parent's refusal to provide consent for a child's medical care. In this paper, I will argue that the best interest standard provides insufficient guidance for decision-making regarding children and does not reflect the actual standard used by medical providers and courts. Rather, I will suggest that the Harm Principle provides a more appropriate threshold for state intervention than the Best Interest standard. Finally, I will suggest a series of criteria that can be used in deciding whether the state should intervene in a parent's decision to refuse medical care on behalf of a child.

Social media Websites (SMWs) are increasingly popular research tools. These sites provide new opportunities for researchers, but raise new challenges for Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) that review these research protocols.As of yet, there is little-to-no guidance regarding how an IRB should review the studies involving SMWs. The purpose of this article was to review the common risks inherent in social media research and consider how researchers can consider these risks when writing research protocols. We focused this article on three common research approaches: observational research, interactive research, and survey/interview research. Concomitant with these research approaches, we gave particular attention to the issues pertinent to SMW research, including privacy, consent, and confidentiality. After considering these challenges, we outlined key considerations for both researchers and reviewers when creating or reviewing SMW IRB protocols. Our goal in this article was to provide a detailed examination of relevant ethics and regulatory issues for both researchers and those who review their protocols.

for a Task Force of the Association of Bioethics Program Directors* Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has or threatens to overwhelm health care systems. Many institutions are developing ventilator triage policies.

No abstract

Male circumcision consists of the surgical removal of some, or all, of the foreskin (or prepuce) from the penis. It is one of the most common procedures in the world. In the United States, the procedure is commonly performed during the newborn period. In 2007, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) convened a multidisciplinary workgroup of AAP members and other stakeholders to evaluate the evidence regarding male circumcision and update the AAP’s 1999 recommendations in this area. The Task Force included AAP representatives from specialty areas as well as members of the AAP Board of Directors and liaisons representing the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Task Force members identified selected topics relevant to male circumcision and conducted a critical review of peer-reviewed literature by using the American Heart Association’s template for evidence evaluation. Evaluation of current evidence indicates that the health benefits of newborn male circumcision outweigh the risks; furthermore, the benefits of newborn male circumcision justify access to this procedure for families who choose it. Specific benefits from male circumcision were identified for the prevention of urinary tract infections, acquisition of HIV, transmission of some sexually transmitted infections, and penile cancer. Male circumcision does not appear to adversely affect penile sexual function/sensitivity or sexual satisfaction. It is imperative that those providing circumcision are adequately trained and that both sterile techniques and effective pain management are used. Significant acute complications are rare. In general, untrained providers who perform circumcisions have more complications than well-trained providers who perform the procedure, regardless of whether the former are physicians, nurses, or traditional religious providers. Parents are entitled to factually correct, nonbiased information about circumcision and should receive this information from clinicians before conception or early in pregnancy, which is when parents typically make circumcision decisions. Parents should determine what is in the best interest of their child. Physicians who counsel families about this decision should provide assistance by explaining the potential benefits and risks and ensuring that parents understand that circumcision is an elective procedure. The Task Force strongly recommends the creation, revision, and enhancement of educational materials to assist parents of male infants with the care of circumcised and uncircumcised penises. The Task Force also strongly recommends the development of educational materials for providers to enhance practitioners’ competency in discussing circumcision’s benefits and risks with parents. The Task Force made the following recommendations:Evaluation of current evidence indicates that the health benefits of newborn male circumcision outweigh the risks, and the benefits of newborn male circumcision justify access to this procedure for those families who choose it.Parents are entitled to factually correct, nonbiased information about circumcision that should be provided before conception and early in pregnancy, when parents are most likely to be weighing the option of circumcision of a male child.Physicians counseling families about elective male circumcision should assist parents by explaining, in a nonbiased manner, the potential benefits and risks and by ensuring that they understand the elective nature of the procedure.Parents should weigh the health benefits and risks in light of their own religious, cultural, and personal preferences, as the medical benefits alone may not outweigh these other considerations for individual families.Parents of newborn boys should be instructed in the care of the penis, regardless of whether the newborn has been circumcised or not.Elective circumcision should be performed only if the infant’s condition is stable and healthy.Male circumcision should be performed by trained and competent practitioners, by using sterile techniques and effective pain management.Analgesia is safe and effective in reducing the procedural pain associated with newborn circumcision; thus, adequate analgesia should be provided whenever newborn circumcision is performed.Nonpharmacologic techniques (eg, positioning, sucrose pacifiers) alone are insufficient to prevent procedural and postprocedural pain and are not recommended as the sole method of analgesia. They should be used only as analgesic adjuncts to improve infant comfort during circumcision.If used, topical creams may cause a higher incidence of skin irritation in low birth weight infants, compared with infants of normal weight; penile nerve block techniques should therefore be chosen for this group of newborns.Key professional organizations (AAP, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American Society of Anesthesiologists, the American College of Nurse Midwives, and other midlevel clinicians such as nurse practitioners) should work collaboratively to:Develop standards of trainee proficiency in the performance of anesthetic and procedure techniques, including suturing;Teach the procedure and analgesic techniques during postgraduate training programs;Develop educational materials for clinicians to enhance their own competency in discussing the benefits and risks of circumcision with parents;Offer educational materials to assist parents of male infants with the care of both circumcised and uncircumcised penises.The preventive and public health benefits associated with newborn male circumcision warrant third-party reimbursement of the procedure. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has endorsed this technical report.

Background The U.S. Office for Human Research Protections has proposed that end points of randomized trials comparing the effectiveness of standard medical practices are risks of research that would require disclosure and written informed consent, but data are lacking on the views of potential participants. Objective To assess attitudes of U.S. adults about risks and preferences for notification and consent for research on medical practices. Design Cross-sectional survey conducted in August 2014. Setting Web-based questionnaire. Patients 1095 U.S. adults sampled from an online panel (n = 805) and an online convenience river sample (n = 290). Measurements Attitudes toward risk, informed consent, and willingness to participate in 3 research scenarios involving medical record review and randomization of usual medical practices. Results 97% of respondents agreed that health systems should evaluate standard treatments. Most wanted to be asked for permission to participate in each of 3 scenarios (range, 75.2% to 80.4%), even if it involved only medical record review, but most would accept nonwritten (oral) permission or general notification if obtaining written permission would make the research too difficult to conduct (range, 70.2% to 82.7%). Most perceived additional risk from each scenario (range, 64.0% to 81.6%). Limitation Use of hypothetical scenarios and a nonprobability sample that was not fully representative of the U.S. population. Conclusion Most respondents preferred to be asked for permission to participate in observational and randomized research evaluating usual medical practices, but they are willing to accept less elaborate approaches than written consent if research would otherwise be impracticable. These attitudes are not aligned with proposed regulatory guidance. Primary Funding Source National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences at the National Institutes of Health.

Caring for children with profound developmental disabilities can be difficult and demanding. For nonambulatory children with severe, combined neurologic and cognitive impairment, all the necessities of life must be provided by caregivers, usually parents, and these tasks become more difficult as the child grows to adolescence and adulthood. Many parents would like to continue caring for their child with special needs at home but find it difficult to do so as the child increases in size. If growth could be permanently arrested while the child was still small, both child and parent would likely benefit because this would facilitate the option of continued care in the home. Treatment of the child with high-dose estrogen, initiated at an early age, could provide this option. High-dose estrogen both inhibits growth and rapidly advances maturation of the epiphyseal growth plates, bringing about permanent attenuation in size after a relatively short period of treatment. We present a case report and discuss the medical and ethical considerations of such an intervention strategy. We suggest that after proper screening and informed consent, growth-attenuation therapy should be a therapeutic option available to these children should their parents request it.

Both income and income inequality affect infant health outcomes in the United States. The health of the poorest infants was affected more by absolute wealth than relative wealth.