Ethics

The foundation of science is tested, repeatable experiments with good data.

When people lie in science, fabricate data, the peer-review process is supposed to keep fraudsters from publishing. But as science expands it becomes more complex and the number of journals flourishes.

As a result of being treated as a business, a number of high-profile frauds are occurring, and sometimes the journals themselves are complicit.

When Dr. Barron Lerner started reading his father's medical diaries he didn't expect what he found. The differences in how he and his father practiced medicine were drastic.

Modern medical ethical standards like informed consent didn't exist back then and it wasn't uncommon for a doctor to mislead a patient to get them to take the course of action the doctor thought best. 

But he also noted a difference in the intimacy of the care that modern practices have lost.

Doctors are facing a marketplace that demands they think about many things before the patient. That's according to a new book by Dr. Jack Cochran, executive director of the Permanente Federation and author Charles Kenney called "The Doctor Crisis: How Physicians Can and Must Lead the Way to Better Health Care."

Cochran argues it has never been less fulfilling emotionally and professionally than today to be a doctor. This assumes a doctor was inspired to join the field to help people and not just to make money. 

Should the State of Texas be able to track contributions from 501 (c) (4) political nonprofits? This week a select committee of House lawmakers will discuss the possibility of legislation that could track this political "dark money" ahead of the 2015 session.

  Washington, D.C., has seen a drop in the number of registered lobbyists and in dollars spent on lobbying since 2008.

But before you break out the champagne to celebrate the end of influence-peddling, hear this: 46 percent of those former lobbyists in 2012 were still employed by the same firms, doing very similar jobs, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. 

The Texas Ethics Commission has approved a rulemaking request on "dark money" disclosure from an Austin lobbyist.

Austin lobbyist Steve Bresnen, along with a political watchdog group, are taking a back-door approach to creating a rule that would reveal all of the money that is used to influence elected officials and their decisions.

Marlise Munoz was a 33-year-old paramedic from Fort Worth who was 14 weeks pregnant when a pulmonary embolism left her brain dead in November of last year. Jahi McMath was a 13-year-old Oakland teenager when complications from a tonsillectomy left her brain dead in December. It is at this point that the similarities diverge.

McMath's family is battling the hospital to keep the girl on life support, with a respirator and being fed intravenously. Doctors have been vilified in the case as unfeeling as they try to convince the family there is no chance of recovery.

In the first segment: 

A recent poll from the Pew research center focused on the how Americans think about end-of-life medical treatments. Should doctors always try and keep patients alive? Or should people be allowed to die in certain circumstances? 

In the first segment:

The backlash from the non-discrimination ordinance continues to play out here in San Antonio. While anti-NDO advocates were unable to force a citywide vote for the policy -- failing to garner even half the required signatures -- recall efforts for the mayor and several council members who voted for the policy continue.  

In the first segment:

Could the hospital actually be the third leading cause of death in the country? That is what a recent study estimates  in the Journal of Patient Safety, pegging the number of deaths between 210,000 and 440,000. If this study's findings are accepted -- the former number being closer to 100,000 deaths per year -- they point to a critical issue.