News and blogs

Concerns over the effectiveness, safety and quality of technologies such as smartphone apps for people who need mental health support have been raised by the UK’s independent ethics body, the Nuffield Council on Bioethics.

The Australian Senate have passed a Bill, known as ‘Maeve’s law’, that will make it legal for those at risk of passing on a severe mitochondrial disorder to their offspring to avoid this outcome by the use of assisted reproductive techniques known as ‘mitochondrial donation’.

We welcome yesterday’s announcement that the Government will be commissioning an independent review of the causes of disagreements in the care of critically ill children, how these disagreements can be avoided, and how we can sensitively handle their resolution.

The Government has announced plans to introduce a licensing scheme for non-surgical cosmetic procedures including botulinum toxin (Botox) and fillers.

The Nuffield Council on Bioethics and UK Research & Innovation (UKRI) set out to better understand how the ethical implications of biological and medical research are considered by people and organisations in the UK.

We are delighted to be working in partnership with Rethink Mental Illness to explore the ethical issues raised by the use of digital technology in mental healthcare.

What then does ethical preparedness mean? There is still a great deal of work to do to explore the full scope of such a concept. However, drawing on the lessons from COVID, we suggest the following three elements are likely to play an important role.

Our new infographic illustrates a wide range of developments related to biological and medical research that are likely to raise ethical issues in the near or far future.

We had a virtual consultation with GP and Council member Dr Selena Stellman to triage and diagnose her thoughts on…virtual GP consultations.

The Nuffield Council on Bioethics warmly welcomes new guidelines by UKRI and UNICEF that aim to help grant reviewers consider ethical issues when reviewing proposals for research in fragile and conflict-affected contexts.