ETHICS AND BIOETHICS

Our major goals have been:

1. To reflect on (and, through scholarly research, stimulate) development and refinement of ethical norms concerning delivery of and referral regarding CAM therapies both in CAM professions and in the conventional health-care professions that deliver or counsel regarding CAM therapies.

2. To analyze and articulating potential implications of bioethical theories for clinical use of complementary and integrative medical therapies, and, in turn, the implications of such therapies for selected bioethical issues.

To these ends, we have completed the following publications:

Adams KE, Cohen MH, Jonsen AR, Eisenberg DM. Ethical considerations of complementary and alternative medical therapies in conventional medical settings. Ann Intern Med, in press, 2002.

Cohen, MH. Future medicine: ethical dilemmas, regulatory challenges, and therapeutic pathways to health and human healing in human transformation. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; in press, 2002.

Ernst EE, Cohen MH. Informed consent in complementary and alternative medicine. Arch Intern Med 2001;161:19:2288-2292.

Collaboration with Harvard Divinity School
Mr. Cohen presently is a 40th Senior Anniversary Fellow at the Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard Divinity School. The Center is directed by Lawrence Sullivan, PhD. Mr. Cohen will be working primarily with the Center’s Religion, Health and Healing Initiative, directed by Susan Sered, PhD. This affiliation offers opportunity for further collaboration within Harvard University and serves as a portal for scholarly contributions into CAM therapies and the humanities.