Should physicians be forced to care for the sick? Should people be compensated for quarantines? When should civil liberties be compromised for the good of the whole? These issues and more were part of a special conference looking at the ethics and edicts of handling epidemics.
The 1918 flu epidemic killed 20 million to 50 million [...]

A hypothetical but not unlikely scenario: Amid an influenza pandemic, a small hospital has three patients who need mechanical ventilation. One has terminal cancer, another has severe chronic lung disease, and a third has a severe case of flu. With only one ventilator available, which patient will get it?
When the next flu pandemic comes, it’s [...]

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today proposed that makers of all antidepressant medications update the existing black box warning on their products’ labeling to include warnings about increased risks of suicidal thinking and behavior, known as suicidality, in young adults ages 18 to 24 during initial treatment (generally the first one to two [...]