Medicine, Mind, and Morals

Diet

The Puzzle of Obesity and Stigma

The Hastings Center on May 25, 2016

A perplexing and aggravating issue.

A perplexing and aggravating issue.

By Josephine Johnston and Erik Parens—If your child ends up on 12 North, the Children's Psychiatry Unit at Stony Brook University Hospital, he has probably been diagnosed with one, or many, serious mental disorders. He (or she) has likely been prescribed myriad medications.

By Josephine Johnston—News reports say the television advertisement "sparked an uproar." It chronicles a couple failing to conceive before getting a bank loan for IVF. The ad has been called "disgusting" and "exploitive of people in a desperate situation," and apparently led to complaints to New Zealand's Advertising Standards Authority.

By Colleen Farrell—Have the "pink" campaigns for breast cancer awareness month gone too far? Some, especially the organization Think Before You Pink, have examined whether money raised by breast cancer charity events contributes to the cause in a meaningful way.

By Melissa Kurtz—How many television shows have been about hospitals? How often have they rendered the complexity and drama at all accurately? This summer that may almost have happened. Boston Med, an eight-week show that ended last month...

By Vardit Ravitsky and Joanna E. Scheib—In the recently released film The Kids Are All Right, two siblings track down their sperm donor and introduce him to their lesbian mothers. What ensues is a plausible unfolding of events when genetically related strangers meet.