PubMed Health⌕ Search
Home/Archive/PubMed

PubMed · 11643792

Ethical issues in medicine.

Gerald Holton
View original source ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

The risk figures for a severe nuclear accident assuming 1000 reactors in operation given in the News and Comment briefing "Using experience to calculate nuclear risk" (23 July, p. 338) did not accurately reflect the probabilities cited in the NRC report. An accurate rendition is as follows: With 74 reactors in operation (the present number) and if the lower risk rate (0.0017 per year) is used, a severe accident could be expected on the average of once every 8 years.

Explore related subjects

BioethicsFederal GovernmentFinancial SupportFinancing, GovernmentGovernmentPublic PolicyBioethics and Professional EthicsNational Science FoundationLetter

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Gerald Holton. 1982-09-24. Ethical issues in medicine.. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.11643792

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related citations

PubMed2007

High hopes and automatic escalators: a critique of some new arguments in bioethics.

Two protechnology arguments, the "hopeful principle" and the "automatic escalator", often used in bioethics, are identified and critically analysed in this paper. It is shown that the hopeful principle is closely related to the problematic precautionary principle, and the automatic escalator argument has close affinities to the often criticised empirical slippery slope argument. The hopeful principle is shown to be really hopeless as an argument, and automatic escalator arguments often lead nowhere when critically analysed. These arguments should therefore only be used with great caution.

Bioethics↗