BIOE 5590 Speaking For Patients: Ethical Issues in Patient Advocacy

This course examines the role that activism and advocacy play in shaping health care in the United States and abroad. The course combines in-depth exploration of particular case studies--AIDS activism in the 1980s, the billion-dollar breast cancer movement, the anti-vaccine movement--with an analysis of cross-cutting questions and themes. We consider how health advocates contribute to forming personal identities around certain illnesses and conditions, how they mobilize constituents and recruit allies, and how they influence decisions about health policy, research, and practice. We also consider the implications of an increasingly professionalized health advocacy industry and ask how corporate sponsorship has changed the landscape of health activism. In addition, we examine the ethical issues involved in speaking on behalf of others, particularly those (e.g., young children, persons with intellectual disabilities) who cannot speak for themselves.