Leonard Fleck

Professor of Philosophy Michigan State University

East Lansing MI

Leonard Fleck is an expert in health care justice, health care rationing, as well as ethical issues related to genetic technologies.

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Spotlight

Mar 29, 2020

2 min

Op Ed: In coronavirus crisis, Don't prioritize economics over public health

The following is an excerpt from Op Ed that ran in the Detroit Free Press late last week. Th full piece is attached below for your reading pleasure. President Donald Trump said this week that he hopes to see economic activity ramped up and social distancing practices and other public health measures reduced by Easter, which is April 12. This is a recipe for disaster and it again vividly illustrates his dismissal of medical and scientific expertise for his own political goals. The rhetoric he uses suggests that the financial pain the nation will experience over the next year or longer is not worth the lives that will be lost as a result of dialing back public health restrictions. I am an ethicist. To me, Trump is forcing Sophie’s Choice decisions by people who have taken an oath to “first do no harm.” Trump and his advisers ignore the ethical pain that health professionals will have to endure who must decide who lives and who dies because we have too few ventilators or too few ICU beds to treat all the patients who need those beds for survival. Those harsh choices are very real right now. They would become even more tragic if public health measures now in place were loosened in order to improve economic activity. March 27 Detroit Free Press There are many angles to explore and cover as the COVID-19 pandemic impacts just about every segment of American life. If you're a journalist covering the ethics involved and the leadership decisions taking place at each level of government, then let our experts help. Leonard M. Fleck is the Director of the Center for Ethics at Michigan State University. He is an expert in the areas of health care justice and served as a member of the Clinton Administration’s Health Care Reform Task Force in 1993 and as a state ethicist for Michigan regarding access to health care. Dr. Fleck is available to speak with media – simply click on his icon to arrange an interview.

Media

Biography

Leonard Fleck is a medical ethicist and philosopher. He is an expert in health care justice, health care rationing and policy, stem cell research, as well as ethical issues related to emerging genetic technologies.

Fleck served as a member of the Clinton Administration’s Health Care Reform Task Force in 1993 and as a state ethicist for Michigan regarding access to health care.

Industry Expertise

Education/Learning

Areas of Expertise

Health care policy including changes being made by the Trump administration

Accomplishments

Distinguished Faculty Award

College of Human Medicine

News

Opinion: FDA made a mistake in approving a questionable Alzheimer's drug, but Medicare could act to reduce false hopes and unethical profits

MarketWatch online

2021-07-01

At this writing three members of the FDA Advisory Committee have chosen to resign in protest over the Food and Drug Administration's decision to approve aducanumab for the treatment of mild cognitive impairment. Their decision to resign is commendable for at least three ethical reasons. Billions of Medicare dollars will be unjustly squandered on a drug of unknown effectiveness, physicians must either facilitate this unjust squandering or deny desperate patients access to this drug, patients have false hopes cruelly legitimated when physicians prescribe aducanumab. However, more is needed than these resignations.

Michigan State looks to change rules for firing tenured professors

Lansing State Journal online

2018-06-21

In April, Michigan State University's acting general counsel, Kristine Zayko, came to the University Committee on Faculty Tenure with two proposed changes to the policy on firing tenured professors.

Leonard Fleck: Using a Medical Ethicsope

360 Perspective online

2017-08-27

As you embark on the adventure of discovery and growth that is a liberal arts education in the College of Arts & Letters here at Michigan State University, I invite you to consider for a moment what we might learn from a peculiar tree you will encounter on campus.

Journal Articles

Just caring: Do we need philosophical foundations?

Ethics, Medicine and Public Health

L.M. Fleck PhD

2017

The “Just Caring” problem asks: What does it mean to be a “just” and “caring” society when we have only limited resources (money) to meet virtually unlimited health care needs (linked to novel emerging medical technologies)? The practical implication of the “Just Caring” problem is that the need for health care rationing is inescapable. That means that some health care needs will not be met, even though those needs have moral weight, because meeting such needs is presumptively a matter of justice. How then can such rationing decisions be made justly or fairly? And who should have responsibility for making such decisions? Should such decision-making be the responsibility of legislative bodies, or administrators of health care institutions, or associations of physicians, or private insurers (in the United States), or employers (in the United States)? What should be the role of philosophers in addressing the problem of just health care rationing? After all, philosophers are supposed to be the experts when it comes to theories of justice.

How Should Therapeutic Decisions about Expensive Drugs Be Made in Imperfect Environments?

AMA Journal of Ethics

LM Fleck, M Danis

2017

Clinicians must inevitably make therapeutic decisions under nonideal conditions. They practice in circumstances that involve incomplete evidence. They deliver care in health care systems that are complex and poorly coordinated. Each of the patients that they take care of is unique while research offers evidence regarding relatively homogeneous populations of patients. Under these circumstances, many parties—medical scientists, reviewing agencies, insurers, and accountable care organizations—can and should contribute to optimizing the development, approval, funding, and prescription of therapies—particularly expensive and marginally beneficial therapies. In aggregate, they should aspire to achieve a pattern of fair, cost-effective therapeutic decisions to ensure a sustainable health care system. Here we offer some suggestions regarding decisions that physicians might pursue to facilitate fair and cost-effective patient care.

Choosing Wisely: Is Parsimonious Care Just Rationing?

Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics

Leonard M. Fleck

2016

The American College of Physicians in its ethics manual endorsed the idea that physicians ought to improve their ability to provide care to their patients more parsimoniously. This elicited a critical backlash; critics essentially claimed that what was being endorsed was a renamed form of rationing. In a recent article, Tilburt and Cassel argued that parsimonious care and rationing are ethically distinct practices. In this essay I critically assess that claim. I argue that in practice there is considerable overlap between what they term parsimonious care and what they define as rationing. The same is true of the Choosing Wisely campaign endorsed by the American Board of Internal Medicine. In both cases, if the goal is to control healthcare costs by reducing the use of marginally beneficial care that is not cost effective, then a public conversation about the justness of specific choices is essential.