Ketil Slagstad

22.01.2018: The government must take the initiative for an action plan to eradicate hepatitis C. All over the world, homeless people, persons with substance use disorders, prison inmates and sex workers are stigmatised and marginalised. Multiple overlapping risk factors and negative life events help reinforce...

18.09.2017: The encounter with the undocumented migrant elucidates the meaning of medicine and the morals of society. Norway is home to a large group of migrants who have no documents showing their legal right to remain. The figures are highly uncertain – estimates range from 5 000 to 18 000 (1). Some have had...

26.06.2017: HIV/AIDS activism in the USA emerged as a reaction to discriminatory tendencies in society in general and the handling of the epidemic in particular. The activists made a lasting impact on biomedical research. In a world where conservative movements are on the rise, we can learn from these activists...

21.03.2017: The debate on drug-free programmes in mental health care concerns the nature of psychiatry – and what it ought to be. Since 2010, a number of user organisations have campaigned for the introduction of drug-free treatment programmes in mental health care. In 2015, Bent Høie, Minister of Health and...

06.12.2016: Current anti-drugs policy entails consequences detrimental to society, rests on a fallible scientific basis and ought to be revised. Humans have always felt a need for psychoactive substances, and the issue of how society should regulate the relationship between pleasure and punishment is not a new...

27.09.2016: Biotechnology research is constantly confronted by legal and ethical boundaries. Occasionally, research has to be halted while we attempt to understand the consequences of what we are doing. Does ethics define the conditions for science – or is it the other way around? Two recent cases highlight the...

07.06.2016: Attacks on healthcare personnel in situations of conflict are not a new phenomenon, but the brutality of the war in Syria has appalled the entire world. Healthcare workers have become targets in a carefully calculated strategy of terror In Aleppo, the Syrian city that historically has been so...

12.01.2016: Men who have sex with men are at a higher risk of HIV infection. Pre-exposure prophylaxis may become an instrument in the struggle against rising infection rates In Norway, awareness-raising campaigns and promotion of condom use have been the pillars of HIV prevention efforts among men who have sex...