The journal was originally entitled Medical Ethics, and its first issue was published in August 1993.

[4] In May 2018, the journal attracted criticism when it was revealed that it had published a paper attributed to "Lars Andersson", whose affiliation was listed as the Karolinska Institute.

The journal initially responded by issuing a statement describing the author's deception as "unacceptable", but refusing to retract the paper.

Instead, editor-in-chief Amar Jesani removed the author's name and affiliation from the paper on the journal's website.

Later that month, the journal retracted the paper, writing in a statement that "...we have concluded that tolerating the author's deception and retaining the article was an error of judgment.