Footnotes

• Contributors This reply to critics is entirely my work.

• Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

• Competing interests None declared.

• Patient consent for publication Not required.

• Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.

• ↵Here I am supporting McCullough’s position that professional ethics is constructed rather than discovered.