- Bioethics Forum Essay
Hannah Arendt in St. Peter’s Square
Read the PostBioethics Forum EssayNeither one of us expected to be talking about Hannah Arendt at the Vatican. We had been invited to give talks at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on the scientific and ethical challenges posed by personalized medicine. Walking across the cobblestones of St. Peter’s Square we began to discuss how society regulates biomedical research. Are institutional review boards capable of dealing with innovations like personalized medicine? Are they too bound by regulations? Can they ask larger questions of meaning when simply following the rules won't suffice? And most worrisome, has their bureaucratic function caused them to mistake regulatory compliance for ethical reflection?Read the Post - Bioethics Forum Essay
Should We Edit the Human Germline? Is Consensus Possible or Even Desirable?
Read the PostBioethics Forum EssayI started writing this on my way back to New York from the Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing, held in Hong Kong November 27 to 29, where the breaking news of the alleged world’s first birth of genetically edited babies loomed large. The surprising news both reinforced and undercut...Read the Post - Bioethics Forum Essay
The Only PhD Scientist in Congress Speaks About Truth, Politics, and Human Flourishing
Read the PostBioethics Forum EssayAt a time when facts are distorted, disregarded, and ignored in policy making and political discourse, the need in Washington for seekers and defenders of truth has perhaps never been greater. I discussed the state of affairs with Representative Bill Foster, a Democrat from Illinois who prides himsel...Read the Post - Bioethics Forum Essay
Fix the Planet, or Change the Creatures In It?
Read the PostBioethics Forum EssayPossibly as many as half of the coral reefs that existed 100 years ago have been destroyed, sometimes by removing them, covering them up, or blowing them up, but mostly just because of climate change, which is gradually heating the water and making it more acidic. The solution everyone who cares abou...Read the Post - Bioethics Forum Essay
Support for Returning Results of Alzheimer’s Disease Biomarker Research
Read the PostBioethics Forum EssayThis used to be a purely academic question: If you could know, years before you had symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease, that you were likely to develop it–and there was no treatment or cure–would you want this information? Now it is a real dilemma because there are brain scans and other biomark...Read the Post - Bioethics Forum Essay
Why Is Ethics Too Often Playing Catch Up?
Read the PostBioethics Forum EssayThe question is as old as the field of bioethics: why does ethics too often not see problems coming and is then forced to play catch-up? Note that I use the phrase “ethics too often,” implying that the difficulty lies with the discipline of ethics itself, not with those who try to understand and...Read the Post - Bioethics Forum Essay
ES Cells and iPS Cells: A Distinction with a Difference
Read the PostBioethics Forum EssayGregory Kaebnick recently suggested in Bioethics Forum that apparent differences between induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells and embryos created by somatic cell nuclear transfer may not be all that relevant from a moral point of view. As Kaebnick explains, both techniques involve the reprogramming o...Read the Post - Bioethics Forum Essay
The Perils of Embryo Banking?
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