
Thomas Murray
Ph.D.
President Emeritus
Thomas H. Murray was president of The Hastings Center from 1999 to 2012. He was formerly the director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics in the School of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University, where he was also the Susan E. Watson Professor of Bioethics. He serves on many editorial boards and has testified before many Congressional committees. Among other current posts, he serves as an international expert advisor to Singapore’s Bioethics Advisory Committee and vice chair of Charity Navigator. He has been president of the Society for Health and Human Values and of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities.
Dr. Murray is the author or editor of several books and more than 250 other publications. His most recent book is Good Sport: Why Our Games Matter — and How Doping Undermines Them, published in 2018. His other publications include The Worth of a Child; The Cultures of Caregiving: Conflict and Common Ground Among Families, Health Professionals and Policy Makers, edited with Carol Levine; Genetic Ties and the Family: The Impact of Paternity Testing on Parents and Children, edited with Mark A. Rothstein, Gregory E. Kaebnick, and Mary Anderlik Majumder; Performance-Enhancing Technologies in Sports: Ethical, Conceptual, and Scientific Issues, edited with Karen J. Maschke and Angela A. Wasunna; and, most recently, Trust and Integrity in Biomedical Research: The Case of Financial Conflicts of Interest, edited with Josephine Johnston. He is also editor, with Maxwell J. Mehlman, of the Encyclopedia of Ethical, Legal and Policy Issues in Biotechnology. In 2004 he received an honorary Doctor of Medicine degree from Uppsala University.
Selected Scholarly Publications
Thomas H. Murray, “Stirring the Simmering ‘Designer Baby’ Pot,” Science, March 14, 2014.
Thomas H. Murray, “Enhancement,” in The Oxford Handbook of Bioethics, Bonnie Steinbock (ed.), Oxford University Press, 2007.
Loland, S. and Thomas H. Murray., “The Ethics of the Use of Technologically Constructed High-Altitude Environments to Enhance Performances in Sport,” editorial, Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports 2007; 17: 193-195.
Nancy S. Green, Siobhan M. Dolan, and Thomas H. Murray, “Newborn Screening: Complexities in Universal Genetic Testing,” American Journal of Public Health, November 2006.
Jeffrey R. Botkin, Ellen, W. Clayton, Norman Fost, Wiley Burke, Thomas H. Murray, Mary Ann Baily, Benjamin Wilfond, Alfred Berg, and Lainie F. Ross, “Newborn Screening Technology: Proceed with Caution,” Pediatrics, May 2006.
Posts by Thomas Murray
- Bioethics Forum Essay
To Restore Humanity in Health Care, Address Clinician Burnout
Read the PostBioethics Forum EssayHealth care in America is at a critical juncture. The number of people who need it continues to grow and costs have skyrocketed. But instead of being a beacon of healing, many health care organizations are beleaguered and overwhelmed. Burnout has become a rallying cry for nurses and doctors because it impedes their ability to uphold the foundational values of their professions and to serve in accordance with them. These realities have eroded the fundamental humanity of health care.Read the Post - Bioethics Forum Essay
What I Learned from Dan Callahan About Bioethics, Writing, and Leadership
Read the Post - Bioethics Forum Essay
Doping, Corruption, and International Intrigue: Olympic Sport Confronts a Moral Crisis
Read the PostBioethics Forum EssayI suspected the two alibi witnesses were lying. The accused in the case, Alexei Melnikov, coached long distance walkers and runners for ARAF, the All-Russia Athletic Federation. Lilya Shobukova and her husband testified that they handed over 150,000 Euros in blackmail money to Melnikov in Moscow in J...Read the Post - Bioethics Forum Essay
Morally Indefensible Health Care Bills
Read the PostBioethics Forum EssayThere is a broad and deep moral conviction that health care should be distributed according to genuine need and not left to the cold mercy of pure market forces or the logic of actuarial fairness. Unfortunately, the proposed American Health Care Act (AHCA), passed last week in the House of Representatives, and other legislation threaten to undermine that moral commitment.Read the Post - From Bioethics Briefings
Sports Enhancement
Read the PostFrom Bioethics BriefingsFraming the Issue Spring in America brings flowers, sweet warm breezes, and the thwack of a bat striking a baseball. The Mitchell Report, an early Christmas present to baseball fans released in December 2007, confirmed that a number of Major League players have used performance-enhancing drugs. Swing...Read the Post - From Bioethics Briefings
Why a Bioethics Briefing Book?
Read the PostFrom Bioethics BriefingsI arrived at The Hastings Center for my first tour of duty in the fall of 1979, and it did not take long to realize that the Center was working on matters vitally important to everyone. Some issues, like genetic testing or the ethics of performance enhancing drugs in sports, required peering over the...Read the Post