September 2004
The Great Pharma Market Collapse
Merck lost 27% in a day on news about Vioxx after holding out on the matter for some time. It will be interesting to follow how the issue is spun in the marketplace, specifically whether these lapses are characterized by either bioethicists or market analysts as a failure either of the health system or of organizational bioethics.Thor's Sperm
You couldn't make up a joke as good as the story in the Times today about the Arhus sperm bank Cryos International, which is marketing sperm from the men of Denmark by playing on the Scandanavian mystique, as well as the high success rates encountered with that sperm and the laws there that protect the anonymity of donors. One of us is on record in the journal Human Reproduction about the dangers of anonymous donation, but frankly the customers of this bank are already so far gone that issues about the risks of anonymity for their children are the least of their problems. File this under "soon to be a movie."Labels: anonymity, Denmark, humor, sperm donation
Advanced Cell to California
From Chris Mooney, an LA Times story today on the planned opening of anAdvanced Cell Techology facility in California. Lanza at ACT is right that lots of companies will be moving west, but one can be sure that there are those in the U.S. hES research community - those who weathered the last two ACT-created microscandals - who are wondering why ACT couldn't keep moving west until they get to Singapore...Labels: Advanced Cell Technology, California, controversy, hESC, scandals, stem cell research
WebMD Survey: The Lies We Tell Our Doctors
WebMD asks David L. Roberts, Robert Klitzman, and Arthur Caplan about the ethics of lying to physicians in a short interview.Labels: Art Caplan, lying to doctors, WebMD
Constitutional Cloning Take 2- Wesley Smith & Brian Alexander
A couple of days ago we found Brian Alexander's Times magazine piece on the First Amendment and rights to research, specifically rights to clone. Brian commented that we were a bit too harsh. Now Wesley Smith comes to the debate with a quickly penned response to Alexander in the Weekly Standard. If you are scratching your head about the comments by Leon Kass in the Alexander essay, to the effect that Kass would "rather not think about" the constitutionality question, don't despair. Smith is only too happy to clarify the evils of a 1st Amendment argument. This is truly new territory for the neocon bioethics crowd - kind of like their adventure in human nature theory - and it makes for great reading.Labels: Brian Alexander, cloning, cloning prohibitions, embryos, first amendment, laws, neocon bioethics, rights to research, Wesley Smith
Limits on Drug Financed Physicians
ACCME is pushing a plan to simply shut out physician instruction of drug company sponsored CME. It is a complex plan with room for loopholes but reflects an extraordinary push to get more accurate information about potential problems associated with inappropriate off label uses of pharmaceuticals. Norm Fost is quoted.Labels: Conflict of Interest, limits, off-label use, pharmaceutical industry
Wilmut the Clinical Researcher
Ian Wilmut has applied to HFEA for a permit to investigate potential cell therapeutics for ALS, using human embryonic cells produced through cloning. The news announcements, even this one come from a short news conference so little is really known. Wilmut's presence in this area at this time could scarcely be more volatile for the US election-year debate about "who will get ahead" in hES research under US restrictions.Labels: ALS, clinical research, hESC, HFEA, Ian Wilmut, stem cell research, stem cell therapy
DuPont CEO Announces Bioethics Guiding Principles
DuPont practically has its own news agency, and today it released a major piece about the benefits of biotechnology, including those tied to bioethics principles. If you dig you find their new advisory board, with links to a bioethics policy and perspectives of board members.Labels: bioethics policy, bioethics principles, biotechnology, DuPont, pharmaceutical industry
The Ethics of George W. Bush
I will admit that I was a bit reticent about a quickie ethics book about Bush and his moral compass. Or perhaps jealous that one can do such a thing once one has tenure, even at Princeton. But an interview of Peter Singer in The Nation concerning his new The President of Good and Evil is pretty impressive, frankly one of the better attempts to put a moral philosopher back on the map of contemporary election-cycle politics.Labels: books, Bush, ethics of politics, Singer
MCW Pediatrian's Arrest Described in Terms of Suspect's Ethics Connection
In what is becoming a widely distributed story, the Milwaukee Sentinel has flagged as major news the arrest of a pediatric geneticist on child pornography charges. It would have been news in Milwaukee and among pediatricians just because of the professional role of the suspect. But the story is receiving wider play because it is cast in terms of the role of the suspect in teaching bioethics at MCW. No MCW bioethics faculty member is quoted, nor is there any clear identification of the specific role of this physician in bioethics. It's a new twist on the "ethicists' accountability" argument and it will make the evening news and, no doubt, the 1st year undergraduate medical curriculum.Labels: accountability, child pornography, ethics of bioethics, media and bioethics
Baptists and Stem Cells
Chris Mooney is as usual on top of everything and today found a pretty amazing piece in the Baptist Press identifying a new focus among conservative Baptists on stem cell research. The description of the position comes in a summary of a major panel in Nashville and features a description of stem cell research as a new slave trade on the horizon. This is election relevant for sure and speaks volumes about the alignment of fundamentalist protestants with the Catholic perspective on embryonic stem cell research. No nuance is allowed concerning cells sourced from non-viable embryo-like organisms.Labels: Baptists, Catholicism, religion, stem cell research
What Happens Next in Schiavo
Jon Eisenberg, author of several amicus briefs in end-of-life cases, reports by email today to the 60 of us who signed the Schiavo brief that:The Governor's attorneys have announced that they will ask the United States Supreme Court to take the case. Meanwhile, the Schindlers have asked the trial judge to reopen the case and retry the issue of Terri's wishes because of the Pope's recent pronouncement against removal of feeding tubes from PVS patients. I'll keep you apprised of future developments.
Labels: end of life, Joe Eisenberg, PVS, Schiavo, Schindlers, Supreme Court, the Pope
AJOB 4:3 Double Issue is Up
The special issue contains three target articles; one, on face transplantation, made virtually every newspaper in America last Sunday. Others include The Limitations of Vulnerability by Levine et al, and Improving Fairness in Coverage Decisions by Wynia et al. Lots of other stuff. And it doesn't REALLY cost $370 a year ... just $66 ... no matter what your first renewal notice said!Labels: AJOB, face transplants, fairness
Nanotech Redux: Geneballs and Drive Through Genetic Testing
Wired has a great piece this month on the role of tiny particles of silica, which provide a kind of barcode readout of thousands of genetic tests at once. The technology is not yet ready for clinical testing, but revolutionary for computational clinical genomics. It will be interesting to see which if any of the new ELSI core grant centers would be looking at that. Anybody know (please comment)?Labels: genetic testing, genomics, nanotechnology, Wired
Times Follows End of Life Cases
What keeps thisNew York Times piece on clinical and moral interventions at the end of life from degenerating into an "also-Schiavo" piece is that it really reads like a set of cases where bioethics conversations are both necessary and effective. Jessica Berg of Case (and our new Book Review editor along with Mark Aulision) comments.Labels: end of life, New York Times
Penn Nanotech $11 Million Award - Bioethics Core
Word from the small strange hamlet of Philadelphia that Penn has received its first nanogrant. Story in the Daily Pennsylvanian: "According to Bonnell, the nanotechnology program will work with Penn's Center for Bioethics in order to 'lead the national discussion on the ethical considerations surrounding nanoscale science and its potential impact on humanity.'"Labels: Center for Bioethics, grants, nanotechnology, Penn
Pakistan Bioethics Launch
Word today from Karachi Pakistan that a Center of Biomedical Ethics and Culture is to start in one week, inaugurated by a conference featuring Paul Lombardo (UVA) and various Pakistani government officials. No word as to the areas to be investigated...Labels: bioethics centers, Pakistan, Paul Lombardo
On MCW Today ... Suing a Prostitute with HIV
Jennifer Bard sends us to Amarillo on today's MCW chatline, where the city has brought suit against a prostitute to compel her to seek treatment and to "stop spreading the disease."Labels: HIV, lawsuits, prostitution, public health
Boston Globe: Family Seeks $15,000 hES Miracle
Gareth Cook is one of the Blobe's most intrepid science reporters. His front page piece today goes after Ukrainian stem cell "therapies," following the Rossetti family through two rounds of treatment. It's not an impressive investigative piece but it makes us wonder whether U.S. stem cell researchers should be educating clinicians about stem cell fraud.Labels: Boston Globe, fraud, Gareth Cook, hESC, stem cell research, stem cell therapy
Around the Listservs
On MCW mention of a BBC program called "Heaven and Earth" which references a new UK poll on euthanasia that shows 82% approval for choosing time and manner of death although the poll comes from the ever-so-balanced Voluntary Euthanasia Society.Labels: BBC, euthanasia
UPDATE: NYT on Cloning and First Amendment
Brian Alexander, one of the best of the "bioethics essayists" to emerge in the past five years, helps the Times' Magazine make a first foray by a newspaper into one of the more interesting questions concerning current and pending laws governing both cloning and embryo research: could they survive an appellate court review? Is it unconstitutional (or wrong) to restrict scientific experimentation on the grounds that such a restriction violates freedom of expression? Brian quotes Robertson, Kass and Sunstein on the analogy between experimentation and reporting. Brian tells us the Times' editors cut his interview with Lori Andrews on her great work on the specific issue of the constitutionality of cloning per se. I wondered about why the piece didn't mention the important FDA policy prohibiting cloning that aims at gestation; Brian says the editors cut that too.Labels: Brian Alexander, cloning, cloning prohibitions, embryos, FDA, first amendment, laws, New York Times, rights to research
Pay My Malpractice Insurance and Call Me in the Morning
Sandra Boodman, in a Washington Post story sent to us by the Northwest Herald, interviews two physicians who require extra fees of insure patients. One asks $10 each - again that's from the patient - to cover his $10,000 malpractice bill. Another writes of his $125 fee (to cover his $30,000 bill) that "he felt compelled to act ... after his income dipped below the national average for his specialty, about $140,000."Labels: healthcare costs, malpractice, Washington Post
Blogs and Politics - The Paper of Record
NYTimes Magazine has at long last staked out a position on the increasing importance of blogs. This is an interesting piece particularly in terms of the potential role of blogging in biopolitics.Labels: biopolitics, blogging, NYTimes Magazine, politics
GATTACA Bioethics Edition
Sony Pictures has recently produced a high resolution version of GATTACA, the ubiquitous reprogenetics movie. But we now know that next week they go into the mixing booth to produce a "bioethics version" - yep - of the DVD, which will include a bioethics documentary and possibly a bioethics commentary dub.Labels: bioethics commentary, documentary, DVD, GATTACA, media and bioethics, movies, pop culture, reprogenetics
Schiavo Discussed Around the Nation
In the wake of the Thursday decision by the Florida Supreme Court that "Terri's Law" is unconstitutional, there is a lot of new analysis of this case and its role. The Miami Herald offers a timeline of events in the case itself and an excerpt of the unanimous ruling. The right to life websites are aflame with discussion of appeal possibilities. Wilkes McHugh, the firm that represents Gov. Bush in the case, has the legal documents. The Philadelphia Inquirer writes that there was just no hope at any point after the December 2 opinion of the independent guardian.Labels: Bush, case analysis, Schiavo, Supreme Court, Terri's Law
LeRoy Walters on John Fletcher
The Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal article by LeRoy Walters on the life and death of John Fletcher is out in the September 2004 issue. The most widely read obituary was of course the Washington Post essay by Adam Bernstein.Labels: John Fletcher, Kennedy Institute of Ethics, LeRoy Walters, obituary, Washington Post
NIH Employee Payment Policy (COI)
The Los Angeles Times story about the NIH response to conflict of interest includes an Institutes-wide ban on outside payments to employees. Bob Koepp brought this to the attention of MCW readers.Labels: ban outside payments, Conflict of Interest, NIH
What is This?
This weblog is written by the Editors of
The blog format allows the editors to tap an incredible stream of information that relates to bioethics as it flows through our offices.
If you like the blog, you may indeed want to try the dry scholarly stuff -
The Editors are:
Glenn McGee PhD - Editor in Chief, American Journal of Bioethics
David Magnus PhD - Stanford University - Associate Editor,
Paul Root Wolpe PhD - University of Pennsylvania - Associate Editor. and
Summer Johnson PhD - Bioethics Education Network, LLC-- Editor, Bioethics.net.
In addition, Art Caplan and Ricki Lewis are regular guest bloggers these days, and each of their posts are identified by name.
We have spawned several other blogs and most of them keep close touch with us, and Karama at sowhatcanido bought us a cup of coffee in thanks. We link to every one of them, and as many others as we find.
FAQ:
WHY WOULD A MEDICAL JOURNAL'S EDITORS WRITE A BLOG?
Plenty of people wrote us and complained that the Journal's web site 1) did not cover all the news (only a few things fit there), 2) did not discuss the news or put it in context. So, now we think we've solved that problem. Editing a journal makes this a much, much easier proposition: not only do we get news items from lots of reporters and other contributors, we are happily blessed with students and others who volunteer time to help synthesize it.
Bioethics clearly needs a good blog and AJOB is trying to create it. That we happen to run bioethics' most-visited web site does, admittedly, make it much easier to get feedback quickly and from lots of people. We hope you like this thing enough to add it to your daily diet. And please send us your advice.
SHOULD I USE INFORMATION IN THIS PAGE TO TREAT MY PATIENTS OR MAKE HEALTHCARE DECISIONS?
Only if you are out of your mind, or are Jack Kevorkian, or both. Ok, no, seriously, this is our disclaimer:
Statements on this site do not represent the views of anyone other than those writing the posts, nor do views expressed in comments reflect the views of any authors of posts or of the Editors and Editorial Board and publishers of The American Journal of Bioethics. Views expressed herein are not represented in any way to be those of Albany Medical College or Albany Medical Center or Alden March Bioethics Institute or of Stanford University, University of Pennsylvania, or their hospitals or other associated institutions, or the Editorial Board of The American Journal of Bioethics, or Taylor & Francis Health Sciences. Nor has any editor been in any way induced or compensated for expressing any view or discussing any subject on the blog, and, where apparent to the Editor in Chief, any conflict of interest or commitment pertaining to any post will be disclosed as a subtext to any message in which the potential conflict obtains. Nor do the editors profit from the blog or any portion thereof while part of the blog, although of course the authors retain all copyright through the terms of the Creative Commons license on the site, and thus may use or publish any post elsewhere in compliance with U.S. copyright law.The information on this site is intended for discussion purposes only, and not as recommendations on how to diagnose or treat illnesses. There is no link whatever between blog.bioethics.net and any research project involving any subject of any kind: human,animal vegetable or mineral. No confidential patient or research subject information held by any author of any posting will be placed on the blog, nor should any information you post in comments or email written to the authors or managers of the blog, authors of its postings, in comments, to management, or to our design or technical support staff be considered confidential. Do not post or otherwise utilize confidential information of any kind on this site.
WHO FUNDS THE BLOG?
Here's a list of sponsors from 2005, but in brief, the blog was funded in part by a grant from The Greenwall Foundation (#5-39182 (8), "Bioethics Education Network") to PI Glenn McGee. The blog is independent from the Journal in one very important sense: Taylor & Francis do not fund, support or hold copyright on it. That said, as editors of the Journal we take care to ensure that ads on the blog not detract in any way from the AJOB mission or compromise in any way the editorial process.
THIS FAQ LAST UPDATED: 08/24/08
