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Semantic Misconception:
The American Journal of Bioethics Special Issue

The new issue of The American Journal of Bioethics is out, and it includes a number of articles that take aim at the question of whether or not ethical issues in stem cell research can be "avoided." The issue is called Semantic Cell Transplantation [thanks Dr. Sally Temple], and in it are:

InFocus articles by Kyu Won Jung and Insoo Hyun - which are up now but will appear in the January Febuary issue - who created the Korean stem cell research team's egg procurement protocols, which they say are the lynchpin of an ethical program at Hwang Woo-suk's labs; together with a reply from (our own) David Magnus and Mildred Cho who discuss the Jung/Hyun guidelines and argue that ironically we may now realize in the wake of the Korean egg debacle that the Hwang team has the best procedure of all.

Led by an editorial by our Sean Philpott "Eggs, Lies and Compromise," two Target Articles go right to the heart of the relationship between stem cell research, politics and ethics. S. Matthew Liao argues for a method that might avoid the debate, with Open Peer Commentaries from Søren Holm, John Robertson and others. And Lawrence Nelson and Michael Meyer contend that the President's Council on Bioethics made deep mistakes in its report on ethical issues in stem cell and embryo research. There too there are Open Peer Commentaries from a number of key scholars with access to the debates involving the PCB.

Matt Wynia writes the second installment of our new Bioethics & Public Health section, on public health research. And there are a number of other articles and reviews.