Ethics Newsline®

“This is to avoid inducements for people to do this for a profit motive. It should be an altruistic motive. This should not be a commercial activity.”

– MIT cancer researcher Richard Hynes, discussing ethics guidelines for stem cell research released last week by a panel he co-led. The panel, commissioned by the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine, is moving to “fill a vacuum created by the Bush administration’s limitations on embryonic stem cell research,” reported the New York Times. Federal ethics rules approved by Bush in 2001 apply only to a very small number of stem cell lines studied with public funds, leaving the more expansive work done using private or state funds to proceed without overarching guidelines. (“Stem Cell Research Standards Offered,” Los Angeles Times, Apr. 27)