Ethics Newsline®

VARIOUS DATELINES
Recent developments in medicine, biology, and life sciences are triggering a variety of ethics dilemmas. Among last week’s top stories:

• The senior science adviser to the British government last week proposed a universal code of ethics for scientists. According to reports from the BBC and the U.K. Guardian, Sir David King characterizes the code as the equivalent of a Hippocratic Oath. It contains seven principles: “Act with skill and care; keep skills up to date; Prevent corrupt practice and declare conflicts of interest; respect and acknowledge the work of other scientists; ensure that research is justified and lawful; minimize impacts on people, animals, and the environment; discuss issues science raises for society; do not mislead; present evidence honestly.”
• Ethics programs have been ramped up throughout South Korea’s scientific community in the aftermath of last year’s stem-cell research-fraud scandal. The Korea Times reports that 96 public and private laboratories throughout the nation have set up verification programs for their research and development programs. Only 15 institutions had mechanisms to fight fraud or fabrication before the scandal broke.
• Genetics tests that can be administered at home are raising moral concerns, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. A growing number of start-up firms offer a service in which a small sample amount is collected and sent back to the lab. Chewed gum, a shirt containing perspiration, or a hair from a comb will suffice. Among the expanding suite of tests: a determination of an unborn baby’s gender and paternity. The paternity test raises some particularly troublesome questions because it allows mothers to conduct the test without the suspected father’s knowledge, reports the Chronicle.
• The Holocaust Museum is preparing an exhibit on the role of doctors in the Nazis’ attempt to engineer a “master race,” reports the Houston Chronicle. A new exhibit and lecture series, titled “Medical Ethics and the Holocaust,” recounts physicians’ participation in murder and gruesome experiments. The goal, according to the Houston physician who designed the exhibit, is to explore whether modern developments in genetics could lead to a new eugenics movement. “It’s a warning shot across the bow,” Dr. Sheldon Rubenfeld tells the Chronicle. “There’ll always be a push for individuals, nations, or races to dominate others — coming genetic capabilities will give them that potential more than ever before.”
• In Atlanta, researchers at Emory University are planning to launch a program to screen healthy patients for genetic clues indicating that they may be predisposed to future illnesses. But as the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports, the program also poses some ethical dilemmas, including what information could or should be kept from insurers and employers. “It’s not only about health and health insurance,” Eric Meslin, director of the Center for Bioethics at Indiana University, tells the Journal-Constitution. “It’s about life insurance. It’s about employment…. It’s pick anything where society is making judgments about who is fit to … get entitlements.”