I realise quite keenly and lament the fact that
BioEdge’s coverage of the world of bioethics is biased towards the
English-speaking world. I have a smattering of other languages, but it is
impossible to scan the media in Czech, or Danish, or Chinese. So, help! If you
feel that something is worth reporting outside of the Anglosphere, please pass
it on.
At least we managed to pick up a
fascinating story from Argentina which mixes power politics, media magnates, a
billion-dollar inheritance, human rights, dark secrets and genetic testing. The
adopted heirs of a leading Argentine leading media group have been forced to
give DNA samples to see if they are the children of los desaparecidos, victims
of the military junta which executed left-wing foes and adopted out their
babies.
Should they be forced by a
specially-tailored law to know the truth about themselves, especially since
their obscure origin may have nothing to do with los desaparecidos? Lots of
room for discussion here – and for a film script.
Amongst the intriguing stories this week is
one which deals with the incendiary issue of abortion. We don’t cover the
abortion debate too often, as it is well covered on dozens, if not hundreds, of
newsletters and websites and it tends to polarise readers. However, an
initiative of Iowa Planned Parenthood caught my eye. Its doctors are doing
abortions by telemedicine by prescribing the drug mifepristone to its rural clients.
This brings to the fore some interesting and
quite unexplored issues in medical ethics. Is medicine a personal relationship,
or just a service? Is the internet an adequate way of engaging in a doctor-patient
relationship? Can patient confidentiality be ensured? How can telemedicine
doctors ensure continuity of service?
This seems to be consistent with a growing
trend towards depersonalisation in society. Is it really where medicine should
go? Any ideas?
We are looking forward to a redesign of the
BioEdge website in the not-too-distant future. Do you have any suggestions to
make it more attractive and useful – for research, study or general interest? Get
in there early!
One feature that we are keen to exploit is the
Facebook paraphernalia which we have added recently. Try them out. It’s a very
easy way to share articles with your friends.
This week’s selection of articles is a bit
on the light side, with a YouTube video of a thrash death metal song from Fear
Factory about assisted suicide and a bizarre attempted murder in California
which might qualify as a “mercy killing”. But there are weighty stories
aplenty, as well…
With economic meltdown threatening in Europe and a catastrophic oil
spill in the Gulf, the US media still gave wall-to-wall coverage to the
controversy over Facebook’s privacy controls. Grandstanding congressmen were
demanding that Facebook make its rules simpler.
But when an opportunity came to debate a privacy issue which reaches
much further into people’s lives, the House of Representatives hardly paid
attention. By a vote of 357 to 32 it approved “Katie’s
Law”, a measure that will bribe state governments to help build up a national
DNA crime database. This was hugely controversial in the UK’s recent election
and one of the first promises made by the new government’s deputy prime
minister was to dismantle the country’s vast DNA database as a blot on British
liberties.
Why isn’t the US media taking this up? Whether
you approve or disapprove of a DNA database, you must admit that it is a major
civil liberties issue.
We have a few other stories for you this
week as well: reopening the debate over gay blood donors, organ donation in
Pakistan, the perils of ancestor testing, adult stem cells which rebuilt a
boy’s windpipe, and much more.
May I could share a personal reflection
with you? This is a job in which one reads about an astonishing number of
fruitcakes. I don’t mean people with strongly held convictions or vaunting
ambitions whom I take issue with. No, I’m thinking of Real McCoy fruitcakes.
The big story in bioethics this week is
clearly Craig Venter’s announcement that his team has created a synthetic
genome. No one greeted this with more enthusiasm than the Raelians, a bizarre
cult which believes that humans were created by aliens called the Elohim and
wants to clone humans as a path to immortality.
Their leader, Rael, a former French sports
journalist, says: "With Venter's achievement, we're witnessing the first
step toward the Elohimization of humanity that will bring the creation of the
first synthetic human being."
So, if any of our readers have Craig
Venter’s ear, perhaps they could tell him that he has a future as a cult figure
in addition to his other accomplishments.
Female genital mutilation is wrong, right?
So why has the American Academy of Pediatrics appealed for a relaxation of a
government ban on the practice? The AAP thinks that a blanket ban on an ancient
cultural practice will not work. Instead parents are going to haul their
daughters back to the old country where the procedure will take place without
anaesthetics, without hygiene, perhaps with a shard of broken glass.
Absolutely not, say the AAP’s counterparts
in the UK. They regard this notion as a shameful concession to repugnant and oppressive
gender-based violence.
The conflict of realism with principle is
fascinating. Where do you stand on this? Make a comment!
Early next week we will publish an
interview with distinguished American bioethicist George J. Annas about his
latest book, Worst Case Bioethics. Please visit the BioEdge website to check it
out.
Cheers,
Michael Cook
Editor
PS – you may have received a request for
donations from us this week. Please consider it carefully.
This week we had to
sift through a number of interesting stories and articles in
professional journals. It's impossible to fit everything in and some
of the most intriguing stories get left out.
I was particularly
struck by two stories from Australia. In the first, an Australian
traumea surgeon, Craig Jurisevic, has just published
his memoirs of his time in the 1999 Kosovo War. He went on
patrols, provided intelligence, killed Serb soldiers, and operated in
battlefield hospitals run by the Kosovo Liberation Army. Were his
battlefield exploits compatible with his Hippocratic Oath? How should
the Australian Medical Association respond?
And in the
second, an intensive care doctor had to quash suspicions that she
kept a convicted child-killer alive so that she could make a
deathbed confession to police about other murders. Emma Hothersall
told an inquest in Queensland that police had never put pressure on
her to keep Valmae Beck alive after she suffered a heart attack.
But what if they had? What would be the ethics of extending a lifer's
life?
Perhaps some of
your friends are novelists – get them to subscribe to BioEdge!
We've linked
the BioEdge website to a Facebook page. Why don't you think about
becoming a fan?
A canny Australian prime minister once
mused that the benchmark of success for his administration was sport on the front
page of newspapers. No scandals, no wars, no natural
disasters, just the weekly drama of football and horses.
I feel a bit the same about BioEdge. I’d
like to report more extensively on serious debates about the morality of
euthanasia, stem cell research, informed consent and other cutting edge issues.
But lurid dramas about personal morality keep intruding.
For instance, in this issue, we report that
the president-elect of the World Medical Association has been arrested on
corruption charges. Dr Ketan Desai will have his day in court to prove his
innocence, but it is not the first time and the last time he was found guilty. He may have managed to
corrupt the whole process of medical accreditation in India along the way. No
doubt this will have other perverse effects.
Disgracefully, at the same time as he was allegedly scooping up
bribes from medical institutions, Dr Desai was busy forbiddding Indian doctors to accept gifts from drug companies. Indian medical students can be forgiven if they end up feeling cynical about the whole enterprise of medical ethics. The
lesson from this sorry episode seems to be that defining ethical standards is important, but they are worthless without personal integrity.
It's hardly the most significant of this
week's stories, but I found the news that the mayor of a small Connecticut town had donated a kidney
to one of her constituents worthy of a TV drama. The most fascinating feature
was that the recipient was one of her Facebook friends.
Facebook and other social networking tools are
clearly transforming the way we interact. How will it affect bioethics? We've
already featured news about psychiatrists who researched their patients on
Facebook, raising serious issues of privacy and confidentiality. Expect to read
even more convoluted stories in the years ahead.
Our lead story today
is not all that momentous, to be honest. That adjective could possibly be used of the news further
down the page that British scientists are on the road to creating babies whose
DNA comes from two mothers and one father.
But it’s the sort of drama which appeals to me because it shows the human
consequences of assisted reproduction. It is a case of embryo adoption, a
practice promoted by some Christian groups to “rescue” left-over IVF embryos
which would otherwise be used for research or, more probably, be discarded. But
even Christians, it seems, find it hard to grapple with the complex human
dilemmas thrown up when technology substitutes for nature.
If you come across similar stories, send them along. They give life to dry
scientific developments and academic debates.
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| michael@bioedge.org
4:46:00 PM
June 18, 2010