Bioethics: A guide to experts and resources

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Americans are confronting challenges in bioethics every day and in every venue, from hospital rooms and research labs to Congress and the Supreme Court. Developments in genetics, debates over the beginning of life and the fate of embryos, and technologies that extend and even create life are raising complex questions in medical decisions and treatment.

researcherWhen does life begin, and what constitutes death? Who is the mother of a child produced by surrogacy or by combining the genetic material of two women and a man? Is it moral to allow parents to select the sex of their child or genetically enhance certain traits? Should an alcoholic or smoker receive a new organ instead of someone who did not engage in risky behavior?

Bioethics is an interdisciplinary approach to these and other issues. It draws on law, philosophy, religion, history, sociology, anthropology and literature to explore questions stemming from innovations in medicine and science. Historians variously date the birth of bioethics to the 1960s and the beginning of the Seattle artificial kidney program, to the 1972 public revelation of the 40-year-old Tuskegee syphilis experiment on African-American men, or the 1975 collapse of Karen Ann Quinlan, who spent a decade in a persistent vegetative state. Most bioethicists consider the four governing principles of bioethics to be autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence (doing no harm) and justice. These were articulated by Tom Beauchamp and James Childress in their book Principles of Biomedical Ethics (Oxford University Press, 1994).

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This guide begins by outlining major issues in bioethics, then divides sources into two categories – organizations and individuals, and closes with background.

Organizations are divided into:

Individuals are divided into:

Major issues

Some of the major issues on the current bioethics agenda include:

  • Embryonic stem cell research – The U.S. ban on embryonic stem cell research has produced fissures within the religious and scientific communities and led to a “brain drain” – scientists leaving the country to work where laws allow more research. Is taking cells from a frozen embryo marked for destruction unethical? Can the same research benefits be gotten from adult stem cell research? Does the potential for curing diseases such as diabetes and Parkinson’s outweigh concerns for the frozen embryo?
  • Genetic testing – Is there an ethical imperative to be tested for known disease genes, like the BRCA1/2 genes for breast cancer, and if so, how can confidentiality be preserved? Should one be tested for a gene, such as the Huntington’s disease mutation, if no treatment exists? Do companies developing genetic tests have an obligation to the public to restrict commercialization of tests if no treatment exists for the condition?
  • Physician-assisted suicide – Does a person have the moral right to terminate his or her own life? Can a physician, who swears by the Hippocratic Oath to protect life, be allowed to help? If so, in what circumstances? Oregon is the only state in which physician-assisted suicide is legal, and most states consider suicide a criminal act.
  • End-of-life issues – When can care be ethically terminated for critically ill patients? What is the difference between removing the barriers to death and prolonging life? What constitutes death – brain death, or the cessation of heart function and respiration? When can organs be removed from a dying patient for transplant?
  • Assisted reproductive technologies – New technologies have moved far beyond in vitro fertilization, which was first successfully performed more than three decades ago. Many raise new questions, including who are the legal parents and what are their rights and responsibilities? Issues include egg donation, sperm donation, sex selection, surrogate births, the use of donated genetic material from two women, and genetic diagnosis before embryo implantation.
  • Organ transplantation – Patients in desperate need of transplants – hearts, kidneys, livers – far outnumber donors. How should organs be allocated – according to who is most sick or who can benefit most? Is it ethical to sell organs from live donors and offer incentives to families of potential donors? Is the commodification of organs on the open market ethical, or does it lead to abuses, such as undue financial pressure on low-income individuals and on families who could be persuaded to go against the wishes of the donor?
  • Xenotransplantation – The development and use of animal tissues and organs for transplantation into humans has the potential to ease shortages, but it is fraught with problems, given the possible transfer of animal viruses to humans. What protections should be put in place to ensure safety, and what ethical considerations must be considered regarding the breeding and use of animals for tissue and organ harvest?
  • Research ethics – Testing new drugs, devices and procedures calls into question how patients’ interests can best be protected. What is required for informed consent? Can a cancer patient who participates in a clinical trial with the hope of a miracle cure give it? Should gene therapy trials have more stringent rules than other clinical trials? Bioethicists are concerned with sufficient protection of human subjects, proper oversight and investigator conflict-of-interest.
  • Health-care resource allocation – Most health-care money is spent on the beginning of life (premature birth or birth defects) or the end. Health-care resources are limited; should spending be rationed, and if so, by what criteria?
  • Gene therapy – This experimental treatment involves changing or repairing defective genes to treat, cure or possibly prevent disease. Gene therapy has resulted in death (of Jesse Gelsinger in 1999) and disease, however, so do the benefits outweigh the risks?
  • Genetic research among indigenous peoples – Many pharmaceutical and biotech companies, as well as university researchers and international consortia, are conducting genetic research in native populations to find disease-related genes. Is such research, sometimes dubbed “helicopter science,” ethical if the subjects will not benefit from the research? Bioethicists are working with researchers to develop protocols that are fair and can benefit research subjects.
  • Gene patenting – Is patenting disease genes ethical? What about patenting cells, or components of cells? Bioethicists are divided about whether it is permissible to patent genes, why and under what circumstances.
  • Neuroethics – This field encompasses a range of ethical questions that are emerging from research in neuroscience, psychiatry and pharmacology and that touch on issues of consciousness, personality and spirituality. It also includes the ethics of neuroimaging and cognitive enhancement.
  • Genetically engineered food – Some maintain that genetically engineering food goes against nature, while others say that feeding famine victims rice engineered to contain extra nutrients is a greater good.

Organizations

Government

International

  • The World Health Organization’s web site contains information about the Human Genome Project, xenotransplantation and other bioethics issues. The site also includes Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences information about human subject research across borders. Contact 011-41-22-791-22-22, mediainquiries@who.int.
  • The Nuffield Council on Bioethics in the United Kingdom was established in 1991 to identify and assess ethical questions raised by advances in biological and medical research. Since 1994, it has been funded jointly by The Nuffield Foundation, the Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Trust. Two current projects focus on prolonging life in fetuses and the newborn and the ethics of public health; past projects, with reports available on its web site, include the ethics of research involving animals, stem cell therapy and genetically modified crops. Contact 011-44-20-7681-9619, cjoynson@nuffieldbioethics.org.
  • The European Union’s bioethics activities are described on its web site, as is information on national bioethics committees, laws, policy issues and relevant national bioethics documents. Contact Waldemar.Kutt@ec.europa.eu.

National

  • The American Society for Bioethics and Humanities in Glenview, Ill., is a professional advocacy group that brings together bioethicists from medicine, nursing, law, sociology, anthropology, government and philosophy. The society organizes a large educational conference each year and periodic smaller, topical meetings. It has an excellent resource page that lists bioethics institutes, programs and online texts and other resources. Contact 847-375-4745, info@asbh.org.
  • The American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics in Boston is a resource for professionals at the nexus of law, medicine and ethics. It focuses on issues including end-of-life care, medical privacy and health disparities. The society also publishes a journal. Its acting executive director is Ted Hutchinson. Contact 617-262-4990, thutchinson@aslme.org.
  • The Public Responsibility in Medicine and Research/Applied Research Ethics National Association in Boston focuses on the ethics of human and animal research. It organizes conferences each year that are attended by researchers, subject advocates, ethicists, policy-makers, attorneys and pharmaceutical and biotech leaders. Joan Rachlin is executive director. Contact 617-423-4112, jrachlin@primr.org or info@primr.org.
  • The nonprofit Hastings Center in Garrison, N.Y., explores bioethics questions in health care, biotechnology and the environment. Recent research projects range from genetic paternity testing to newborn screening to palliative care. Contact 845-424-4040. Media contact is Greg Kaebnick, kaebnickg@thehastingscenter.org.
  • The American Medical Association’s Institute for Ethics is an academic research center. The AMA has ongoing projects in ethics, human rights, public health preparedness and other topics. Contact 312-464-4430 or 800-621-8335.
  • The American College of Physicians – American Society of Internal Medicine’s Center for Ethics and Professionalism focuses on developing and carrying out policy on issues related to medical ethics. Its ethics and human rights committee develops educational programs on bioethics, human rights and professionalism. Contact director Lois Snyder at 215-351-2835, lsnyder@acponline.org.

Major university-based bioethics centers

See linked lists of bioethics organizations from:


  • The University of Pennsylvania Center for Bioethics in Philadelphia is the pre-eminent bioethics center in the United States, with more than 20 faculty, led by Arthur Caplan. It opened in 1994 and is devoted to teaching and research. The center’s staff includes experts in philosophy, medicine, law, anthropology, sociology and religion. Its web site is an excellent place to start an exploration of any bioethics topic and is also home to The American Journal of Bioethics. Contact 215-898-7136.
  • Georgetown University is the nation’s oldest Catholic and Jesuit university, home to the Kennedy Institute of Ethics, the oldest academic bioethics center (see its scholars); the Bioethics Research Library at Georgetown University, the world’s largest collection of information on biomedical ethics; and the National Information Resource on Ethics and Human Genetics, funded by the National Human Genome Research Institute of the National Institutes of Health. A pioneering bioethics institution, Georgetown has trained many of the most pre-eminent contemporary bioethicists. Its Center for Clinical Bioethics was established in 1991 at Georgetown University Medical Center as a university-based bioethics resource for those who shape and give health care. It brings together scholars with expertise in philosophy, law, theology, basic science and clinical practice, and trains nursing and medical students and doctoral candidates. Contact 202-687-0100.
  • Boston University’s health law, bioethics and human rights department at the School of Public Health focuses on law and public policy, as well as patients’ rights. Chairman George Annas, as well as Dr. Michael Grodin, Wendy Mariner and Leonard Glantz, are pre-eminent scholars in the field. Contact (617) 638-4626.
  • Johns Hopkins University’s Phoebe R. Berman Bioethics Institute is a large research and teaching institute that addresses health policy, medical care and the biological and behavioral sciences; promotes research on the intersection of ethics, law, medicine and science; and provides service to the government and private sector. It has formal programs in cell engineering, ethics and public policy; ethics and brain sciences; bioethics and public policy; ethics in clinical practice; and research ethics. It has close ties to scientists working at the school in the forefront of stem cell science and runs conferences on that subject. The institute’s director is Ruth Faden. See a list of faculty. Contact 410-516-8500, bioethic@jhsph.edu.
  • Tuskegee University’s National Center for Bioethics in Research and Health Care was established in January 1999 as a partial response to the apology of President Clinton for the United States Public Health Service Study on Syphilis conducted at Tuskegee, Macon County, Ala., from 1932 to 1972. The center addresses ethical issues in science, technology and health, with an emphasis on effects among people of color and other minorities. Contact 334-724-4612, bioethics@tuskegee.edu.
  • The University of Minnesota’s Center for Bioethics was founded 21 years ago and is one of the leading research centers for bioethics, with 15 full- and part-time faculty. The center conducts original interdisciplinary research, offers educational programs and fosters public discussion through community outreach. The center focuses on the policy level, working closely with policy-makers, health-care professionals and university communities. Projects include the Genetics and Identity Project, Genetics in Primary Care: Ethical and Professional Challenges, African Genealogy and Genetics: Looking Back to Move Forward and Blueprint of the Body on the Human Genome Project. Contact 612-624-9440, bioethx@umn.edu.

Religious

CHRISTIAN

  • The National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia conducts research and consultations in health care and life sciences in accordance with teachings of the Catholic Church. It consults on life science and medical issues with the Vatican, U.S. bishops, public policy-makers, hospitals and international organizations of all faiths. It publishes two journals, Ethics and Medics and The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly. Contact 215-877-2660.
  • The Center for Christian Bioethics, which opened in 1984, sponsors teaching, research and service in biomedical ethics and related fields at Loma Linda University in California. The university includes a health sciences campus operated by the Seventh-day Adventist Church. It conducts monthly bioethics grand rounds at Loma Linda University Medical Center; an annual bioethics seminar in medicine, law and ministry; and occasional national and international conferences on issues of current interest. Contact 909-558-4956, mcarr@llu.edu.
  • The National Council of Churches formed a Human Genetics Policy Development Committee in 2004 to guide the ecumenical community’s work on human genetic technology. Its chairwoman is Clare Chapman, NCC vice president and executive director of finance and administration for the United Methodist Church General Commission on Church Unity and Interreligious Concerns in New York. The committee also includes scientists, ethicists and clergy. The council is planning a conference on biotechnology next year. Contact Carol Fouke, 212-870-2252, news@nccusa.org.
  • Neiswanger Institute for Bioethics and Health Policy at Loyola University of Chicago’s Stritch School of Medicine in Maywood, Ill., is a pluralistic bioethics institute that draws upon its commitment to social justice of the Jesuit and Roman Catholic heritage. Contact 708-327-9200, bioethics@lumc.edu.
  • The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity in Bannockburn, Ill., helps individuals and organizations address bioethical challenges, including end-of-life treatment, genetic intervention, euthanasia and reproductive technologies, from a Christian perspective. It was launched in 1994 after more than a dozen leading Christian bioethicists gathered to assess the noticeable lack of explicit Christian engagement in the bioethics arena. The center collaborates with many groups, including the Christian Medical and Dental Society and the Christian Legal Society. Its web site contains articles with overviews on various topics in bioethics, some position statements, bibliographies and podcasts. Contact 847-317-8180, info@cbhd.org.
  • Baptists for Life’s Center for Biblical Bioethics in Grand Rapids, Mich., sponsors the “Biblical Bioethics Advisor” newsletter to provide pastors, Christian counselors, physicians and others with a digest of current issues in bioethics and an overview of biblical approaches to resolving the moral conflicts they present. The center, which opposes abortion, also advocates for the elderly, handicapped and terminally ill “who are threatened by euthanasia.” Contact 616-257-6800, b4life@bfl.org.

JEWISH

  • The National Association of Judaism and Medicine in Brooklyn, N.Y., provides a forum for issues raised by advancements in medical science. The association, founded in 1988 and sponsored in part by the State University of New York-Downstate Medical Center, examines issues through the lens of Jewish ethical tradition by bringing together leaders in medical science and rabbinic scholars. Contact director Dr. Michael “Moshe” Akerman, 917-760-2770.
  • The Reconstructionist Rabbinical College’s Levin-Lieber Program in Jewish Ethics in Wyncote, Pa., trains rabbis in practical ethics. Contact 215-576-0800.

MUSLIM

  • The Islamic Medical Association of North America, based in Lombard, Ill., promotes greater awareness of Islamic medical ethics and values among Muslims and others, provides humanitarian and medical relief and acts as an advocate for health-care policy. Contact 630-932-0000, hq@imana.org.
  • The Islamic Organization for Medical Sciences’ site, Science, Environment and Technology, contains information on conferences on bioethics and Islam and articles on cloning, alternative medicine, biotechnology and genetics, and other bioethics-related topics.

Individuals

National sources

  • Lori B. Andrews is a law professor; director of the Institute for Science, Law and Technology; and associate vice president of the Chicago-Kent College of Law at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. Andrews has served as an adviser on genetic and reproductive technology to Congress, the World Health Organization, the National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and several foreign nations. She served as chairwoman of the federal Working Group on the Ethical, Legal and Social Implications of the Human Genome Project and recently served as a consultant to the science ministers of 12 countries on the issues of embryo stem cells, gene patents and DNA banking. Andrews has written 10 books, including The Clone Age: Adventures in the New World of Reproductive Technology (Holt, 1999) and Future Perfect: Confronting Decisions About Genetics (Columbia University Press,2001) and co-authored Genetics: Ethics, Law and Policy (West Publishing, 2002) and The Body Bazaar: The Market for Human Tissue in the Biotechnology Age (Crown Publishers, 2001). Contact 312-906-5000, landrews@kentlaw.edu.
  • Margaret P. Battin is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Adjunct Professor of Internal Medicine, Division of Medical Ethics, at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. The author of prize-winning short stories and recipient of the University of Utah’s Distinguished Research Award, she has authored, edited or co-edited 15 books, among them a study of philosophical issues in suicide; a scholarly edition of John Donne’s Biathanatos; a collection on age-rationing of medical care; Puzzles About Art, a volume of case-puzzles in aesthetics; a text on professional ethics; Ethics in the Sanctuary, a study of ethical issues in organized religion; and a collection of her essays on end-of-life issues, titled The Least Worst Death. She has also been engaged in research on active euthanasia and assisted suicide in the Netherlands. She has published Ethical Issues in Suicide, trade-titled The Death Debate, as well as several co-edited or co-authored collections, including Drug Use in Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide; Physician-Assisted Suicide: Expanding the Debate; Praying for a Cure, a jointly authored volume on the ethics of religious refusal of medical treatment; and Medicine and Social Justice. She is currently at work on a historical sourcebook on ethical issues in suicide, a book on world population growth and reproductive rights, and two multiauthored projects, one on ethics and infectious disease and one on drugs and justice. A second collection of her essays and fiction on end-of-life issues, Ending Life (Oxford University Press), was published in 2005. Contact 801-581-6608, battin@utah.edu.
  • Tom Beauchamp is a professor of philosophy and a senior research scholar at Georgetown University’s Kennedy Institute of Ethics in Washington, D.C. In 1976, he joined the staff of the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, where he wrote the bulk of The Belmont Report (1978), the first and still-definitive document on patients’ rights and human experimentation. Beauchamp is a co-author of Principles of Biomedical Ethics (Oxford University Press, 2001). Contact 202-687-6726, beauchat@georgetown.edu.
  • Daniel Callahan is a co-founder of the Hastings Center in Garrison, N.Y., director of its international program and a senior fellow at the Harvard Medical School, directing its ethics track. Much of his recent research focuses on health-care and research policy. His project on medicine and the market is examining the impact of market theory on health-care systems, with special attention to equity and health-care costs. He is the author or editor of 36 books, including The Research Imperative: What Price Better Health? (University of California Press, 2003) and False Hopes: Overcoming the Obstacles to a Sustainable, Affordable Medicine (Simon & Schuster and Rutgers University Press, 1998). Contact 914-424-4040, callahand@thehastingscenter.org.
  • Nigel Cameron is president of the Institute on Biotechnology and the Human Future at Chicago-Kent College of Law. He is also director of the Center on Nanotechnology and Society; director of the Council for Biotechnology Policy in Washington, D.C.; chairman of the Centre for Bioethics and Public Policy in London; and Research Professor of Bioethics and Associate Dean at Chicago-Kent College of Law. He formerly was provost and distinguished professor of theology at Trinity International University in Deerfield, Ill., and he is founder of the journal Ethics and Medicine. 312-906-5296, ncameron@kentlaw.edu.
  • Arthur Caplan is a professor and chairman of bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania and director of the university’s Center for Bioethics. The go-to ethicist is author and editor of more than 25 books and 500 journal articles. Caplan has written and spoken widely on transplantation research ethics, genetics, right-to-die, reproductive technologies and general bioethics. He has served on numerous national and international committees, including as chairman of the advisory committee to the United Nations on human cloning, member of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses and consultant to government and industry on a wide range of issues. He is a frequent media commentator on bioethics. He co-edited The Case of Terri Schiavo: Ethics at the End of Life (Prometheus Books, 2006). Contact 215-898-7136, caplan@mail.med.upenn.edu.
  • Alta Charo is a professor of law and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where she teaches at the law and medical schools. She teaches and writes about health law, bioethics and biotechnology law, medical ethics and reproductive rights. She was a member of the National Bioethics Advisory Committee from 1996-2001 and participated in drafting its reports on cloning, research on people with mental disorders that may affect decision-making, research with human biological materials and ethical issues in stem cell research. Contact 608-262-5015, racharo@wisc.edu (she is a visiting professor of law at the University of California at Berkeley through December 2006).
  • James F. Childress is a professor of religious studies at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. He co-wrote Principles of Biomedical Ethics (Oxford University Press, 1994), co-edited the Dictionary of Christian Ethics (Westminster, 1986), and wrote Moral Responsibility in Conflicts: Essays on Nonviolence, War and Conscience (Louisiana State University Press, 1983). Childress was vice chairman of the national Task Force on Organ Transplantation. Contact 434-924-6724, jfc7c@virginia.edu.
  • Bill Colby was the attorney for the Nancy Cruzan family in the first right-to-die case heard by the U.S. Supreme Court. He is author of Unplugged: Reclaiming Our Right to Die in America (AMACON, 2006), and Long Goodbye: The Deaths of Nancy Cruzan (Hay House, 2002). Contact him in Kansas, 913-432-1028, bcolby25@aol.com.
  • Arthur Derse is director of medical and legal affairs, associate director of the Center for the Study of Bioethics, and clinical professor of bioethics and emergency medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin. He serves as a consultant and board member of a many nationally known bioethics groups. Contact (414) 456-8498, aderse@mcw.edu.
  • Troy Duster is a professor of sociology at New York University in New York City who focuses on the sociology of science, the sociology of race and ethnicity, policy and deviance. Duster has written numerous books, including Backdoor to Eugenics (Routledge, 2003), and many articles on race, genetics, genomics and eugenics, including “The Hidden Eugenic Potential of Germ-Line Interventions” in Designing Our Descendants: The Promises and Perils of Genetic Modifications (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003) and “Buried Alive: The Concept of Race in Science” in Genetic Nature/Culture: Anthropology and Science Beyond the Two-Culture Divide (University of California Press, 2003). Contact 212-998-8882, troy.duster@nyu.edu.
  • Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel is chief of the department of clinical bioethics at the National Institutes of Health. An oncologist, Emanuel also has a doctorate in political philosophy from Harvard University. He has published widely on the ethics of clinical research, advance care directives, end-of-life care issues, euthanasia, health-care reform, the ethics of managed care and the physician-patient relationship. His books on medical ethics include The Ends of Human Life (Harvard University Press, 1991) and No Margin, No Mission: Health-Care Organizations and the Quest for Ethical Excellence (Oxford University Press, 2003). In 2004, Emanuel was elected to membership in the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Science. He served on President Clinton’s Health Care Task Force, the National Bioethics Advisory Commission and the bioethics panel of the Pan American Health Organization. Contact eemanuel@nih.gov.
  • Christine Grady is head of the section on human subjects research in the department of clinical bioethics at the W.G. Magnuson Clinical Center at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. A nurse with a doctorate in bioethics, Grady has served as a consultant to international bodies, such as UNAIDS, and spent two years in Brazil with Project Hope. She is the author of Search for an AIDS Vaccine: Ethical Issues in the Development and Testing of a Preventive HIV Vaccine (Indiana University Press, 1995). Contact 301-496-2429, cgrady@nih.gov.
  • Jeffrey Kahn is director of the Center for Bioethics and a professor of medicine at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. From April 1994 to October 1995, he was associate director of the White House Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, which culminated in the publication of The Human Radiation Experiments (Oxford University Press, 1996). Kahn examines the intersection of ethics and public health policy, including research ethics, ethics and genetics, and ethical issues in public health. He has served on numerous state and federal advisory panels and speaks nationally and internationally on a range of bioethics topics. His book examining justice and research ethics is titled Beyond Consent: Seeking Justice in Research (Oxford University Press, 1998). Contact 612-624-8613, jeffkhan@umn.edu.
  • Dr. Joanne Lynn is a pioneer in palliative care and care of the dying, a geriatrician, a health services researcher and an ethicist. Lynn is a senior researcher with RAND Health, trying to improve the care of people facing chronic illnesses that eventually will be fatal. Lynn was co-director of SUPPORT (the Study to Understand Prognoses and Preferences for Outcomes and Risks of Treatments), which studied 10,000 seriously ill hospitalized people and tested an intervention to improve decision-making. Lynn has served as chairwoman for various efforts to improve end-of-life care. She is past president of Americans for Better Care of the Dying and is the author or editor of numerous books, including Sick to Death and Not Going to Take It Anymore: Reforming Health Care for the Last Years of Life (University of California Press, 2004). Contact jlynn@rand.org.
  • Ruth Macklin is a bioethics professor in the department of epidemiology and social medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, N.Y. A philosopher by training, Macklin focuses on ethics in research involving human subjects, with a special interest in international collaborative research conducted in developing countries. Other areas of interest are HIV/AIDS and reproductive health, access to treatment, public health, assisted reproduction, research involving embryos and stem cells, and gene transfer research. She is also a member of the Columbia University Center for Bioethics external advisory board. Contact 718-430-3574, macklin@aecom.yu.edu.
  • Glenn McGee is director of the Alden March Bioethics Institute at Albany Medical College and the John A. Balint Endowed Chair of Medical Ethics in the Albany Medical College. The institute seeks to research areas of innovation in biomedicine to which bioethics has not yet been systematically applied. McGee’s own work seeks to show the connections between moral life, medicine and biomedical sciences. His research interests focus on the regulation of reproductive technology, genetics, stem cell research, cloning and the theory of bioethics. His books include The Perfect Baby: Parenthood in the New World of Cloning and Genetics (Rowman & Littlefield, 2000), Beyond Genetics (HarperCollins, 2004), Pragmatic Bioethics (Vanderbilt University Press, 2002) and The Human Cloning Debate (Berkeley Hills, 2005). Contact 518-262-6082, glenn.mcgee@bioethics.net.
  • Dr. Steven Miles is a professor of medicine and bioethics at the University of Minnesota’s Medical School and Center for Bioethics in Minneapolis, and he is a past president of the American Society of Bioethics and Humanities. He is an author of the original “do not resuscitate” order and has been active in state and national health-care reform. His books include The Hippocratic Oath and the Ethics of Medicine (Oxford University Press, 2004) and Oath Betrayed: Military Medicine and the War on Terror (Random House, July 2006). He has also published 30 chapters and 100 peer-reviewed articles on medical ethics, human rights, tropical medicine, end-of-life care and geriatric health care. He served on President Clinton’s Bioethics Working Group on Health Care Reform. Miles’ work changed tuberculosis treatment for refugees and end-of-life care and has led to the reduction of restraints in nursing homes. His international work includes 25 years of work with the American Refugee Committee. Contact 612-624-9440, miles001@umn.edu.
  • Thomas H. Murray is president of the Hastings Center in Garrison, N.Y., and formerly the director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland. Murray is the author of more than 200 publications and has testified before congressional committees on many bioethics issues. He serves on many advisory committees and editorial boards and was on the National Bioethics Advisory Commission from 1996 to 2001. He has spoken and written about biomedical enhancement, gene therapy, stem cell research, cloning, care-giving and many other topics. Contact 845-424-4040, murrayt@thehastingscenter.org.
  • Pamela Sankar is an anthropologist and an assistant professor of bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania and a senior fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics at the University of Pennsylvania. Sankar’s research interests include medical privacy and confidentiality, ethical and cultural implications of genetic research, research ethics, and genetics and race. Her current research project, “Beyond Stigma: Interpreting Genetic Difference,” examines the relationship between genetic conditions, racial and ethnic identities, and stigma. Contact 215-898-7136, sankarp@mail.med.upenn.edu.
  • LeRoy Walters is Senior Professor of Christian Ethics and professor of philosophy at Georgetown University. He has taught at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics since its founding in 1971. Walters served as director of the institute from 1996-99 and has written, taught and lectured extensively on ethical issues in genetic research and gene therapy, stem cell research and cloning, the history of bioethics, and eugenics and bioethics. He served for three years at the NIH’s Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee, which reviewed gene therapy protocols. Contact 202-687-7487, waltersl@georgetown.edu.
  • Paul Root Wolpe directs the Center for Ethics at Emory University. He is first Chief of Bioethics for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), charged with safeguarding research subjects and astronauts. He is also a professor in the Department of Psychiatry, director of the Program in Psychiatry and Ethics at the School of Medicine, and Senior Fellow of the Leonard Davis Institute for Health Economics. He is a member of Penn’s Cancer Center and Center for AIDS research. He is incoming President of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities, is an editor of the American Journal of Bioethics, and has helped found three professional bioethics societies, two of which deal with issues of religion in bioethics. Contact 404-727-3150, pwolpe@emory.edu.
  • Laurie Zoloth is Director of the Center for Bioethics, Science and Society at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine and director of the Center for Genetic Medicine at the university. She is on the national advisory board of The Robert Wood Johnson’s Project on Excellence at the End of Life. She is past president of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities and was a two-term member of the NASA Advisory Council. She is author of Health Care and the Ethics of Encounter: A Jewish Discussion of Social Justice (University of North Carolina Press, 1999) and co-editor of Notes from a Narrow Ridge: Religion and Bioethics (University Publishing Group, 1999) and The Human Embryonic Stem Cell Debate (MIT, 2001). Contact 312-926-2984, lzoloth@northwestern.edu.

Religious

CHRISTIAN

  • Mark Carr is Associate Scholar at the Center for Christian Bioethics at Loma Linda University, a Seventh-day Adventist college in Loma Linda, Calif.
  • Richard Doerflinger is the deputy director of the Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. He has written extensively on Roman Catholic teachings on bioethics and testified before Congress. Many of his articles are posted on the Pro-Life Activities bioethics web page. Contact 202-541-3070.
  • The Rev. Kevin T. FitzGerald is a research associate professor at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., in the department of oncology. He is also a Jesuit priest with doctorates in molecular genetics and bioethics. His research efforts in science focused on the investigation of abnormal gene regulation in cancer and research on ethical issues in human genetics. He has published both scientific and ethical articles in books, the popular press and peer-reviewed journals. FitzGerald has given presentations nationally and internationally on topics such as human genetic engineering, cloning, stem cell research and the Human Genome Project. For the past 10 years he has served as an ethics consultant for the National Society of Genetic Counselors. He is a consultant to the March of Dimes Ethics Committee and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and is on the advisory committee of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Dialogue on Science, Ethics and Religion. Contact 202-687-8548, ktf3@georgetown.edu.
  • Daniel McGee recently retired as a professor of Christian ethics at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. His work has focused on the implications of Christian ethics for practical, familial, institutional and professional life. He has written more than 60 articles and book chapters dealing with ethics in business, medicine, politics and other areas. McGee studied the applicability of Christian theology to problems affecting the disenfranchised, relationships between different denominations and international political problems, particularly those affecting people in developing nations. Contact 254-710-6316, Daniel_McGee@baylor.edu.
  • Gilbert Meilaender holds the Duesenberg Chair in Christian Ethics at Valparaiso University in Valparaiso, Ind. He is the author of Bioethics: A Primer for Christians (Eerdmans, 2004) and Body, Soul and Bioethics (University of Notre Dame Press, 1995). Contact 202-296-4669, gilbert.meilaender@valpo.edu.
  • Dr. Edmund Pellegrino is a professor emeritus of medicine at Georgetown University Medical Center. He served as director of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics (1983-89) and the Center for Clinical Bioethics at the medical center (1991-96). He previously chaired of the President’s Council on Bioethics. The author of more than 500 publications, he is best-known for his discussions of Christian virtue and medical ethics in the treatment of patients, humanism and the physician, and the philosophical basis of medical treatment. He is the founding editor of the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy. Contact 202-687-5397, pellegre@georgetown.edu.
  • Dr. Daniel Sulmasy is Kilbride-Clinton Professor of Medicine and Ethics in the Department of Medicine and Divinity School at the University of Chicago. Sulmasy is a Franciscan friar and a physician. He also holds a doctorate in philosophy and has expertise in end-of-life decision-making. He wrote The Rebirth of the Clinic: An Introduction to Spirituality in Health Care (Georgetown University Press, 2006) and The Healer’s Calling: A Spirituality for Physicians and Other Health Care Professionals (Paulist Press, 1997). His newest book is A Balm for Gilead: Meditations on Spirituality and the Healing Arts (Georgetown University Press). Contact dsumalsay@uchicago.edu.
  • Sister Carol Taylor is director of the Center for Clinical Bioethics at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. She also is a senior research scholar at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics and an assistant professor of nursing at Georgetown. Her background is in philosophy, bioethics and nursing. She is experienced in caring for chronically and critically ill patients and their families and is a clinical ethics consultant to health-care systems and professional organizations. Contact 202-687-4783, taylorcr@georgetown.edu.
  • Kenneth L. Vaux is a professor of theological ethics at Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary of Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. He has written about theology and medicine and is the co-author of Dying Well (Abingdon Press, 1996). Contact 847-866-3887, Ken-Vaux@garrett.edu.

JEWISH

  • Dr. Michael “Moshe” Akerman is director of the National Association of Judaism and Medicine, which examines issues in medical science in light of Jewish ethical tradition. Contact 866-210-0654.
  • Rabbi Elliot Dorff is the rector and co-chairman of the bioethics department at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles, an undergraduate, graduate and rabbinical school loosely affiliated with the Conservative movement. Ordained as a Conservative rabbi, Dorff also has a doctorate in moral theory and has been instrumental in helping the Conservative movement formulate its Halakhic (legal) position on human sexuality, infertility treatments and end-of-life issues. He testified before the National Bioethics Advisory Committee (the body that preceded the President’s Council on Bioethics) on the Jewish tradition’s position on stem cell research and human cloning. He is working on a project on Judaism and genetics for the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is a member of its Dialogue on Science, Ethics and Religion Advisory Committee. He is the author of Matters of Life and Death: A Jewish Approach to Modern Medical Ethics (Jewish Publication Society, 1998). Contact 310-440-1255, edorff@ajula.edu.
  • Aaron Mackler is a theology professor at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pa., and a Conservative rabbi who has written extensively on health-care ethics, theological ethics and Jewish theology. He was ethicist for the New York State Task Force on Life and the Law, where he played a central role in writing reports on physician-assisted suicide and health-care decision-making. Mackler is a member of the Conservative Rabbinical Assembly’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, for which he is chairman of the subcommittee on biomedical ethics, and he serves as an ethics committee member for Pittsburgh Mercy Health System. He authored Introduction to Jewish and Catholic Bioethics: A Comparative Analysis (Georgetown University Press, 2003), edited Life and Death Responsibilities in Jewish Biomedical Ethics (Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 2000), and has written many articles in scholarly and professional journals. Contact 412-396-6530, mackler@duq.edu.
  • Dr. Edward Reichman is Associate Professor of Clinical Emergency Medicine, Department of Emergency Medicine Montefiore Medical Center and Associate Professor of Clinical Epidemiology and Population Health, Department of Epidemiology and Population Health at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, N.Y., where he teaches Jewish medical ethics. An ordained Orthodox rabbi, Reichman speaks and writes about all areas of Jewish medical ethics, including organ donation, assisted reproduction, and stem cell research. He also serves on the advisory board of the Institute for Genetics and Public Policy. His research is devoted to the interface of medical history and Jewish law. Contact 718-920-5731, ereichma@montefiore.org.
  • Laurie Zoloth is a professor of medical ethics and humanities and of religion at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine and director of the Center of Bioethics, Science and Society at the university. Her current research includes the complexities of basic and applied research and policy, the areas of synthetic biology, nanoscience, neuroscience, genomics, genetics and stem cells. She is also interested in the broader topic of social justice and poverty. In this research, and in her research on the American health care system, she draws on her scholarly interest in distributive justice. In 2001, she was named principal investigator for the International Project on Judaism and Genetics. She is past president of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities and was a two-term member of the NASA Advisory Council. She is author of Health Care and the Ethics of Encounter: A Jewish Discussion of Social Justice (University of North Carolina Press, 1999) and co-editor of Notes from a Narrow Ridge: Religion and Bioethics (University Publishing Group, 1999) and The Human Embryonic Stem Cell Debate (MIT, 2001). Contact 312-926-2990, lzoloth@northwestern.edu.

MUSLIM

  • Khaleel Mohammed is an assistant professor of religion at San Diego State University who specializes in Islam, Islamic law and comparative religion. He teaches courses in world religions, the Quran, sex and gender in Islam, and Islamic bioethics. He has been trained as a jurist in both the Sunni and Shiite schools and posts his writings on his web site, For People Who Think. Contact 619-594-3108, khaleel.mohammed@sdsu.edu.
  • Abdulaziz A. Sachedina is Frances Myers Ball Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. He wrote the article “Human Clones: An Islamic View” for the book The Human Cloning Debate (Berkeley Hills Books, 2002). He also contributed the entry “Bioethics” for The Oxford Dictionary of Islam (Oxford University Press, 2002). Contact 434-924-6725, Sachedina@virginia.edu.

HINDU

  • S. Cromwell Crawford is a professor and chairman of the religion department at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and the author of Hindu Bioethics for the 21st Century (State University of New York Press, 2003). He commends President Bush for appointing advisers to help him with bioethics but worries that eliminating dissenters undercuts the effort. He believes that members of religions are free to express their views on biomedical legislation, but government policies should seek to serve the entire community. Contact 808-956-4200, scrawfor@hawaii.edu or Szabocrawf@aol.com.

BUDDHIST

  • Damien Keown is professor of Buddhist ethics at Goldsmiths College, University of London. He is the author of the Nature of Buddhist Ethics (Palgrave Macmillan, 2001), Buddhism and Bioethics (University of Chicago, 1997), The Oxford Dictionary of Buddhism (Oxford University Press, 2004) and many other publications. He is founding co-editor of the Journal of Buddhist Ethics and the Routledge Critical Studies in Buddhism Series. Contact d.keown@gold.ac.uk.
  • George J. Tanabe Jr. is a religion professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He is an expert on Japanese Buddhism and the author of an article on abortion in the Encyclopedia of Buddhism (Macmillan, 2004). Contact 808-956-4204, gtanabe@hawaii.edu.
  • Karma Lekshe Tsomo is an associate professor of religion at the University of San Diego who teaches Buddhist ethics, feminist ethics, bioethics (abortion, euthanasia, organ transplantation) and the ethics of war and peace. She is president of Sakyadhita: The International Association of Buddhist Women and director of Jamyang Foundation, an initiative to provide educational opportunities for women in the Indian Himalayas. Contact 619-260-4600×4921, ktsomo@sandiego.edu.

Background

GENERAL

  • Read “Bioethics for beginners” and four articles on urgent issues in genetics and bioethics, both posted by bioethics.net.
  • Read an introduction to bioethics and a selection of articles about issues in bioethics, genetic engineering, stem cells and cloning on the Pew Forum web site.
  • The President’s Council on Bioethics posts an overview of current issues in bioethics, selections from papers, transcripts, reports and background material from bioethics experts (not only those on the council) on 18 topics of concern to the council.
  • The Project on Death in America seeks to transform the culture of dying by supporting initiatives in research, scholarship, the humanities and the arts, and by fostering innovation in the provision of care, public and professional education, and public policy. It is a major funder of research on death, dying and palliative care.
  • New York University’s Medical Humanities web site has a literature, arts and medicine database that is an annotated bioethics bibliography of prose, poetry, film, video and art.
  • The University of Washington Ethics in Medicine web site covers many bioethics topics in detail for professionals, including medical futility, prenatal diagnosis, confidentiality, advance directives, neonatal intensive care unit issues, informed consent, spirituality and medicine, HIV/AIDS and termination of treatment.
  • Genome News Network posts articles on a range of bioethics topics; links to landmark documents, religious views and the U.S. government’s views on various issues; and a timeline on genetics and genomics. The Genome News Network is an educational web site affiliated with and editorially independent from The Institute for Genomic Research in Rockville, Md., the organization that beat the National Institutes of Health to first sequence the human genome in the 1990s.
  • Read about The Bloodlines Project, Bloodlines: Technology Hits Home, which includes a one-hour PBS documentary, an interactive web site, outreach and a guide about how new life-sciences technologies are raising ethical, legal and social dilemmas as cutting-edge science intersects with the law. What does it mean to be a parent? To be human? To have rights? The Bloodlines Project explains what is at stake when public policy trails behind medical science.

STEM CELL RESEARCH

GENETIC ENGINEERING

  • Read an introduction to genetic engineering for nonscientists, posted by DNAPatent.com.
  • Read cautionary essays on the putative dangers of genetic engineering from the points of view of science, religion, politics and philosophy, with links to resources and a bibliography. The information was compiled by Ron Epstein, professor emeritus of philosophy at San Francisco State University.

OTHER ISSUES

Regional sources

IN THE NORTHEAST

  • George Annas is a professor and chairman of the department of health law, bioethics and human rights at Boston University School of Public Health. He has authored or edited 17 books on bioethics and law. The most recent is Worst Case Bioethics: Death, Disaster, and Public Health (Oxford, 2010). His focus is patients’ rights. Annas co-founded Global Lawyers and Physicians, a transnational association of lawyers and physicians whose goal is to promote human rights and health. Contact 617-638-4626, annasgj@bu.edu.
  • Dr. Michael Grodin is director of the bioethics and human rights program and professor of health law, bioethics, human rights, socio-medical sciences and community medicine and psychiatry at the Boston University Schools of Public Health and Medicine. He is also a professor of philosophy in the College of Arts and Sciences. The five books he has written or co-edited include The Nazi Doctors and the Nuremburg Code: Human Rights in Human Experimentation (Oxford University Press, 1992); Children as Research Subjects: Science, Ethics and Law (Oxford University Press, 1994); and Perspectives on Health and Human Rights: A Reader (Routledge, 2005). His new book is Mad, Bad or Evil: Physician Involvement in Human Rights Abuses from Nazi Germany to the Former Yugoslavia (2008). His primary areas of interest include the relationship of health and human rights, bioethics, and the philosophy of psychiatry and psychoanalysis. Contact 617-638-4626, grodin@bu.edu.
  • Ronald Green is a professor of religion and professor for the study of ethics and human values at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H. He is also director of the college’s Ethics Institute. In 1996 and 1997, Green served as director of the Office of Genome Ethics at the National Human Genome Research Institute of the National Institutes of Health. His research interests are in genetic ethics, biomedical ethics and issues of justice in health-care allocation. He has written six books including The Human Embryo Research Debates: Bioethics in the Vortex of Controversy (Oxford University Press, 2001). In 1994 he was a member of NIH’s Human Embryo Research Panel, a commission appointed to recommend policy for federal funding of research on the pre-implantation human embryo. In 1998-99, Green was president of the Society of Christian Ethics. He heads the Ethics Advisory Board of Advanced Cell Technology, a biotechnology company involved in therapeutic cloning research. In 2005, Green received a Guggenheim Fellowship to write a book on human gene enhancement. Contact 603-646-1264, Ronald.M.Green@Dartmouth.edu.
  • Daniel Wikler is a professor of population ethics at the Harvard School of Public Health at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass. His interests include ethical dimensions of health resource allocation, the ethics of experimentation with human subjects and ethical dilemmas of global public health practice. A philosopher by training, Wikler served as the first staff ethicist at the World Health Organization in Geneva. He was co-founder of the International Association of Bioethics and the American Association of Bioethics. Wikler has been an Honorary Fellow in the Bioethics Faculty of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, and a Fellow of the Ford Foundation. He has served on the advisory boards of the Asian Bioethics Association and the Pan American Health Organization Regional Program in Bioethics. Contact 617-432-2365, wikler@hsph.harvard.edu.

IN THE EAST

  • Nancy Dubler, a lawyer, is director of the division of bioethics in the department of epidemiology and population health at Montefiore Medical Center and professor of bioethics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, both in the Bronx, N.Y. She is also the founder of the bioethics consultation service at Montefiore. Dubler lectures extensively on care of vulnerable populations, and she has written articles on termination of care, long-term care, adolescent health, prison health care and AIDS. She consults with federal agencies and national working groups and served as co-chairwoman of the Bioethics Working Group at the National Health Care Reform Task Force. She wrote Ethics on Call: Taking Charge of Life-and Death Choices in Today’s Health Care System (Vintage, 1993) and Mediating Bioethical Disputes (United Hospital Fund, 1994). Contact 718-920-6226, ndubler@montefiore.org.
  • Bonnie Steinbock is a philosophy professor at the University of Albany, State University of New York, a faculty member of the Alden March Bioethics Institute at Albany Medical College, a fellow of the Hastings Center and a member of the Ethics Committee of the American Society for Reproduction and Medicine. She specializes in reproduction and genetics. Her recent articles have covered reproductive cloning, wrongful life and procreative decision making, the definitions of parenthood, moral status, and embryonic stem cell research. She wrote Life Before Birth: The Moral and Legal Status of Embryos and Fetuses (Oxford, 1992) and edited The Oxford Handbook of Bioethics (Oxford, forthcoming). She co-edited Public Health Ethics: Theory, Policy, and Practice (Oxford, forthcoming in 2006), Ethical Issues in Modern Medicine (Ashgate, 2002) and Killing and Letting Die (Fordham, 1994). Contact 518-442-4262, steinbock@albany.edu.
  • Lee Silver is a professor of microbiology and public affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University in Princeton, N.J. His books include Challenging Nature: The Clash of Science and Spirituality at the New Frontiers of Life (Ecco, May 2006) and Remaking Eden: How Genetic Engineering and Cloning Will Transform the American Family (Harper, 1998), which deals with genetic enhancement, or “reprogenetics” – selecting and engineering a child’s genes. He has published more than scientific articles in the fields of genetics, evolution, reproduction, embryology, computer modeling and behavioral science, and scholarly papers on topics involving biotechnology, law, ethics and religion. Contact through his secretary at 609-258-2684, shilcha@princeton.edu.
  • Dr. Barron H. Lerner is Angelica Berrie-Gold Foundation Associate Profession of Medicine and Public Health at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and the Mailman School of Public Health. Lerner has organized teaching initiatives in bioethics and the medical humanities at Columbia. These include co-directing the ethics and values curriculum for medical students and directing the Jay I. Meltzer Fellowship in Medical Ethics for internal medicine residents. His latest book is The Breast Cancer Wars: Hope, Fear and the Pursuit of a Cure in Twentieth-Century America (Oxford). Contact 212-305-5154, bhl5@columbia.edu.
  • Ruth R. Faden is the Philip Franklin Wagley Professor of Biomedical Ethics and is Executive Director of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. She is also a senior research scholar at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics, Georgetown University. Faden is co-author of Social Justice: The Moral Foundations of Public Health and Health Policy (Oxford University Press, 2006), A History and Theory of Informed Consent (Oxford University Press, 1986), and HIV, AIDS and Childbearing: Public Policy, Private Lives (Oxford University Press 1996). Faden is a member of the Institute of Medicine and a fellow of the Hastings Center and the American Psychological Association. Contact 443-287-0413, rfaden@jhsph.edu.
  • Patricia King is the Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Law, Medicine, Ethics, and Public Policy at Georgetown University. King has served as deputy director of the Office of Civil Rights, special assistant to the chairman of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and member of the Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee; the President’s Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research; National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research; and on the Ethics, Legal, and Social Issues Working Group of the Human Genome Project. King is co-author of Cases and Materials on Law, Science, and Medicine (Foundation Press, 1999). Contact 202-687-8099.
  • Georgia M. Dunston is a human geneticist, former chairwoman of the microbiology department at Howard University College of Medicine in Washington, D.C, and founding director of the university’s National Human Genome Center. She served as program director of the coordinating center for the African American Diabetes Mellitus Study, an international collaboration that studies the genetics of Type 2 diabetes in ancestral populations of African-Americans, and the coordinating center for the African American Hereditary Prostate Cancer Study Network, a national cooperative formed to map genes for prostate cancer in African-Americans. In 2003, she established GRAD (Genomic Research in the African Diaspora), a biobank that traces the genetic factors of diseases – including diabetes and prostate cancer – that affect African-Americans disproportionately. An authority on how genetics and race interface, Dunston maintains that there is no one-to-one correlation of racial groups with the structure of the human genome. Each individual is a unique expression of the human genome and uniquely related to the whole of humankind. Contact 202-806-9438.

IN THE SOUTHEAST

  • John Arras is Porterfield Professor of Biomedical Ethics and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Virginia and a fellow at the Hastings Center. He co-edited Ethical Issues in Modern Medicine (Mayfield, 1998) and edited Bringing the Hospital Home: Ethical & Social Implications of High-Tech Home Care (Johns Hopkins, 1995). He has written about long-term care issues, AIDS, death and dying, assisted suicide, public health ethics, research on human subjects, international research ethics and theories of global justice. He is currently working on method in practical ethics (e.g., casuistry, narrative), ethical implications of long-term contraceptives and the rationing of health care. Contact 804-924-7863.
  • Jonathan D. Moreno is a professor of biomedical ethics and of of History and Sociology of Sciences at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. He is a bioethics adviser for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a faculty affiliate of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University, and a Fellow of the Hastings Center and the New York Academy of Medicine. His books include Is There an Ethicist in the House? (Indiana University Press, 2005); In the Wake of Terror: Medicine and Morality in a Time of Crisis (MIT Press, 2003); Undue Risk: Secret State Experiments on Humans (Routledge, 2001); Ethical and Regulatory Aspects of Clinical Research (Johns Hopkins, 2003); Ethics in Clinical Practice (Aspen Publishers, 2000); and Arguing Euthanasia (Touchstone/Simon & Schuster, 1995). His book Mind Wars: National Security and the Brain, was published in 2006. Contact 215-898-7629, morenojd@mail.med.upenn.edu.
  • Nancy M.P. King is a lawyer and Professor at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Department of Social Sciences & Health Policy. Her scholarship focuses on bioethics and health law, focusing on roles and responsibilities in health-care decisions, human subject research ethics, and “everyday ethics.” She has worked extensively on informed consent in health care, neonatal intensive care, experimental technologies, international research ethics and end-of-life decision-making. She is currently researching the benefit of human gene transfer research and the ethical, legal and social implications of large-sample gene discovery and disclosure. She wrote Making Sense of Advance Directives (Georgetown University Press, 1996) and co-edited Beyond Regulations: Ethics in Human Subjects Research (UNC Press 1999) and The Social Medicine Reader (Duke University Press, 1997). Contact 336-716-4289, NMPKING@WFUBMC.EDU.
  • Dr. Jeffrey Baker is Director of the Program in the History of Medicine, Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities & History of Medicine. A medical historian, Baker works on issues in medical technology and child health, such as the evolution of premature infant technology. Much of this work is synthesized in his comparative history of the origins of neonatal medicine in France and the United States, The Machine in the Nursery: Incubator Technology and the Origins of Newborn Intensive Care (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996). He is studying 20th-century controversies involving childhood immunizations and the role of the whooping cough vaccine in shaping U.S. immunization policy since 1974. Contact 919-668-9000, baker009@mc.duke.edu.

IN THE SOUTH

  • Dr. Ellen Wright Clayton is the Rosalind E. Franklin Professor of Genetics and Health Policy, a professor of law and a professor of pediatrics at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. An internationally recognized expert on law and genetics, Clayton has published two books and many scholarly articles. She has advised the National Human Genome Research Institute as well as numerous other federal and international bodies on topics including children’s health and the ethical conduct of research involving human subjects. Contact 615-322-2598, ellen.clayton@vanderbilt.edu.
  • E. Haavi Morreim is a professor of bioethics at the college of medicine at the University of Tennessee in Memphis. She teaches clinical ethics and consults in medical ethics. She also chairs the Independent Patient Advocacy Council for the AbioCor artificial heart trial. She is the author of Balancing Act: The New Medical Ethics of Medicine’s New Economics (Georgetown University Press, 1995) and Holding Health Care Accountable: Law and the New Medical Marketplace (Oxford University Press, 2001). Contact 901-448-5725, hmorreim@utmem.edu.
  • Dr. Vanessa N. Gamble is a physician and medical historian who chaired the presidential committee on the legacy of the infamous Tuskegee syphilis study conducted by the U.S. Public Health Service from 1932-1972, which secured an apology from the government in 1997. She is a health policy and medical education consultant with 20 years’ experience as a researcher, teacher and administrator in issues related to race and American medicine. Previously she was director of the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in Medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine. Contact 334-724-4612, bioethics@tuskegee.edu.
  • Arri Eisen is director of the Program in Science and Society at Emory University’s Center for Ethics in Atlanta and a senior lecturer in biology. Eisen teaches research ethics to faculty, undergraduates, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and physicians. He researches the basic science of gene regulation and research ethics education. He is co-author of “The Absent Professor: Why We Don’t Teach Research Ethics and What to Do About it,” (published in The American Journal of Bioethics) and co-editor of the forthcoming two-volume collection of essays, Science, Religion, and Society: An Encyclopedia of History, Culture and Controversy (ME Sharpe). Contact 404-727-4354, arri.eisen@emory.edu.
  • Gregory E. Pence is a professor of philosophy and bioethics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s school of medicine. His teaches the history of ethical issues in medicine since World War II. He wrote Recreating Medicine: Ethical Issues at the Frontier of Medicine (Rowman & Littlefield, 2000) and Who’s Afraid of Human Cloning? (Rowman & Littlefield, 1998). He is in favor of human cloning and has testified before Congress on the topic. Contact 205-934-4805, pence@uab.edu.

IN THE MIDWEST

  • Dr. Stuart Youngner is director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics and a professor of bioethics, medicine and psychiatry at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. He has written and lectured on physician-assisted suicide, decisions to limit life-sustaining treatment, advance directives, definitions of death, ethics committees and ethical issues in organ retrieval and transplantation. He recently co-directed a national task force that examined the need for ethics committees’ standards and consultation. Contact 216-368-6196, sxy2@case.edu.
  • Eric Juengst is a professor of bioethics and Director of the Center for Genetic Research Ethics and Law at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine who specializes in the ethical issues of human genetics, concepts of health and disease, and the history and philosophy of medicine. Trained in philosophy and biology, Juengst served as the first chief of the NIH’s Ethical, Legal and Social Implications committee at the National Center for Human Genome Research, and he has also served on the NIH’s Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee. Contact 216-368-6207, etj2@case.edu.
  • Dr. Norman Fost is a professor of pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. He is chairman of the Human Subjects Committee and the Hospital Ethics Committee. He has written about hospital ethics committees and the use of enhancing medical technologies. Contact 608-263-8562, ncfost@facstaff.wisc.edu.
  • Scott Sanders is director of the Social Work Program at Cornerstone University in Grand Rapids, Mich. He has taught ethics courses and conducted ethics workshops for social workers. Contact 616-254-1650 ext. 1320, Scott_Sanders@cornerstone.edu.

IN THE SOUTHWEST

  • Dr. H. Tristram Engelhardt Jr. is a philosophy professor at Rice University and a professor of medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, both in Houston. Engelhardt is a member of the Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy at Baylor. He is editor of the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, co-editor of Christian Bioethics, co-editor of the Philosophy and Medicine book series, co-editor of the book series Clinical Medical Ethics and editor of the series Philosophical Studies in Contemporary Culture. Contact 713-348-2491, htengelh@rice.edu.
  • Baruch Brody is a professor of biomedical ethics and director of the Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. He is also a professor of humanities at Rice University and director of the ethics program at Methodist Hospital. He has written widely on many topics in bioethics, including abortion, life-and-death decision-making and drug research and testing. He has also served on the NIH’s Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee, which reviews gene therapy trials. Contact 713-798-3505, bbrody@bcm.edu.
  • John A. Robertson holds the Vinson and Elkins Chair at the University of Texas School of Law in Austin. He has written and lectured widely on law and bioethical issues. He is the author or editor of five books in bioethics, including The Rights of the Critically Ill (Bantam, 1983) and Children of Choice: Freedom and the New Reproductive Technologies (Princeton University Press, 1994). He is chairman of the Ethics Committee of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. Contact 512-232-1307, jrobertson@law.utexas.edu.
  • Mark J. Cherry is a philosophy professor at St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas. He is co-editor of Allocating Scarce Medical Resources: Roman Catholic Perspectives (Georgetown University Press, 2003), senior associate editor of The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, senior associate editor of Christian Bioethics and editor in chief of HealthCare Ethics Committee Forum. His book For Sale by Owner: Human Organs, Transplantation and the Market (Georgetown University Press, 2005), explores the ethics of selling and buying organs for transplantation. Contact 512-448-8536, markc@stedwards.edu.

IN THE WEST/NORTHWEST

  • Dr. Wylie Burke is a professor and chairwoman of the University of Washington’s department of medical history and ethics in Seattle. She is an expert in the implications and appropriate use of genetic information in clinical and public health practice. Her research addresses the bioethical and health policy implications of genetic technology. She has a doctorate in genetics and is also an adjunct professor of medicine and epidemiology and an associate member of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. Burke has served on the NIH National Advisory Council for Human Genome Research and the Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Genetic Testing. Contact 206-221-5482, wburke@u.washington.edu or through her assistant, mmitchel@u.washington.edu.
  • David Magnus is Chair, Program in Regenerative Medicine Sub-Committee on Bioethics and Conflict of Interest at Stanford University, where he is director of the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics and co-chairman of the ethics committee for the Stanford Health Center. He has written on the history and philosophy of biology and bioethics, particularly on issues concerning genetic technology. Magnus recently served on the National Research Council Ad Hoc Committee on the Bioconfinement of Genetically Engineered Organisms, and he served as a consultant for the World Bank on food security and biotechnology. He is a member of the Secretary of Agriculture’s Advisory Committee on Biotechnology in the 21st Century. He is co-editor of Who Owns Life? (Prometheus Press, 2002). He serves as associate editor of The American Journal of Bioethics. Contact 650-723-7735, dmagnus@stanford.edu.
  • Mildred Cho is associate director at the Stanford University Center for Biomedical Ethics and an associate professor of pediatrics (genetics). She has training in science and health policy. She sits on advisory boards for the National Human Genome Research Institute and the American Association for the Advancement of Science Public Policy Directorate. Cho focuses on the ethical and social impacts of genetic research, genetic testing and gene therapy and how conflicts of interest affect the conduct of academic biomedical research. Her current research projects include a study of factors affecting patients’ and practitioners’ use of genetic tests for hereditary breast and ovarian cancer, a study of the roles of heredity and race or ethnicity in the stigmatization of genetic conditions, ethical issues in pharmacogenetics and bioinformatics, a study of the effect of gene patenting on the delivery of clinical genetics services, and an analysis of university policies on academic-industry ties. Contact 650-725-7993, micho@stanford.edu.
  • Henry “Hank” Greely is a law professor at Stanford University who specializes in health law, genetics and law and biotechnology law. He is the lead author of Cloning Californians? Report of the California Advisory Committee on Human Cloning. He is also a former clerk for Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart and has served as chairman of the steering committee for the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics, ethics chairman of the North American Committee of the Human Genome Diversity Project, and chair of the California Advisory Committee of Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research. He is one of the founding members of the Neuroethics Society. Greely has helped develop rules for conducting research among indigenous peoples. Contact hgreely@stanford.edu.
  • Dr. Bernard Lo is director of the program in medical ethics and a professor of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco’s School of Medicine. He has written and taught on many topics in bioethics, including research with human beings, AIDS, neuroethics, stem cell policy, pain management and end-of-life care. He wrote Resolving Ethical Dilemmas: A Guide for Clinicians (Lippincott, 2005). Contact 415-476-6240, bernie@medicine.ucsf.edu.
  • Dr. Erich H. Loewy is founding chairman of bioethics and an associate professor of philosophy at the University of California, Davis, School of Medicine in Sacramento. He trained as a cardiologist. Born in Vienna, Austria, Loewy escaped soon before World War II and has written about health care ethics, terminal care and cross-cultural bioethics. His main interest is social justice in medical care as well as across the whole spectrum, from poverty to racism and the Holocaust. Loewy’s research interests include health care systems and allocation, the problems of clinical medical ethics and ethical issues in genomics, including stem cells and cloning. He is the author of 120 peer-reviewed papers, 48 book chapters and 12 books. Now emeritated, he continues to teach, write and lecture internationally. Contact 916-635-7555, ehloewy@ucdavis.edu.
  • Dr. Theodore Friedmann is a professor of pediatrics, director of the gene therapy program and chairman of biomedical ethics at the University of California at San Diego. A pioneer in gene therapy, he proposed in 1972 using viruses to carry normal genes into defective cells. He also explored the medical, ethical and public policy problems posed by modern genetic technology. Contact 858-534-4268, tfriedmann@ucsd.edu.
  • Gregory Stock is director of the Program on Medicine, Technology and Society at the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Public Health. His research interests include the implications for society, medicine and business of the Human Genome Project and developments in molecular genetics and bioinformatics. His books include Redesigning Humans: Our Inevitable Genetic Future (Houghton Mifflin, 2002), and Engineering the Human Germline (Oxford University Press, 2000). Contact 310-825-9715, gstock@ucla.edu.

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