Nearly a decade after it was first proposed, the European Biotechnology Directive has finally been passed into law. The main purpose of the Directive is to provide a uniform set of legal rules that will apply to biotechnology patents throughout the 15 countries of the European Union. The authors describe ...

For over three decades, the Permanent Committee of the International Congresses of Human Genetics has served the purpose of selecting a host and site for the quadrennial Congress, which is due next in 2001. The Committee has statutes and consists of one voting representative from 38 nations and other ex ...

On June 30, 1997, the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences convened a special session at its headquarters to discuss and, at the end of this meeting, to unanimously endorse a project on "The BIOsphere and the COSmos" (BIOCOS), a follow-up on various international resolutions reviewed elsewhere [1]. BIOCOS recommends the ...

by Lawrence Ash and Thomas Orihel, American Society of Clinical Pathologists, Chicago, $155.00 (410 pages) ISBN 0 89189 399 7.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights has been the foundation of much of the post-1945 codification of human rights, and the international legal system is replete with global and regional treaties based, in large measure, on the Declaration. Pending universal ratification of the Covenants and other treaties, it is to ...

The European Convention of Human Rights recognises a certain number of rights and freedoms for persons within States' jurisdiction. For those confined in psychiatric hospitals, this legal protection concerns first of all the lawfulness of deprivation of liberty, which must conform to the conditions laid down by the Convention as ...

In response to a mandate conferred on the International Bioethics Committee (IBC) of UNESCO in November 1993, the IBC has drafted a "universal declaration on the human genome and human rights," which will be considered by the General Conference of UNESCO in November 1997. This article discusses the development of ...

Spiritual fulfillment in the professional role of occupational therapy practitioner is hindered by the ethical consideration of maintaining an objective client-therapist relationship. Objectivity is a disengaged perspective that depersonalizes human relationships. It operates on the tacitly performed, reductionistic assumption that all truth can be structurally represented and verified. However, to ...

Ethical concerns about the Human Genome Diversity Project were discussed in Montreal last year during the 1st International Conference on DNA Sampling and Banking. This article, the second in a 2-part series, looks at the potential for misuse and commercialization of DNA samples and discusses some of the ethical concerns ...

Scientists have been dissecting the neural architecture of the human mind for several centuries. Dissecting its computational architecture has proven more difficult, however. Within the cognitive sciences, for example, there is a debate about the extent to which human reasoning is generated by computational machinery that is domain specific and ...

Nowadays many religious institutes are asking questions about sponsorship. The issue is usually phrased as the sponsoring of institutions. But it might be useful to ask about the institution of sponsorship instead. In The Good Society, Robert Bellah and his associates say that, on one hand, institutions are created by ...

This article gives an overview of the original philosophical and ethical reflections of Hans Jonas, which arguably are particularly helpful in thinking through newly emerging and interconnected obligations to humans, animals, and nature. These obligations concern medicine as well as the rest of our lives. This article briefly develops a ...

29 April (p.734) and 13 May (p. 911) issues of Science The talk being given by Dr. Harold Varmus at the Science/HUGO Human Genome 1994 meeting on Monday, 3 October, in Washington, D.C., is entitled "Manipulating Cancer Genes in the Mouse."

The total longitudinal form view of human beings is a metaphysical view which aims to locate our moral judgements about human embryos in a broader set of attitudes and characterisations. On this basis it has explanatory power and a real function in that it grounds our ethical discussion of embryos ...

Against the view that homoeroticism requires any special justification or consideration, this essay argues that homoeroticism is morally unproblematic in itself and that its genuine moral significance resides in illuminating the nature and meaning of human relations. Seen as a form of language, homosex shares common moral justification with heterosex ...

Since fiscal year 1991, the U.S. Human Genome Project has spent $170.6 million in federal funds to help isolate genes associated with Huntington's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, neurofibromatosis types 1 and 2, myotonic dystrophy, and fragile X syndrome and to localize genes that predispose people to breast cancer, colon cancer, ...

The purpose of this statement is to describe some of the features of human rights and to indicate how human rights and ethics are related. Human rights are assertions that call for treating human beings as ends in themselves, rather than as means to the goals and purposes of others. ...

Technology has provided man with the ability to manipulate the genetic structure of the human race. The knowledge which geneticists have gained and will gain in future will raise numerous legal and ethical problems which will have to be debated and resolved within the parameters of the prevailing boni mores.

In this paper I wish to place the debate about the use of fetal tissue, as in fetal neural transplantation, within the context of society's use of, and dependence upon, human material for many teaching, research, and therapeutic purposes. I shall argue that such an emphasis is required if we ...

Tensions between the world of science and the world of law may arise because of their differing viewpoints and philosophies. Disagreements may center around such questions as what constitutes proof, around human behavior, and around the use of the insanity defense in criminal cases. The just deserts model is examined ...

The defendants were accused of performing illegal abortions. The Court of First Instance at Ghent, Belgium, acquitted them on the ground that the abortions were justified because of "a state of emergency." It reasoned that obeying the law in exceptional circumstances can have exorbitant consequences which the legislator could not ...

Technical Committee Meet. Identification of Failure Sequences Sensitive to Human Error. Vienna, 5 - 9 May 1986, 153 - 169

For both moral and practical reasons, the veterinary profession must begin to nurture a serious veterinary ethics of human-companion animal interaction. Among the central concerns of such a discipline will be the moral value of the veterinary patient: the moral significance of human-animal companionship; the proper response of the practitioner ...

The meeting was initiated by a discussion workshop on Cellular and Molecular Biology of Gamma Interferon. The next presentation was about the genetic engineering of mouse and human gamma interferon, and cloning of the genes for human lymphotoxin and tumor necrosis factor. The next presentation was on the relationship between ...

In spite of a recent increase in the number of reported cases, human monkeypox remains a rare sporadic zoonotic disease with limited capacity to spread between humans. As such, the disease does not at present require specific public health measures. However, much of the population in the enzootic region, especially ...

"Except chapter 24, the material in this book came from the symposium program ... at The National American Chemical Society Meeting, Washington, D.C. September 1979"

Scientist's norms (principally honesty, objectivity, tolerance, doubt of certitude, and unselfish engagement) are in danger of serious distortion unless broadened to apply to the relations between scientists and nonscientists. Also needing supplementation is an ethic of development appropriate to a fast-changing society and advanced as an approach to the more ...

An international conference in andrology was held on April 24, 25 and 26, 1975, at the C. S. Mott Center for Human Growth and Development, Wayne State University School of Medicine, Detroit, Michigan. Eighty-five papers were presented by 165 contributors from Austria, Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, ...

35, [1] p. ; 17 cm. (12mo)

"Read November 26, 1822 ."

An ethical argument against the reproductive cloning of humans

A report in PDF format, published in 1996 by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, an internationally recognised non-profit making body which identifies, examines and reports on the ethical questions raised by advances in biological and medical research. The report examines the ethical issues surrounding the use of animal organs for ...

News Feature of the AmericanCatholic.org website on Cloning and Catholic Ethics. The statement 'The Catholic Church opposes all forms of cloning and stem-cell research' influences the perspective and emphasis of the site. The issues covered with links (to other parts of the main Web sire) are: Backgrounder: U.S. House Votes ...

The Canadian Catholic Bioethics Institute (CCBI) website has a history of the CCBI and a list of its founding members details on the current director and its sponsors. There are links to essays on Canada's Proposed Assisted Human Reproduction Act (Bill C-13) and 'Catholic Bioethics: Putting the Human Person at ...

This is a registered charity based in Whistler, Canada, that advocates the harmonious coexistence of humans and bears. As well as detailing the Society's activities and accomplishments, the website offers information about the two species of bear living in this area of Canada; the American black bear and the grizzly ...

This website connects readers to the online version of 'Human Cloning: Ethical Issues', a booklet published by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 2004. The work starts by giving a brief historical review of cloning - 'the laboratory-aided replication of a strand of DNA that is ...

A report by the Australian Health Ethics Committee requested by Commonwealth Minister for Health & Aged Care to advise him on the need for further legislation of clarification on the regulation of human cloning. The report makes the distinction between the cloning of a whole individual human, and the cloning ...

The AIBS Media Library contains plenary lectures by some of the world's most eminent biologists recorded at AIBS annual meetings from 2000 onwards. Free online access to the presentations made at the 2007 American Institute of Biological Sciences Annual Meeting, 'Evolutionary Biology and Human Health', are freely available via the ...

From a scientific viewpoint, the Human Genome Project is actually not in the dock, nor even under reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing. Overwhelmingly, it will prove of benefit to humanity. However, from legal, ethical and other societal points of view, there are many problems already being considered by bioethicists, philosophers, religious ...

This article considers a recent case of human eggs being made available as a raffle prize. It explores the issue of a market in human material. It considers how at present English law is in general against such commodification of human material. It explores the policy arguments for changing the ...

After consultation between immunologists from a number of countries a nomenclature for human immunoglobulins was proposed in 1964 and was published in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization.(1) However, that proposed scheme of notation, which has already gained wide acceptance, left several specialized areas of nomenclature still to be ...

Three youths and dogs during Be Kind to Animals Week, an observation begun in 1915 by the American Humane Society. The event usually included a Be Kind to Animals kids' contest.