New Guidelines on Human Embryo Research Raise Legal and Ethical Questions
"They Don't Do Enough to Reassure the Public," says Hastings Scholar.
Josephine Johnston, director of research at The Hastings Center, responded to new ethics guidelines on human embryo and stem cell research from the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR). The influential guidelines for the first time allow for the study of human embryos in the lab beyond 14 days of development, a significant departure from over four decades of ethics policy and practice. “The rule has served a really important function for assuring the public that there are significant limits on scientists, especially around growing early human lifeforms in the lab,” Johnston told STAT. In the United States, Johnston said that the ISSCR guidelines have been the de facto standard in research involving stem cells and human embryos, including studies on human fertility. “That means that when they make a change like this, it is actually fairly significant,” she said in an interview with Nature. In a Hastings Center statement, she said, “The new guidelines don’t do enough to reassure the public that this research will be subject to reasonable limits.”
From Hastings Bioethics Forum: Abuse of Bioethics; Vaccine Tourism
Many Latin American countries are being devastated by Covid and poverty, as well as an eruption of populism. Can bioethics help? In Argentina, it’s being used as a partisan tool, write Sergio G. Litewka, a physician at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, and Jonathan D. Moreno, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a Hastings Center fellow. Read “Covid-19 in Argentina and the Abuse of Bioethics”.
In Costa Rica, where only 24% of the population has received at least one vaccine dose and Covid cases and mortality are rising rapidly, the country’s president is urging people to travel to the U.S. to get vaccinated. Vaccine tourism, along with calls for vaccine passports, are examples of how inequality and injustice are determining the course of the pandemic, writes Gabriela Arguedas-Ramírez, an associate professor at the University of Costa Rica. Read “Instead of Vaccine Passports, Let’s Push for Global Justice in Vaccine Access”.
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"Do Genetic Findings Impact Perceptions of Responsibility?" sponsored by the Center for Research on Ethical, Legal and Social Implications of Psychiatric, Neurologic & Behavioral Genetics and Columbia Irvine Medical Center in collaboration with The Hastings Center. May 28, 9 am EST.
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