President Names Council on Bioethics

With biotechnology taking center stage on several occasions during the past year, President Bush has appointed an 18-member Council of Bioethics to address some of the more controversial aspects of the field. Policy suggestions to emerge from the council are likely to impact the activities of the significant investments many states and localities are making for biotechnology research and seed capital.

The Council will consider a range of bioethical matters connected with specific biomedical and technological activities, such as embryo and stem cell research, assisted reproduction, cloning, uses of knowledge and techniques derived from human genetics or the neurosciences, and end-of-life issues. The Council may also study broader ethical and social issues, such as the protection of human subjects in research and the appropriate uses of biomedical technologies.

Council members, whose names were released the day before the group's first meeting, include:

• Leon R. Kass, M.D. — Chair. Addie Clark Harding Professor, College and the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago, and Hertog Fellow, American Enterprise Institute.
• Elizabeth Blackburn, Ph.D. — Professor, Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of California San Francisco.
• Stephen Carter, J.D. — William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law, Yale Law School.
• Rebecca Dresser, J.D., M.S. — Daniel Noyes Kirby Professor of Law, Washington University School of Law.
• Daniel Foster, M.D. — Donald W. Seldin Distinguished Chair in Internal Medicine and Chairman of the Department of Internal Medicine, University of Texas Southwestern Medical School.
• Francis Fukuyama, Ph.D. — Bernard Schwartz Professor of International Political Economy, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University.
• Michael Gazzaniga, Ph.D. — Director, Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Dartmouth College.
• Robert P. George, J.D., D. Phil. — McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence, Princeton University, and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions.
• Alfonso Gomez-Lobo, Ph.D. — Ryan Family Professor of Metaphysics and Moral Philosophy, Georgetown University.
• Mary Ann Glendon, J.D., L.LM. — Learned Hand Professor of Law, Harvard University.
• William B. Hurlbut, M.D. — Consulting Professor in Human Biology, Stanford University.
• Charles Krauthammer, M.D. — National Columnist, The Washington Post.
• William F. May, Ph.D. — Cary M. Maguire Professor of Ethics Emeritus, Southern Methodist University.
• Paul McHugh, M.D. — Henry Phipps Professor of Psychiatry and Director of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and Psychiatrist-in-chief of the Johns Hopkins Hospital.
• Gilbert Meilaender, Ph.D. — Richard & Phyllis Duesenberg Professor of Christian Ethics at Valparaiso University.
• Janet D. Rowley, M.D., D.Sc. — Blum-Riese Distinguished Service Professor of Medicine, Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology, and Human Genetics, Pritzker School of Medicine, University of Chicago.
• Michael J. Sandel, Ph.D. — Professor of Government, Harvard University.
  
  James Q. Wilson, Ph.D. — The James A. Collins Professor of Management and Public Policy Emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Reports in this week's online edition of the Chronicle of Higher Education conveyed fears by several scientists and lobbyists that the group's composition would lean toward additional restrictions on stem-cell research and cloning technology. Others expressed concerns that no patient representatives were included on the council.

The council's first two-day meeting, which was focusing on human cloning as its first issue, concludes today in Washington, D.C. More information on the Council members is available from the White House press release: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/01/20020116-9.html