Dickey Wicker Amendment Redux: Making Distinctions in the Name of Scientific Progress

The American Journal of Bioethics
March 2011

In 1996 Congress passed the Dickey-Wicker Amendment as part of an appropriations bill; it has been renewed every year since. The amendment bans federal funding for research using embryos and parthenotes.

An article in the March 2011 edition of The American Journal of Bioethics calls for a public discussion on parthenote research and a questioning of its inclusion in the amendment.

The authors argue that the scientific difference between embryos and parthenotes translates into ethical differences, and claim that research on parthenotes is much less ethically problematic.

Podcast: Remove Rider on Parthenotes, Lisa Campo Engelstein, The Bioethics Channel, March 18

Preventing Unethical Research

Summer McGee, PhD

March 4, 2011

There are no guarantees against unethical research. But the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues has been charged with making that attempt. Lorell LaBoube of the Bioethics Channel visits with Summer McGee about this issue.

Links:

-- Podcast: Preventing Unethical Research, Summer McGee, PhD, The Bioethics Channel, March 4, 2011

-- Past medical testing on humans revealed, Associated Press, February 27, 2011

Moreno Delves Depper into Bush and Kass' "Decision Points"

Summer McGee

Fascinated by Bush's moral reasoning when it came to his stem cell decision of August 9th, 2001, Jonathan Moreno delves even deeper into the passages of the former president's autobiography to explore the faulty logic of his position regarding embryonic stem cell research.

In his Science Progress column, Moreno outlines Bush's concerns about moral complicity and how his "splitting the difference", in allowing research on only existing stem cell lines, to his mind anyway, avoided that moral problem of destroying embryos.

For more click here.

Are iPS Cells the Ethical Holy Grail?

Glenn McGee, PhD
John B. Francis Chair in Bioethics

Another development in stem cell research – a way to produce the benefits of embryonic stem cell research, without destroying embryos.

Is this the Holy Grail around the moral and ethical challenges associated with this research?

Glenn McGee, PhD talks about it in this edition of the Bioethics Channel.

Links:

Podcast, 14 minutes 47 seconds
Cell technique works without embryos, Washington Post, October 1

Therapeutic Misconception at its Worst

Summer Johnson, PhD

July 6, 2010

The International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) has created a website that aims purportedly to help patients assess the claims made by stem cell companies and researchers offering cures via stem cell research.

I am usually reluctant to argue against patient education and empowerment, but this website does precisely the opposite.

It only muddies the waters and will confuse patients desperate for cures who are turning to stem cell trials as a last resort and want very much to believe that the research laboratories that they are walking into are "clinics" and the trials they are enrolling in are "therapeutic." Unfortunately, that is not yet the case. And ISSCR should just come out and say so.

For more click here.