Singer argues that humans have little to fear from being more open towards the great apes. They are not really needed for medical research anyway; those in zoos need not be set free; and they could be euthanased if they were suffering unbearably. Giving them rights would only mean that they could not be owned and used for entertainment and amusement. Singer acknowledges that this could pave the way for extension of rights to all primates, or all mammals, or even all animals. But, he contends, "We should not be deterred from doing right now by the fear that we may later be persuaded that we should do right again." ~ Project Syndicate; 20minutos.es, Apr 24; Brussels Journal, Apr 27
Slate's bioethics correspondent has made a scathing attack on this month's decision by the UK's fertility regulator to allow pre- implantation genetic diagnosis for flawed embryos. William Saletan says that the decision by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority shows that the "slippery slope" is a reality and that it can be measured in three ways.
The first is "penetrance", the probability that a gene will lead to a disease. The old standard was that a 90% probability would justify PGD. Now a 30-80% is enough. The second scale is treatability. The old standard was that screening was only allowed when treatments would be "awful or unreliable". But now a mere risk of failure, not a certainty of failure, is enough. The third scale is age of onset. Originally PGD was allowed only for diseases which were present in a child when it was born. Now the diseases for which PGD is allowed can show up at the age of 40. The HFEA even asks whether PGD should be used to screen out diseases which will not develop until a person is 70 or 80.
Saletan complains that the criteria for destroying selected embryos are not only changing and slippery but subjective. "Significant anxiety" in the carriers of the gene is also reason enough for PGD, according to Dame Suzi Leather, the head of the HFEA. And to rebut the HFEA's claim that it is trying to set boundaries for reproductive technology, he cites an internal briefing paper which says that the HFEA had "no intention following this discussion to define limits for conditions that should not be tested for using PGD." ~ Slate, May 19
PROS AND CONS OF CLINICAL TRIALS IN THE DEVELOPING WORLD
Whether clinical drug trials should be conducted in the developing world is a thorny and intractable issue, says Slate columnist Amanda Schaffer in MIT's Technology Review. But solutions won't be found by demonising the pharmaceutical industry. Schaffer contrasts two recent reports, one in the March issue of the magazine Harper's, which suggests that drug companies are conspiring to promote toxic drugs, based on investigations into a badly-run trial for an anti-HIV drug. Overheated polemics, says Schaffer.
However, the other article, by Jennifer Kahn, in Wired (see BioEdge 194), says that India is in danger of becoming a nation of guinea pigs, because the financial incentives to participate in drug trials are too great for impoverished rural people to resist and because they tend to accept a doctor's advice without question, weakening the idea of informed consent. These are more substantial complaints, agrees Schaffer. In fact, a recent study in the journal IRB: Ethics and Human Research suggests that local ethics committees in African settings are handicapped by lack of expertise, training and resources.
Taken together, Schaffer concludes, the two articles are an uncomfortable reminder that "economic disparity between investigators and subjects in human research creates possibilities for abuse and coercion -- possibilities that we do not really know how to manage". ~ Technology Review, May/June
AMERICAN SEX SELECTION CLINICS HELP THOUSANDS
Thousands of couples are travelling to clinics in the US where they can choose the sex of their next child. Dr Jeffrey Steinberg, the leading figure in American commercial sex selection, says that half of his clients come from countries where the controversial procedure is banned, such as Australia, Germany, Britain and Canada. In the United States we really guard and cherish reproductive choice and we are very reticent to allow the government to impinge on that," says Steinberg. Over the past three years he has treated 2,000 couples.
Most couples tell Steinberg that they have come to him to balance their family. "Usually these couples have four or five children of one sex and desperately want one of the opposite sex," he says. Americans and Canadians have a preference for girls; Indians and Chinese for boys; and Latin Americans are evenly split. He denies that his work represents a step towards "designer babies". ~ AFP, May 14
CANADIAN IN ROW OVER SWISS SUICIDE CLINIC
A Canadian psychologist who brought a friend to an assisted suicide clinic in Zurich, where she killed herself, is being accused of serious professional misconduct. Peter Marshall declared in a letter to a newspaper that he had accompanied a disabled woman friend named Su" to a Dignitas clinic. She died in there in December 2004. Following this admission, another psychologist, Marty McKay, of Toronto, lodged a complaint with the Ontario College of Psychologists. When this was dismissed as "harassing and vexatious", she appealed to the Health Professions Appeal and Review Board. A hearing was held last week.
McKay told the board that Marshall had brought his profession into "disrepute" because "his high stature and public support for killing disabled people can reasonably be expected to have an impact." She also contended that the college failed to view her complaint as raising a "a public protection issue" because "after all, a woman is dead and members of the disabled community are reaching out to you, the board, to let you know they are personally afraid of what this means for them." The board has reserved its decision. ~ Toronto Star, May 16; Barrie Advance, May 18
Dignitas: Dignitas helps its clients to die in normal block of residential apartments in Zurich. Now the neighbours are complaining about too many body bags. Apparently regular coffins are too large to fit into the lift, so the deceased are lugged downstairs in body bags and then transferred to a waiting hearse. "Almost every day the bodies of people who have chosen to kill themselves are taken down in the lift," says a resident. "It's horrid and I've had enough." ~ Daily Record (Scotland), May 20
PARTNERLESS 63-YEAR-OLD DAD OF TRIPLETS IS NORMAL GUY
The first man in the UK to have children without a female partner has just published a second edition of his book on raising triplets on his own. Ian Mucklejohn's children, now five years old, were born to an American surrogate mother when he was 58. He recently took the boys to the US to meet their genetic mother and the woman who brought them to term.
Now 63, he told the BBC that his experience has been very positive. I have seen the unhappiness childlessness brings and this country makes it too hard to overcome that," he says. "But it can be done." He feels that the boys will not regret not having a mother because he plays both roles adequately. "I am the anchor in their lives," he says. "That's not to say having a mother isn't a great thing, but as long as I am doing my best by them I don't think they are missing out."
In any case, he says, their situation is not all that unusual. "My children are the product of a single-parent family, like many of their friends and lots of people in today's society." ~ BBC News Magazine, May 17
HWANG'S EGG COUNT RISES
The number of eggs used by disgraced Korean stem cell scientist Hwang Woo-suk keeps climbing. He originally claimed that he had used only 427 eggs to produce 11 human embryonic stem cell lines. This claim has been proven fraudulent. In January, investigators from Seoul National University disclosed that he had used 2,061 eggs from 129 donors. A month later, the National Bioethics Committee found that he had gathered 2,221 eggs from 119 donors. And now police prosecutors say that the number is 2,236 eggs from 136 donors. Hwang did not act alone. It also appears that Hanyang University Medical Center gave eggs to Hwang without obtaining the consent of the donors. This was a clear violation of a Korean bioethics law. ~ Korea Times, May 15
NIGERIAN DIES IN QUEUE FOR HEART TRANSPLANT
The ethical dilemmas involved in allocating organs for transplants became painfully real in the UK after a Nigerian woman who had overstayed her visa died while waiting for a heart transplant. Ese Elizabeth Alabi, 29, had been given lower priority in the queues for a heart because she was not an EU national. Ms Alabi came to Britain last September already pregnant with twins. She had a return ticket, but fell ill before giving birth. By the time her visa expired, she was already too ill to return to her country. She died as her lawyers fought to have her case placed on a high priority list. Her lawyer said she was a victim of new rules discouraging health tourism.
A Department of Health spokesman described her case as an "extremely sad and difficult process". However, he said, "Organs for transplant, and hearts in particular, are extremely scarce and it is necessary to have clear rules to establish priorities in their allocation. Whilst no person is wholly excluded from receiving an organ, priority is given to those who are entitled to [National Health System] treatment." ~ BBC, May 18
IN BRIEF: Dignitas; animal rights, mercy killing
Animal rights law: The host of the American TV show "The Price is Right" has donated US$1 million to Georgetown University Law School to expand its curriculum in animal rights law. Bob Barker has made several large donations to law schools across the country including Harvard, Columbia, UCLA, Stanford, Northwestern and Duke. ~ Georgetown University press release
Mercy killer dies: James Roberson, the 83-year-old Texas man who shot and killed his wife last month because he could not bear to see her go to a nursing home, died a natural death at home last week. He had been seriously ill with cancer and was free on bail. ~ AP, May 19
Canadian doctors are embracing cosmetic surgery and abandoning less lucrative fields, says the magazine Macleans. "In 15 minutes I can inject Botox and make three, four, five hundred dollars," says a Toronto dermatologist. "In the same 15 minutes I can excise a malignant melanoma and make $50." And as doctors abandon family medicine, dermatology and other specialities to provide firm, unlined, hairless skin for ageing baby-boomers, the availability of care for people who are actually sick is diminishing -- although perverse incentives created by the Canadian health care system certainly play a role in this, as well.