Biotech Ethics

From the website CHOICE: Trusted information for Australian consumers: Nanotechnology and food

”Nanofoods” refers to all foods to which manufactured nanoscale food components have been added and/or packaged in materials to which manufactured nanoparticles have been added. Nanotechnology certainly offers exciting possibilities for the future, such as safer food that can be conveniently stored for longer periods without deterioration. Other possibilities include foods fortified with healthy ingredients such as vitamins, antioxidants or omega-3 fats, encapsulated so that they are delivered exactly where they are needed in your body.
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The main issue around regulation is not the small size of nanoparticles as such, rather their novel properties. We’ve always been exposed to naturally occurring nanoparticles, but never before to nanoparticles specifically manufactured to influence food properties. We simply do not yet know enough about how they could affect human health; no one predicted, for example, that carbon nanotubes could cause cancer ….

Hospital Says Fake Data Used in Painkiller Studies

A prominent Massachusetts anesthesiologist allegedly fabricated 21 medical studies that claimed to show benefits from painkillers like Vioxx and Celebrex, according to the hospital where he worked.

Baystate Medical Center, Springfield, Mass., said that its former chief of acute pain, Scott S. Reuben, had faked data used in the studies, which were published in several anesthesiology journals between 1996 and 2008.

From the Research Ethics Blog: Falsifying Data: Anesthesiology Research May Have Found its Own Bernie Madoff

You all know who Bernie Madoff is. He’s the guy who pulled off the biggest financial scam in history. Madoff’s scam wasn’t just big. It was enormous. Mind-boggling. How, everyone asked, did he pull it off? And beyond that, what made him think he could get away with it?

Now, it looks like the field of Anesthesiology research may have its own Bernie Madoff, in the person of one Scott S Reuben, MD.

The story comes from Anesthesiology News, and reported repeated the Pharmola.com website: Fraud Case Rocks Anesthesiology Community

From the Business Ethics Blog: Personal Genomics: the Ethics of Shared Uncertainty

Yesterday afternoon I gave a talk there, called “Direct-to-Consumer Genetic Testing: Consumer Empowerment or High-Tech Fortune-Telling?”

I didn’t talk about genetic testing in general, but rather specifically about at-home genetic tests (a.k.a. “personal genomics” services) sold by companies like 23andMe, Navigenics, and deCode.

The scientific consensus (among academic and clinical geneticists, anyway) seems to be that such tests aren’t worth much.