Paradoxically, the victim can have the most powerful position, namely, as a “rhetorical figure.” I sense this rhetorical power in Rebecca Skloot’s bestselling book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. I think less freely under the spell of this rhetoric. My thoughts are not allowed to discover new aspects of things. Questions are being silenced […]
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Creating biobanks for future research is sometimes debated as if such investments seriously threatened sample donors’ integrity. In Sweden, the Data Inspection Board even decided that it is against the law to collect biological samples and personal health data “for future research.” Participants cannot give their consent to anything that vague, they argued. This distrustfulness […]
Continue readingChildren pose a dizzyingly difficult problem for research ethics. One of the most important tasks of research ethics is the protection of human research participants. This significant aim is realized above all through the requirement of proper information and consent procedures. But children often cannot be protected though these means. They are too young to […]
Continue readingBeing human, can I think nonhuman thoughts? Can the world I perceive be anything but a human world? These philosophical questions arise when I read Cora Diamond’s and Bernard Williams’ humanistic portrayals of our relations to animals. A certain form of “human self-centeredness” is often deemed unavoidable in philosophy. If I talk about a dog as […]
Continue readingIn a comment to what I posted earlier about the decision of the Swedish Data Inspection Board to stop LifeGene, Åke Thörn asks what I mean by saying that “LifeGene represents a new reality in the making.” Since the question has deep interest, I want to answer it here, in a new post. I will […]
Continue readingSwedish biobank research suffered serious defeat last week. The Swedish Data Inspection Board decided that the ongoing collection of biological samples and health data to the large biobank LifeGene is against the law. Karolinska Institutet (that runs LifeGene) must now stop collecting further data and is not allowed use already collected data. The reason for […]
Continue readingThe company Geron recently decided to stop its unique clinical trial concerning treatment of spinal cord injury with neural cells derived from human embryonic stem cells. In a previous post on this blog, I used the company’s decision to illustrate a possible consequence of the European ban on stem cell patents requiring the destruction of […]
Continue readingIn the December issue of the European Journal of Public Health, two groups of researchers present opposed views on planned changes to the European Data Protection Directive. One group welcomes a harmonization of data protection rules across Europe, provided that new technologies to protect identities are implemented. Their basic idea seems to be that harmonization […]
Continue readingA very controversial question was recently debated in a Swedish daily paper, Svenska Dagbladet: – Has the Swedish protection of animals in research gone too far? The question was raised by Mats G. Hansson at CRB, Rikard Holmdahl (Professor of Medical Inflammation Research) and Anne Carlsson (President of the Swedish Rheumatism Association). I published a post about […]
Continue readingA month ago the European Court of Justice banned patents that require destroying human embryos at and after the blastocyst stage. A month later, the company Geron decided to stop their unique clinical trial concerning a treatment of spinal cord injury with neural cells derived from human embryonic stem cells. The company cited lack of […]
Continue readingTHE ETHICS BLOG
A research blog from the Centre for Research Ethics & Bioethics (CRB)
We write for researchers, healthcare staff, officials, politicians, patient organisations and anyone interested in ethics.
We comment on the research ethics and bioethics debate and discuss our own research. We address issues from current debates in the research community and in the press.
MEET THE EDITOR
Pär Segerdahl is editor of the Ethics Blog and Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Centre for Research Ethics & Bioethics.