Government
Obama announces bioethics advisory panel
NEWS IN BRIEF — Posted Dec. 7, 2009
President Obama on Nov. 24 announced the creation of the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, as well as the commission's first two appointees.
Obama earlier this year disbanded the President's Council on Bioethics formed by President Bush, saying he would replace it with a new commission that would focus on developing concrete policy recommendations.
The new panel's responsibilities include identifying bioethical, legal or social issues related to advances in biomedical and behavioral research and health care technology. It will recommend legal, regulatory or policy actions to address these issues.
The panel will be part of the Dept. of Health and Human Services and will have at least 13 members appointed by the president. The chair is Amy Gutmann, PhD, a political scientist and president of the University of Pennsylvania. She is the founding director of the Princeton University Center for Human Values, a multidisciplinary ethics center.
The vice chair is James W. Wagner, PhD, Emory University's president. Wagner, an engineer, previously served as interim president of Case Western Reserve University and as a researcher for the Food and Drug Administration Center for Devices and Radiological Health, where he performed quality assurance tests on medical devices.
Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2009/12/07/gvbf1207.htm.
