Fiction Recommendation

For your reading pleasure: 40 Signs of Rain, by Kim Stanley Robinson. It's the first in a trilogy about climate change set sometime in the pretty near future; the second book, 50 Degrees Below, was published last November. Like all of Robinson's books, it's well written and funny as well as thought-provoking.

I loaned my copy to a friend who is a well-respected climatologist, and he said it was the best fiction book about science he had ever read. It was in his subject area, so reading it was a little bit like going to work, but he said that it was the first time an NSF review has ever been really suspenseful.

Essay on Ethics

Essay on Ethics

A reader (thanks so much!) pointed me to a long essay by Henry Greely, a boethicist at Stanford University who has also been quoted recently in articles about new ethical standards. The essay lays out many of the ethical considerations in stem cell research, including donor issues, the differences between donated embryos from IVF and donated eggs, for example), the creation of embryos and “chimeras,” the age of embryos (less than 14 days or older?), patent and intellectual property issues, and “questions about the edges of various legal, ethical, and regulatory schemes.” This last subject includes such complications as what happens when a governing agency bans cloning and defines it by a kind of procedure but some other procedure then develops which has the same result but is not illegal, issues going from country to country or state to state, issues related to funding, issues related to collaboration. Greely writes,

Such funding limitations may sound straightforward, but they are not. What does it mean to use federal funds? Can an institution use a microscope owned by the federal government? What about a microscope purchased with federal funds but now owned by the institution? If a researcher's computer was purchased with federal funds, can it be used to prepare a talk about results with unregistered cell lines? If a university's E-mail system is supported in part by federal funds, can it be used for messages involving nonregistered lines? The early guidance from the federal government has been that nonconforming use of things covered by indirect-cost pools could be permitted, but they would have to be proportionately excluded from federal reimbursement. Does that mean that a university, or an individual researcher, has to track and then subtract the percentage of E-mail usage, telephone usage, electricity usage, and anything else that goes into the overhead-cost pool and involves work with unregistered cell lines?

This sounds way too picky, but it's not. If Hwang had been as picky about his research, we wouldn't have had the Korean scandal.

The essay is an excellent piece teasing out many of the different ethical questions and considerations. People who are already opposed to embryonic stem cell research will not find that it resolves their ethical issues, but anyone who believes that embryonic stem cell research should go forward should read it and consider it carefully. It is about doing science well.

Legal News

Legal News

California: the Prop 71 trial courtroom phase ended yesterday, but there’s no decision yet. According to the Oakland Tribune, in a story that has been widely printed in other papers, the judge’s ruling is expected in about a month. She took closing arguments in writing on Thursday and has asked for post-trial briefs to be done by March 15, at which point she will begin considering. Then after she issues her ruling there will almost certainly be an appeal. Another article, from a writer for the Contra Costa Times, that has also been widely reprinted, also recaps it and adds the information that the appeal must be filed within 30 days.

And, speaking of appeals, in Missouri a three judge panel of the Court of Appeals listened to the arguments about the proposed amendment to the constitution. The legal argument in this case by the plaintiffs is that the language in the summary of the ballot initiative is misleading. An AP story reprinted in the Kansas City Star says the court took the matter “under advisement” and did not say when to anticipate a ruling.

So in both these cases what we have is a situation where the legal challenge is being mounted on grounds other than embryonic stem cell research. The legal challenge is being mounted because of opposition to embryonic stem cell research but that’s not the nature of the argument. In California, the issue has to do with structure, accountability, and fiscal matters; in Missouri it’s about language.

Two points about this: first, this is the way the law frequently works in civil matters. (It may in criminal too, I don’t have experience with criminal law.) Language matters, and law requires that language be precise. Also, law is often about procedure. That’s one of the reason cases take so long. Parties have specified amounts of time to bring about certain motions, etc. This also applies to the rules for making new laws. Language, rules, and procedure can all be evaluated in a way that complex moral or ethical issues cannot be. So if you can find a failure—even an ambiguity—in language or rules or how something was done, you can have solid legal ground for getting something overturned.

Second, this means that whatever the final ruling turns out to be, even if goes all the way to the US Supreme Court, there’s not going to be a decision on the legality of embryonic stem cell research or therapeutic cloning. That’s beyond the scope of the argument. If in California it is ruled that the CIRM has unconstitutional conflicts of interest, or if in Missouri the ballot language is deemed ambiguous, then the parties have to go back to the drawing board and rewrite/restructure what they want. But the status quo of embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning will be the same. There will certainly be consequences as far as what decisions researchers make about where to perform their research, but the ethical debates will continue as they have.