Mental Health

Just coming down from Pluto [press] is this edited collection that promises to cover - with 30 different authors, all of whom will be hunted down and killed by big pharma assassins, no doubt - the "* current regulation of the industry * ethical issues in developing and distributing drugs * how it prices and markets drugs * recommendations on how to improve pharmaceutical policy * the importance of pharmaceuticals * the structure of the pharmaceutical industry * what drugs are needed on a worldwide scale." Just make sure that if you work at Cleveland Clinic you order this to your home address and don't buy it while you're at work.

NAS2, our cute name for the continuing effort by NAS to play the leading role in defining and refining rules for ethical stem cell research, rolls on. In anticipation of an update to their rules [see the scary skeleton book on the right], more than a dozen academics, industry folks and at least one person who isn't afraid to lie about Korea will be talking non-stop on election day and beaming the words to the world. So if you can't make up your mind about stem cells - and the new new new guidelines (from ISSCR) on stem cell research, or Pastor Ted's downfall - have you confused, dial up the Emerging Issues in Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research Registration Page and prepare for a day of streaming persuasion from the all-singing, all-dancing National Academies. And no it is not really all Alta, though you could always just save a copy of the Alta bits if you want.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer begins a multi-part story today on the use of cord-blood stem cell transplants for Tay Sachs children. Some years ago I pointed out in the context of Penn's work on innovative gene therapy for a different set of childhood genetic disorders that parents with dying children are not in a strong position to offer truly informed consent when a cutting edge innovative intervention is proposed. This story makes that point abundantly clear--fatal disease in a child is a hugely 'coercive' factor in the decisions that parents make.
Arthur Caplan

Independent reports:

Couples are to be offered free fertility treatment in return for donating sperm to other women who are desperate for children. The offer, by the Care group of IVF clinics, comes as fertility experts warned that the shortage of sperm stocks in the UK was reaching crisis levels and had plummeted to a record low.
The chronic shortage of sperm stocks in the UK has also prompted approaches to Britain's soldiers to donate sperm, in a move reminiscent of Lord Kitchener's "Your Country Needs You" recruitment campaign in the First World War.

Art Caplan

We’ve written before about so-called “stem cell suburbs”, traditionally Republican suburban Congressional districts that are more socially liberal than the Republican party’s base. Democrats are mounting unexpectedly strong challenges in many such districts this fall and are pushing hard on support for embryonic stem cell research to appeal to independents and moderate Republicans who are uncomfortable with the national party’s social conservatism.

This article by Jodi Kantor in the New York Times over the weekend profiles another such district— the 8th District in Washington state (suburban Seattle), which is home to a large number of people who work at Microsoft and related technology companies. The district is wealthy, well-educated and economically conservative and has traditionally been a Republican stronghold. While the district narrowly went for Kerry in 2004, it has never elected a Democrat to Congress— Republican Jennifer Dunn represented the district for twelve years and was replaced in 2004 by Republican Dave Reichert, who came to local prominence as the sheriff who caught the Green River Killer.

The current Congressional campaign, however, is rated as a toss-up by most national political gurus. Democratic challenger Darcy Burner, a former Microsoft executive who has no prior political experience, is mounting a strong challenge to Reichert by capitalizing on popular discontent with national Republican positions on a variety of issues, including most prominently embryonic stem cell research. Kantor notes:

“This year, one issue incenses them (engineers and other professionals who live in the district) above all others: restrictions on embryonic stem cell research…It is a matter of concern across the country, even across parties. But for many engineers and their ilk, restriction of stem cell research is what gay marriage is to conservative Christians, a phenomenon so counter to their basic values that they cannot vote for anyone who supports it….for Bellevue (the major town in the district)’s professionals, science is not only a means of creating wealth but also an idealistic pursuit, the most promising way they know of improving the human condition”

Burner, a strong campaigner who has been endorsed by the major Seattle newspaper, has been criticizing Reichert as a strong supporter of the Bush Administration on a wide range of issues from the Iraq war and detention and trial of foreign detainees to global warming and the minimum wage. Reichert, who is well-liked and well funded, opposed the Bush Administration’s position on Terry Schiavo and in fact changed his position on embryonic stem cell research, voting in favor of the bill President Bush vetoed to expand federal research support. It remains to be seen if these positions are sufficient to keep him in office in what seems to be shaping up as a referendum on national political issues.
Jim Fossett
AMBI Federalism and Bioethics