Book Reviews

Books reviewed in this article:
Jennifer Jackson, Truth, Trust and Medicine
Anne Hudson Jones and Faith McLellan (eds.), Ethical Issues in Biomedical Publications
Carl Elliott (ed.), Slow Cures and Bad Philosophers: Essays on Wittgenstein, Medicine, and Bioethics
Robert M. Veatch, Transplantation Ethics
Barry Hoffmaster (ed.), Bioethics in Social Context
Michael W. Fox, Bringing Life to Ethics: Global Bioethics for a Humane Society     

Book review

Book reviewed
Loretta M Kopelman (ed), Building Bioethics: Conversations with Clouser and Friends on Medical Ethics     

Bioethics in Social Context

Bioethics in Social Context. Barry Hoffmaster. ed. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2001.vii. 234 pp.     

BOOKS RECEIVED

Bioethics: Latin American Perspectives , edited by Arleen L.F. Salles and Maria Julia Bertomeu. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2002. 199 pp. US$ 36.00 (hardback).
The Ethics of Research Related to Healthcare in Developing Countries , by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics. London: Nuffield Council on Bioethics, 2002. 205 pp. £3.00.
Advances in Chinese Medical Ethics: Chinese and International Perspectives , edited by Ole Doring and Renbiao Chen. Hamburg: IFA, 2002. xv + 465 pp. €38.00 (paperback).
Bioethics: A Philosophical Introduction , by Stephen Holland. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2003. vii + 232 pp. £50.00 (hardback.)     

Pharmacogenetics: Ethical Issues

Books reviewed:
Pharmacogenetics: Ethical Issues , Report by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics. London: Nuffield Council on Bioethics. 2003. xxiv + 103pp. £10 to all European countries (including postage); £15 to non-European countries (including postage); £0 to developing countries. Available free of charge at: http://www.nuffieldbioethics.org/filelibrary/pdf/pharmacogenetics_report     

Origin Myths in Bioethics: Constructing Sources,Motives and Reason in Bioethic(s)

Bioethics, the term now usually standing in for Biomedical Ethics, is a field of medical anthropological engagement. While many anthropologists and other social scientists work with bioethicists and physicians, this paper instead takes Bioethics as a topic of cultural research from the perspective of Cultural Bioethics and Interpretive Medical Anthropology. Application of useful findings of vintage anthropological research in cultural anthropology and the anthropology of religion and an interpretive lens reveal a field without a single origin or unified methodology. The paper suggests the appropriateness of a literal meaning of current conceptual commonality of the term Bioethics: that the term does in fact refer to a plurality of distinct enterprises with distinct origins and, hence, justifications.     

Booknote

Book reviewed:
Albert R. Jonsen, Robert M. Veatch and LeRoy Walters (eds), Sourcebook in Bioethics     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed: James M. Humber and Robert F. Almeder, Human Cloning Gregory E. Pence, ed, Flesh of my Flesh: The Ethics of Cloning Humans John F. Kilner, Rebecca D. Pentz, Frank E. Young, Genetic Ethics: Do the Ends Justify the Genes? Anita Silvers, David Wassermann and Mary B. Mahowald, Disability, Difference, Discrimination: Perspectives on Justice in Bioethics and Public Policy Neil A. Holzman and Michael S. Watson, eds, Promoting Safe and Effective Genetic Testing in the United States: Final Report of the Task Force on Genetic Testing     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book Reviews in this Article:
Ethics and Biotechnology , edited by Anthony Dyson and John Harris. Routledge
Human In Vitro Fertilisation- A Case Study in the Regulation of Medical Innovation by Jennifer Gunning and Veronica English.
Philosophical Perspectives on Psychiatric Diagnostic Classification , edited by John Z. Sadfer, Osborne P. Wiggins and Michael A. Schwartz
Children of Choice: Freedom and the New Reproductive Technologies , by John A. Robertson.
Religious Methods and Resources in Bioethics , edited by Paul F. Camenisch.
Moral Matters: Ethical Issues in Medicine and the Life Sciences , by Arthur Caplan.
Wo lfgang Wagner(ed.). Arzneimittel und Verantwortung. Grundlagen und Methoden der Pharmaethik prugs and Responsibility — The Foundations and Methods of pharmaethics].
GenEthics. Technological Intervetion in Human Reproduction as a Philosophical Problem by Kurt Bayertz.
The Virtue in Medical Ethics , by Edmund D. Pellegrho and David C. Thomasma     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book Reviews in this Article:
Accountability of Bioethics Committees and Consultants by Sigrid Fry Revere.
Research Ethics in Practice : The Animal Ethics Committees in Sweden,
The Beginning of Human Life edited by Fritz K. Beller and Robert F. Weir. Dordecht
Dementia und Aging: Ethics, Values, ad Policy Choices , edited by Robert H. Binstock, Stephen G. Post and Peter J. White-house.
Least Worst Death — Essays in Bioethics on the End of Life by Margaret Pabst Battin.
All God's Mistakes — Genetic Counseling in a Pediatric Hospital by Charles L. Bosk.
Informed Consent: Patient Autonomy and Physician Beneficence within Clinical Medicine by Stephen Wear.     

BOOK REVIEW

Beyond a Western Bioethics: Voices from the Developing World , edited by Angeles Tan Alora and Josephine M. Lumitao. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press, 2001. xiv + 162 pp. US$59.95 (hardback).     

Book Reviews

E. Richard Gold Body Parts: Property Rights and the Ownership of Human Biological Materials
Carson Strong Ethics in Reproductive and Perinatal Medicine: A New Framework
Kazumasa Hoshino Japanese and Western Bioethics: Studies in Moral Diversity     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed
Carl E. Schneider, The Practice of Autonomy: Patients, Doctors, and Medical Decisions
Scott B. Rae and Paul M. Cox, Bioethics: A Christian Approach in a Plutalist Age     

Other issues

Other issues: HIV/AIDS in East Africa: addressing legal, ethical and human rights dilemmas facing healthcare workers; Building research ethics capacity in Haiti: leading the way in the Caribbean; Bioethics and academic freedom in Brazil; Non-consensual HIV testing and confidentiality breaches common in India     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article:
The Ethics of Reproductive Technology edited by Kenneth D. Alpern. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992
Medical Confidentiality and Legal Privilege by Jean V. McHale. London and New York: Routledge, 1993
The Codes of Codes , edited by Daniel J. Kevles and Leroy Hood. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992
The Troubled Dream of Life: Living with Mortality by Daniel Callahan. NY: Simon & Schuster, 1993
International Directory of Bioethics Organizations. Anita L. Nolen and Mary Carrington Coutts, editors. Bioethics Resource Series, Volume 1. Washington, DC: Kennedy Institute of Ethics, Georgetown University, 1993
The Codification of Medical Morality, Volume One: Medical Ethics and Etiquette in the Eighteenth Century , edited by Robert Baker, Dorothy Porter and Roy Porter. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1993
Pursuing Parenthood: Ethical Issues in Assisted Reproduction by Paul Lauritzen. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1993     

Defending the Indefensible

This response addresses criticisms in this journal of an Editorial written by Willem Landman and Udo Schuklenk. I demonstrate that the UNESCO Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights is in crucial aspects deficient, despite attempts in this journal to defend the Declaration against its critics. I focus on individual versus societal interests, research ethics, informed consent and the use of “human dignity” to illustrate the weaknesses of the UNESCO Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights. This article concludes with reflections on what documents such as the UNESCO Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights ought to be called to avoid the mislabelling of what essentially are policy documents.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviews in this Article:
AIDS and the Good Society , by Patricia Illingworth
Genethics: The moral issues in the creation of people , by David Heyd
AIDS: Diritti & Doveri del Personale delle Instituzioni di Assistenza Sanitaria , Milano.
AIDS, Women and the Next Generation: Towards a Morally Acceptable Public Policy for HIV Testing of Pregnant Women and Newborns edited by Ruth R. Faden
Rights to Health Care (Philosophy and Medicine 38 ), edited by Thomas J. Bole III and William B. Bondeson, Dordrecht
Theological Developments in Bioethics: 1988–1990 edited by Baruch A. Brody, B. Andrew Lustig, H. Tristram Engelhardt Jr. and Laurence B. McCullough
Organ Replacement Therapy: Ethics, Justice, Commerce , edited by W. Land and J.B. Dossetor
Regelungen der Fortpflanzungsmedizin und Humangenetik. Eine Internationale Dokumentation gesetzlicher und berufsständischer Rechtsquellen (Regulations of Procreative Medicine and Genetic Research on Humans.
Practical Medical Ethics by Alistair Campbell, Grant Gillett and Gareth Jones
Balancing Act: The New Medical Ethics of Medicine's New Economics by E. Haavi Morreim.
Bioethics and Secular Humanism by H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr. London: SCM Press     

Who should fund and control the direction of human behavior genetics? Review of Nuffield Council on Bioethics 2002 Report,Genetics and Human Behaviour: the Ethical Context

In this ( Nuffield Council on Bioethics 2002) , the third in its series on ethics and related issues in genetics (see also Nuffield Council on Bioethics 1993 and Nuffield Council on Bioethics 1998) , the Nuffield Council has focused on four 'normal' behaviors; intelligence, personality, antisocial behavior and sexual orientation. This is a narrow range of behaviors and one where their discussion of the potential impact of predictive genetic testing is probably inappropriate. They also take an unduly narrow view of the purposes of behavior genetics in the 21st century. It is not simply to estimate heritability but to understand more about the structure of behavior and the processes which underlie it. Their narrow focus and their negative approach to the history and achievements of genetics is reflected in their less than positive support for future behavior genetic research. Behavior geneticists need to do more to publicize what their field has achieved in order to counter the very extensive antibehavior genetics initiatives which are almost unique in science. At the same time, organizations such as the Nuffield Council need to consider carefully the impact their deliberations may have on research funding.     

A reply to Holmes on Gendercide

Warren's book, Gendercide: The Implications of Sex Selection (Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Allanheld; 1985), was reviewed by Helen Bequaert Holmes in the January 1987 issue of Bioethics. Here, Warren responds to the review by clarifying some of her moral arguments and continuing to defend the point of view that selecting the sex of children before conception or before birth is not always sexist, socially harmful, or disrespectful of the child as an end in itself.     

A response to Brock and Skene

Wicclair responds briefly to articles by Dan W. Brock, "Patient decision-making competence and risk," and Loane Skene, "Risk-related standard inevitable in assessing competence," in this issue of Bioethics. Brock and Skene were responding to Wicclair's essay, "Decision-making capacity and risk," also in this issue of Bioethics. Wicclair had critiqued the arguments of Brock and Allen Buchanan, published elsewhere, concerning standards of competence for health care treatment decision making.