C. Ben Mitchell

DEERFIELD, Ill. (BP)--Immediately following the appointment of the President's Council on Bioethics, I urged that we postpone judgment about the composition of the council until we had its first report in hand. Since the charter of the council states that its role is to counsel the president on bioethical issues, the proof of the pudding, I argued, would be in its policy recommendations. Well, their first report is out (www.bioethics.gov/cloningreport) and now we have recommendations to consider.

Groundbreaking news the week of Jan. 21 that scientists at the University of Minnesota may have discovered a potential method to treat disease also means there may be a way to put an end to one of the most difficult public policy debates of this new century. Catherine Verfaillie and colleagues at the Stem Cell […]

DEERFIELD, Ill. (BP)--Preimplantation genetic screening is the latest assault against a truly human future. According to a report in the Feb. 27 Journal of the American Medical Association, a 30-year-old woman has chosen to use the technique because she carries the rare gene for early onset Alzheimer's disease. This particular variety of Alzheimer's reportedly affects adults by the time they are 40 years of age.

DEERFIELD, Ill. (BP)--Groundbreaking news the week of Jan. 21 that scientists at the University of Minnesota may have discovered a potential method to treat disease also means there may be a way to put an end to one of the most difficult public policy debates of this new century. Catherine Verfaillie and colleagues at the Stem Cell Institute have found "miracle" stem cells that may well be the most versatile of all stem cells.

DEERFIELD, Ill. (BP)--The announcement of the President's Council on Bioethics was a long time in coming. No one imagined on Aug. 9, 2001, when the president announced that Leon Kass would chair such a council that it would have taken this long. But then Sept. 11 occurred and retarded movement on a number of fronts while we defended our national security.

DEERFIELD, Ill. (BP)--Scrooge: Humbug!

DEERFIELD, Ill. (BP)--We are in a national state of emergency. While Congress and the president are managing the war in Afghanistan and while Tom Ridge is working to protect our national security, renegade scientists continue to clone human beings.

DEERFIELD, Ill. (BP)--Of all the advisers President Bush consulted before making his decision on human embryonic stem cells, one of the voices he failed to heed was that of Solomon. When two women came to Solomon, both claiming a child as their own, in his great wisdom Solomon suggested that the baby be killed and half given to each woman. At one level, this seemed to be a fair compromise. Solomon knew, however, that the real mother would sooner give up her child than have him or her cut in two. Thus, the real mother was revealed to all.

DEERFIELD, Ill. (BP)--Words are powerful tools. They can be used as a shield or a weapon.

WASHINGTON (BP)--There is good news and there is bad news. First, the bad news. Confirming what we knew all along, scientists at the Jones Institute for Reproductive Medicine in Virginia, do not think it is sufficient to do research on human embryos that are "going to die anyway," to follow the popular mantra. They announced 11 July 2001 that they intentionally created human embryos from donor eggs and sperm with the sole purpose of conducting destructive research on those nascent humans.