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ABSTRACT Developments in biotechnology raise a myriad of issues relating to intellectual property law and ethics. Intellectual property law and specifically patent law, has been forced to create guidelines for [...]

Ethical issues are a growing concern for companies, in the wake of a series of corporate governance scandals and the accompanying sharp decline in societal and investor trust in firms. [...]

The 20th century produced overwhelming advances in biomedicine with the 1990s introducing 148,000 patents as part of the mapping and sequencing of the human genome. Bioethical realities and debates of prenatal genetic testing, new reproductive technologies, stem cell research, human cloning and DNA data banks have obscured the less provocative public and social issues of gun control, immunization, employee leave programs to assist care for dying relatives, emergency room use as primary care sites by the uninsured, and medical care provision to the homeless. With the events of September 11, the focus has shifted to bioterrorism: an international and global concern that portends broad environmental consequences while requiring a local, community response of which the business enterprise is a part. The tension that results from a required local and global response to bioterrorism and biotechnology by the business community forms a dialectic and provides a venue for addressing business ethics in an international forum. This paper explores the relationship of events and its meaning for business. Part I provides the background of biotechnology and bioterrorism and how the two form a dialectic reality that shapes ethical debate. Part II presents provocations and questions for an emerging ethic based on the integrative response from the public health, medical, business and religious communities. Four areas for business contribution in shaping emerging ethics in the age of biotechnology-bioterrorism are suggested. KEY WORDS: bioethics, biotechnology, business ethics, bioterrorism, public health, medical ethics religion, person, human rights, sustainable development, healthy societies

This Article explores the U.S. "patent first, ask questions later" approach to determining what subject matter should receive patent protection. Under this approach, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO [...]

This article begins by showing how recent controversies over the widespread promotion of artificially gene-altered foods are rooted in opposing ethical and ideological worldviews. It then explains how these contrasting worldviews have led to a practical, ethical, and ideological standoff and, finally, suggests the combined use of casuistry and virtue ethics as a way for both sides to move ahead on this pressing issue.

There is no life without context. In terms of agricultural biotechnology the context ranges from the gene, to the technician manipulating the gene, to the university employing the technician, to [...]

This article examines the ethical aspects of biotechnology research. The author, maintaining biotechnology is a very new field which is presenting new issues we must all face, argues the industry was the first to act on and lead bioethical issues and have set up a committee to protect research as well as the public.

Research presented concerns how biotechnology companies respond to social and ethical pressures in Europe, focusing on how ethical concerns are considered during the corporate decision-making process. Findings suggest that biotech companies have a relatively high ethical awareness, but may lack the processes and initiatives to effectively incorporate these issues into their decision-making processes.

This article examines divergent opinions in the complex field of contemporary bioethics, focusing on the effect of postmodernist theory on absolute moral values. Topics addressed include philosophical methodology, justification, and moral responsibility.

Ethics can play an important role in influencing market-based development in the biotechnology industry. The values of ethics are disseminated to the market when ethicists discuss with doctors and biologists issues such as patents and modifications of the human genome. Successful dialogues between the ethicists and biotechnological industry managers and doctors can ensure that biotechnological research and development efforts are aimed toward improving humanity.

The European Parliament rejected in 1995 the European Commission proposal to harmonize legal protection of biotechnological inventions. Although it did not seem initially the most contentious of the many issues involved in the current legal and ethical debate around biomedicine and genetics, patenting is now focusing bioethics in Europe. Key words: bioethics, European Community, human genetics, patenting.

On May 18, 1995, about 200 religious leaders representing 80 faiths gathered in Washington, D.C., to call for a moratorium on the patenting of genes and genetically engineered creatures. In […]

Byline: Marc A. Saner Increasingly, government officials are asked to take ethical considerations into account during regulatory decision-making and especially in the case of biotechnology products. It is also clear, however, that ethical issues arise throughout the planning, production and use of these products (i.e. the entire product life cycle) rather than just during the regulatory step. In this paper it is argued that the ethical issues should be considered throughout the product life cycle.

Biological and toxin weapons (BTW) are destructive in nature and the means to counter them are limited, so about 146 nations signed a treaty in 1972 on Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) to ban the use of such weapons for hostile purposes. The fifth review conference of the BTWC in November 2001 to veto a draft protocol, which was rejected by the U.S, was reconvened in Nov. 2002.

The power struggle between corporations which produce biotechnological products and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) which oppose such production is examined. The writer concedes that very often the stand taken by the NGOs has a moral focus and emphasizes the importance of corporate officers acknowledging the same and learning to deal with it in a way that benefits both sides.

If Celera Genomics--the biotech firm in Rockville, Maryland, that has sequenced the human genome--had decided never to publish its work, nobody would have kicked up a fuss, says company president [...]

Research review boards, established to protect the rights and welfare of human research subjects, have to ensure that conflicts of interest do not interfere with the ethical conduct of medical research. Private, commercial review boards, which increasingly review research protocols, are themselves affected by a structural conflict of interest. Within the regulatory setting, procedural conflict-of-interest rules are essential because of the absence of clear substantive rules in research review and the reliance on the fairness and good judgment of institutional review board members. Current guidelines and regulations lack adequate conflict-of-interest rules and provide insufficient details on the substantive rules. Because commercial review boards are similar to administrative courts and tribunals, rules of administrative law on bias are applied to determine when a conflict of interest jeopardizes the purposes of research review; administrative law has always judged financial conflicts of interest severely. The structure of private review tends to breach a core principle of administrative law and procedural justice. Reform of the research review system will reinforce public trust in the process.