UNESCO Bioethics Research Articles

Content development footprints for the establishment of a National Bioethics Committee: lessons from Nigeria

ABSTRACT Nigeria is experiencing, together with the rest of the world, consequences of relentlessly accelerating technological developments, in the contexts of relative lagging of developments in the Humanities, new discoveries in sciences and technological innovations, advances in medicine, changes in government policies and norms, rapid changes in the society, unhealthy practices in the area of food and agriculture, degradation of the environment as well as climate change. Furthermore, Nigeria as a Member State of UNESCO Bioethics is expected to have a National Bioethics Committee to enhance her participation in global concerns, as well as increase her opportunities to tap into global Bioethics resources. For this Committee to be established, the National Bioethics Framework and Policy Documents must be put in place. This paper discusses the rigorous process of developing the National Bioethics Framework and the National Bioethics Policy Documents as well as the need for a National Bioethics Committee in Nigeria.

Lessons from the Holocaust for perinatal care today.

Lessons from the Holocaust for perinatal care today.

National pecularities of teaching bioethics in the medical university

The article discusses the problem of the demand for bioethical education for medical students. This problem is connected with the negative tendency to curriculum reduction of humanitarian disciplines. This point of view appeals to the strengthening of the professional component that determines the profile competencies of a specialist. In particular, it is proposed to reduce the teaching time for bioethics in medical higher schools for its use in teaching operational techniques, so-called practical skills. As an opposing point of view, the analysis of the fragment of the bioethics course developed by UNESCO on the issue of providing medical care to under-age patients in the field of cosmetic surgery is proposed. Students are shown the complexity of an ethical solution, seemingly formally resolved by the rules of the law of the problem. The very process of discussion, the discussions that arise, the decision of the judge convince future doctors of the ambiguity of ethical decisions making, as well as the ambiguity of ethical content of the legal norms in the field of health. This problem raises a number of other ethical dilemmas, initiating students' interest in the ethical side of professional activity. The results of sociological research of students of medical higher school [n = 92, average age (19,2 ± 1,01) years] are presented in the article. Despite the fact that 54,3 % of respondents believe that a 15-year-old patient cannot give consent to cosmetic surgery alone, 27,5 % of students found it difficult to answer, just doubting the possibility to make adequate decision at the age of 15. The data obtained demonstrate the general ethical problems raised by the proposed case in the UNESCO bioethics course. Despite possible discrepancies in the legal norms of national laws, cultural, confessional or atheistic peculiarities of countries, the ethical problems of professional activity are of a general nature.

Ethical Dilemmas Expressed by Non-oncology Specialists Involved in Diagnosis and Care of Cancer Patients: A Preliminary Study

Background: Ethical problems routinely arise in the healthcare profession and more so in hospitals providing cancer diagnosis and care. Literature study indicates that almost all studies addressing ethical issues in cancer have been qualitative and reported from the developed countries, while there has been no study reported from developing countries. For the first time, we performed a questionnaire study to quantify the ethical issues plaguing the healthcare fraternity in the diagnosis and care of people with cancer. Method: This prospective study was conducted under the aegis of UNESCO Bioethics Education and Research Unit of the UNESCO Chair in Bioethics, Haifa at Mangalore Institute of Oncology Mangalore, India. The investigators approached the healthcare professionals involved in diagnosis, treating, and caring for patients with cancer and ascertained various ethical issues they faced. Data were tabulated and subjected to frequency and percentage. Result: The results indicated that discussing end-of-life issues with the patient and breaking bad news were the two most difficult ones while discussing end of life issues with family caregivers was the least. Conclusion: According to this study, oncology treatment involves a series of dilemmatic issues and breaking bad news. Based on the detailed studies and emphasis on handling these issues, it is possible to develop a teaching module for training the health care professionals and workers for managing the ethical issues effectively.

Training teachers to teach bioethics: evaluation using Kirkpatrick model

Bioethics helps define the values and guidelines governing decision making in health profession practice. Teaching ethics to medical students demand teachers trained in bioethics. With this aim, “Teachers Training Workshop on Bioethics” was arranged with the objective to get feedback from the participants on effectiveness of bioethics teaching. Twelve faculty members participated in four days Teachers Training Workshop on Bioethics during Dec 27-30, 2016, at Patan Academy of Health Sciences, Nepal. Sixteen thematic topics were chosen from UNESCO Bioethics Core Curriculum. There were four rounds of presentations, and each round had four topics. Small group discussions, presentations and case scenarios were main methods used in the training. Written feedback was taken on semi-structured questionnaire with items- four closed ended and three open ended. Descriptive analysis was done.
 The level of confidence of the participants after participation in training workshop enhanced for teaching Bioethics, taking ethical decision and resolving ethical dilemma. As per participants open ended responses, “Active participation of the participants” and “Interactive sessions” were good points whereas “More references required, not only of UNESCO curriculum” was the area for improvement. The training enhanced overall confidence level of the participants.

Bioethics North and South: Creating a common ground

Summary Bioethics as practiced in Europe, the United States, and Canada has a tenuous and tentative reach into the developing countries of Africa, South America, and Asia. This paper explores the problematic translation of bioethics between the Global North and South; and between resource rich and resource poor countries. As Alexander Capron put it in 2007, bioethics has a 10/90 problem, analogizing to the observation that medical research spends 90% of its resources on problems affecting 10% of the world's population. Today, UNESCO's bioethics website says bioethics focuses on “stem cell research, genetic testing, cloning, progress in the life sciences”. Any review of the most widely cited bioethics articles and journals finds that the writing is largely centered within an enclave of first world concerns. Stem cells and cloning are neither health care nor health science priorities of developing countries. The priorities of developing countries (i.e., those that would improve the health of populations or that refer to local diseases) are marginalized. Costly and/or impractical medical infrastructure is discussed or proposed. The first-world orientation of bioethics was perhaps somewhat practicable during a post-World War II stasis, but it is increasingly dysfunctional and even dangerous in the context of twenty-first century climate change, refugee movements, and disease vector migrations. A new global bioethics is urgently needed.

Integrating Bioethics in Sciences’ curricula using values in science and socio-scientific issues

<p>The </p><p>The main objective of the present work is selection of ethical issues that should be addressed with first year undergraduate and K-12 students.</p><p>Since K-12 Sciences’ curriculum, in Portugal, does not include bioethics content in any discipline explicitly, teachers need to make an effort to include it. Some online materials are available to use in high school classes and will be discussed.</p><p>My proposal combines inquiry learning-teaching methods with the aim of promoting the discussion of bioethics issues in accordance to UNESCO Bioethics Core Curriculum already adopted by twenty universities throughout the world (Darwish 2015). Some of the issues that are addressed are: ecology and environment ethics, infectious diseases and vaccination, water for all, intellectual property, genomes and patents, biotechnological advances (genetic modified organisms and synthesis of genomes), future generations, climate hanges and natural resources, biomedical advances and human rights, authorship and contributions in scientific publications, and biobanks.</p><p>In conclusion, this study may constitute an example to facilitate the implementation, by K-12 teachers, of active inquiry strategies, using features of science such as values and socio-scientific issues, and focused on the discussion of concrete ethical issues facing humanity. It also constitutes a proposal of integrating Bioethics in undergraduate sciences’ curricula.</p>

MEDICAL SCIENCE, RESEARCH AND HIGHER EDUCATION IN AZERBAIJAN FROM BIOETHICAL DEVELOPMENTS PERSPECTIVE.

Azerbaijan is a modern, rapidly developing democratic country at the crossroads of Europe and Asia. The country is currently harmonizing its national legislation with international norms, and reforming its national scientific and medical. Higher standards of medical research and education will enhance public health and protect human rights to life and health that are specified in Azerbaijan Constitution. In order to raise its medical research and education to international standards, Azerbaijani scientists and authorities are studying the experience of other countries and taking measures to implement international standards and norms in the country's national legislation. Cooperation with the WHO, UNESCO and other international and foreign organizations, both on regional and global level is creating steps to achieve this goal. These steps include, for example, creation of the Azerbaijan unit of the UNESCO Chair in Bioethics and teaching bioethics based on UNESCO's Bioethics Core Curriculum. Another step is providing research fellowship for young Azerbaijani professionals to study at leading medical research and educational centers around the world including Harvard Medical School and Boston Children's Hospital in the USA, and Koc University in Turkey. A complementary step is the development of local bioethical research, including its legal, ethical and scientific foundations. Adherence to ethical principles in different spheres of life is currently one of the most challenging social and professional issues, especially, this is true with the development of new medical technologies in recent decades and the development of new ethical and legal standards, issues involving different areas of health and medicine and their relation to human rights. Bioethics in Azerbaijan is developing as an important field that deals with universal moral principles within the context of both national laws and the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights.

유네스코 생명윤리 핵심 교육과정을 활용한 생명의료윤리교육의 모색

This article explores the biomedical ethics education module that is used in the UNESCO Bioethics Core Curriculum. Many universities across several countries have not yet incorporated bioethics into their curriculums. We believe that introducing UNESCO Bioethics Core Curriculum Casebook Series in universities will provide an incentive to include such a module in study programs, thus offering a strong foundation for the teaching and learning of biomedical ethics. In this article, the authors describe how they introduced teachers and students to the UNESCO-Bioethics Core Curriculum, based on the 2005 Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights and then examined the model of biomedical ethics education provided in the UNESCO Bioethics Core Curriculum Casebook Series. As per the curriculum, the authors suggest that the teaching module should include the following four elements: objectives, content, methods, and evaluation.

Debating Euthanasia in India: A Review of the Proceedings at the UNSECO Bioethics Forum, Manipal

This review is about the discussion that followed my presentation at the UNESCO Bioethics Forum, Manipal. To contextualise, I begin with a brief account of the legal status of euthanasia in India, and then summarize the main argument of my presentation - if the moral objective of euthanasia is to end a patient's suffering by ending his or her life in the best possible way, then the form of euthanasia legal in India is inconsistent with this moral objective owing to the consequences it entails for the patient. Given this background, I elaborate on two issues that came up in the discussion - the missing framework of patients' rights, and the medical fraternity's reluctance to espouse multidisciplinary approaches in understanding the morality and legality of euthanasia. Contrary to popular belief as voiced at this forum, developing the framework of patients' rights, and simultaneously espousing multidisciplinary approaches, as I hope to show, would take the discussions of euthanasia in better informed directions.

The UNESCO Bioethics Programme

UNESCO’s Bioethics Programme was established in 1993. In twenty years it has adopted three international declarations, on the human genome (1997), human genetic data (2003) and bioethics (2005); produced reports on a wide range of bioethics issues; and developed capacity building and public education programmes in bioethics. Yet UNESCO has sometimes struggled to assert its authority in the wider bioethics world. Some bioethicists have criticized the 2005 declaration and suggested that the World Health Organization might be better placed to advance bioethics. In 2011, after four years of debate, UNESCO decided not to draft a convention on human reproductive cloning, because consensus on the issue proved impossible. This article reviews the standard setting and capacity building activities of the UNESCO Bioethics Programme. While the Programme faces challenges common to most intergovernmental organizations, its achievements in expanding international law and building bioethics capacity should not be underestimated.

Leena Palotie-Peltonen, 1952–2010, visionary and role model

Leena Palotie-Peltonen, 1952–2010, visionary and role model

What's in a Name?: Bioethics -- and Human Rights -- at UNESCO

Two UNESCO advisory committees met in Paris for a week in January review a draft of the proposed Declaration on Universal Norms on Bioethics. The document is the latest effort of UNESCO's Bioethics Programme, which produced the Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights. That document was adopted by the United Nations in 1998. The new draft declaration was prepared during the last year by the International Bioethics Committee (IBC), composed of independent professionals with experience in bioethics. At the Paris meeting, the Intergovernmental Bioethics Committee (IGBC), composed of representatives of thirty-six member nations, provided their governments' input the IBC. Also participating were many observers from non-member nations and NGOs. Later this year, the UNESCO General Conference will consider the declaration for adoption. The Paris meeting was an opportunity witness several ongoing transitions in bioethics: from a philosophical a legal orientation, from national international standards, and from professional political policymaking. The IGBC met first, then a joint session of both committees, and finally a session of the IBC. Most attending members of both committees participated in all three sessions, playing a stately game of musical chairs as the seat assignments and chair persons switched. Though somewhat repetitious and contentious, the discussion at the meeting appeared satisfy the participants, perhaps because there will be another opportunity for the government representatives debate points of disagreement. Shortly after the meeting, the IBC produced its final draft. Next, an intergovernmental meeting of experts will convene this spring develop the final version for consideration by the General Conference. The original title of the document, Declaration on Universal Norms on Bioethics, presaged a restatement of traditional bioethics principles. However, in an explanatory memorandum on the preliminary draft, the IBC has recommended a new title, Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights, to establish the conformity of bioethics with international human rights law. The new title accurately reflects a document that cites human rights as a fundamental principle of bioethics and is studded throughout with references human rights, in addition restating the traditional principles. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which the United Nations adopted in 1948, already establishes human rights as a common standard. …

Normas bioéticas de UNESCO para evitar prácticas eugenésicas en investigaciones biomédicas

The author, member of the UNESCO Bioethics Committee, participated in the preparation of the Universal Declaration about Human Genome and Human Rights, in 1997. The aim of this work is to analyze the initial articles of such Declaration, defining the bioethical principles that defend human dignity, freedom and rights, against the madness of the present biotechnological revolution. The development of genetics for the benefit of mankind will be guaranteed if these principles are honored. Genetic discrimination, reductionism and determinism, are identified by the author as perversions that, if used by biotechnologists, can lead to the rebirth of eugenism and racism, that were condemned by the Code of Nuremberg, in 1947. Investigators must assume their responsibility, respecting the principles of human dignity, the real freedom of research and solidarity among people. This attitude will avoid the use of genetics for purposes other than the welfare of mankind.

Unesco bioethics experts query their remit

Unesco bioethics experts query their remit