Displaying items by tag: Ethics

The UK could carry out Covid ‘challenge trials’, where healthy volunteers are deliberately infected with coronavirus to test possible vaccines. Challenge studies were used to test vaccines for flu, cholera and typhoid, but there were treatments to prevent volunteers from falling ill. Coronavirus trials have the added risk that should volunteers become unwell, the only drugs available will control the disease not remove it. University student Alastair Fraser-Urquhart will volunteer if the trial goes ahead. He said, ‘I think it might save thousands of lives and bring the world out of the pandemic sooner.’ Professor Peter Horby said the trials have the potential to advance science and help us to better understand coronavirus. ‘The risk in a healthy young adult with no underlying conditions is extremely low. What's been holding things up are ethical considerations.’

A human-monkey hybrid was created in a Chinese laboratory by injecting human stem cells capable of creating any type of tissue into a monkey embryo. The experiment was stopped before the embryo was born. The scientists were Spanish but held the trial in China to evade a ban on such procedures in Spain. They said a human-monkey hybrid could have been born. The embryo was genetically modified to deactivate genes that control organ growth. Ethical concerns were raised over stem cells migrating to the brain. The scientists said mechanisms were in place for cells to self-destruct if that happened. Thomas Aquinas said that if when doing something morally good there is an unintended side-effect that’s OK as long as the side-effect was not the objective. We can pray for all countries to forbid crossing the physical and spiritual laws separating one species from another. What would happen to the hybrid’s soul, conscience, spirit?

By a vote of 53-44, the Senate failed to pass the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which would have required doctors to provide medical care to infants born alive after an attempted abortion procedure. The bill needed sixty votes to overcome the legislative filibuster. Currently, medical professionals are not required to treat and save a baby that is still living after an abortion procedure. However, three days before the vote, the Trump administration issued a draft proposal to cut millions of dollars in federal funding to abortion providers, who currently receive $250m for clinics providing birth control and abortion services. The draft rule would also prevent funding being given to organisations that refer women elsewhere for abortions. See

The director of the US office of government ethics has criticised Donald Trump's plan to hand control of his business empire to his sons before his inauguration next week. Walter Shaub said that the plan does not match the standards of US presidents over the last forty years, and would not remove conflicts of interest. ‘Every president in modern times has taken the strong medicine of divestiture’, he said, referring to a process whereby Mr Trump would sell off his corporate assets and put the profits into a blind trust run by an independent trustee. The Trump Organisation is an umbrella company for his hundreds of investments in real estate, brands and other businesses. Another problem for the president-elect is the huge and very public rift between himself and the US intelligence community, over its recently-published conclusion that the Kremlin sought to support Trump’s election. Neither side is likely to back off and both may come out damaged. See: