Flourishing in the Midst of Crisis
Focus on the “Local”
D. Joy Riley, M.D., M.A. Executive Director
It may seem ironic in this time of coronavirus* epidemic that The Tennessee Center for Bioethics & Culture’s theme for 2020 is Human Flourishing. Of course, the theme was chosen before the populace was on such intimate terms with the infection. The theme was also chosen before tornadoes** struck Middle Tennessee; before we knew we would need a hefty dose of encouragement in 2020. In this month’s post, several Tennesseans are featured. From a pharmacist in western Tennessee to a group of studio singers in Music City, these can help us to ...read more
Flourishing . . . In a Time of Debate
Ben Voth, Ph.D., associate professor of corporate communications and public affairs at Southern Methodist University, is also director of debate at SMU. His book, James Farmer, Jr.: The Great Debater (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2017) provides exemplars of debate from the previous century – ones from whom we could learn much today. Voth’s book is not a biography of James Farmer, Jr., but a dissection of how Farmer, reared by his capable parents (his father was both a minister and a professor) and trained by Melvin Tolson at Wiley College, used rhetoric properly fitted to action to change the world. ...read more
COVID-19 in Wuhan: Plea for Help Retracted
D. Joy Riley, M.D., M.A. Executive Director
One thing is clear: COVID-19, the newest coronavirus to infect humans, has our attention. Locally, people planning to travel—almost anywhere—are wondering about where to obtain face masks. As of Tuesday of this week, reports the New York Times, the United States had 57 cases, with 40 of those related to the Diamond Princess cruise ship that docked in Japan. The NYT article further reported,
“We cannot hermetically seal off the United States to a virus,” Alex M. Azar II, the secretary of health and human services, told a Senate panel on Tuesday. “And we need to ...read moreTransgenic Monkeys: Coming to a Lab Near You?
D. Joy Riley, M.D., M.A. Executive Director
The initial draft sequence of the chimpanzee genome was published in September 2005 – in comparison with the human genome. A few months later, geneticist James M. Sikela wrote in PLOS Genetics, “the genes and genetic changes that are responsible for making the human brain what it is and for allowing it to do what it uniquely does, have long been among the most prized jewels of our genome.” In that paper, Sikela considered how one could locate the changes in the genome that account for “human-specific cognitive abilities.” How could one prove that a ...read more
What Say You?
Update: See the bottom of this post for the National Institutes of Health’s response to our letter.
An Open Letter to Dr. Francis S. Collins, Director of the National Institutes of HealthD. Joy Riley, M.D., M.A. Executive Director
Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D. Director National Institutes of Health 9000 Rockville Pike Bethesda, Maryland 20892 [email protected]
17 December 2018
Dear Dr. Collins:
The Tennessee Center for Bioethics & Culture lauds the position of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as evidenced by your concluding statement of 28 November 2018: “NIH does not support the use of gene-editing technologies in human embryos.” As embryonic humans represent the most vulnerable amongst our species, the ...read more
Crossing a Bright Red Line: Human Embryo Editing
D. Joy Riley, M.D., M.A. Executive Director
On Monday of this week, He Jiankui of Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, China, shocked the scientific world prior to the beginning of a conference on gene editing. Dr. He announced a first: that he had edited the genes of embryos for seven couples undergoing fertility treatments, and that one pregnancy has resulted to date. It should be noted that there is no corroboration of this claim currently: it is an announcement; no scientific paper has been published about it.
Some of the specific claims, published in The Guardian, are as follows:
All of ...read moreWhat if we call it “Medical Aid in Dying”?
A Lesson from History
In the aftermath of WWII, Leo Alexander penned the following as part of an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine:
The Example of Successful Resistance by the Physicians of the Netherlands There is no doubt that in Germany itself the first and most effective step of propaganda within the medical profession was the propaganda barrage against the useless, incurably sick described above. Similar, even more subtle efforts were made in some of the occupied countries. It is to the everlasting honor of the medical profession of Holland that they recognized the earliest and most subtle ...read more
How Do We Promote Human Dignity?
D. Joy Riley, M.D., M.A. Executive Director
A week ago, I was privileged to tour portions of a few of the buildings in a complex that had previously been used as a state “Hospital for the Insane” in Michigan. Although a number of the buildings have been repurposed into condos, restaurants, and shops, the two-hour tour was of several spaces that have yet to be restored. The architect of the original hospital and treatment regimen was a psychiatrist named Thomas Kirkbride. I was impressed by his understanding of human dignity, as represented by his work. The story is fascinating . . .
Thomas ...read more
The Rubicon
D. Joy Riley, M.D., M.A. Executive Director
The law in the Roman Republic in 49 B.C. was very clear about an army crossing a small stream outside Rome: it was considered an act of war. Julius Caesar knew this, and led his 13th Legion across that stream, declaring, in the historian Suetonius’ words, “The die is cast!” Caesar and his army did not turn back, but continued on to war, and ultimately defeated Pompey the Great. This turning point in history is referenced whenever we talk about approaching a point of no return and utter the phrase, “crossing the Rubicon.”
“The Rubicon” sculpture ...read more
