From: LARRY KLAES (ljk4_at_msn.com)
Date: Wed Sep 21 2005 - 20:44:16 UTC
>From: cunews_at_cornell.edu
>Reply-To: cunews_at_cornell.edu
>To: CUNEWS-CAMPUS-L_at_cornell.edu (CUNEWS-CAMPUS-L)
>Subject: Featuring Cornell: Bioethics society
>Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2005 16:17:18 -0400
>
>Race, creationism, stem cells: Cornell Bioethics Society tackles tough
>ethical issues every week
>http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Sept05/Bioethics.kr.html
>
>
>Sept. 21, 2005
>
>By Krishna Ramanujan
>ksr32_at_cornell.edu
>
>ITHACA, N.Y. -- Syphilis. Race. Treating patients as objects. These charged
>issues are at the center of an award-winning play, "Miss Evers' Boys," by
>David Feldshuh, a physician and Cornell University theater professor. The
>themes were also apt subjects for Feldshuh's talk Sept. 19 at a weekly
>meeting of the Bioethics Society of Cornell.
>
>Feldshuh, who also serves as artistic director of Cornell's Schwartz Center
>for the Performing Arts, discussed his Emmy award-winning, Pulitzer
>prize-nominated play, which explores moral issues related to a 40-year U.S.
>government syphilis study in Tuskegee, Ala., that left poor black syphilis
>patients untreated so that doctors could view a natural history of the
>disease and see whether whites and blacks responded differently. Between
>1932 and 1972, the 600 subjects complied because they were falsely told
>they were being treated.
>
>"There was no shame about this study," said Feldshuh.
>
>Issues that cross between ethics and the biosciences are regular fare at
>the Bioethics Society's weekly Monday afternoon meetings at Stimson Hall.
>Three weeks previously, William Provine, professor of ecology and
>evolutionary biology at Cornell, had discussed the debate over evolution
>and intelligent design. An updated version of creationism, intelligent
>design argues that life on Earth and its relationships are too complex to
>be explained by evolution, so a creator or designer with a plan must be
>coordinating things.
>
>Other topics in the past have ranged from debates over stem cells and
>cloning to topics in the news, such as genetic modifications to life forms.
>
>"The whole purpose of these meetings is to raise awareness and discuss
>issues that pertain to people who are going into biology in the future,"
>said Matt Wong, a senior biology major who is now in his second year as
>president of the society. "The meetings ask some very fundamental
>questions: What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be a good
>person and a member of society? What would it mean to be a good physician
>or a responsible researcher?"
>
>Biology and premed majors make up the majority of the audience each week,
>though a few pre-law students also attend, said Wong. The main goal is
>education on relevant science issues.
>
>"Everyone who comes to our meetings walks out at least knowing more about
>the issues," said Wong. "When they leave, at least they know how to carry
>on a conversation about difficult topics, such as the ones we've covered."
>
>Feldshuh's talk explored ways in which doctors fail to identify with their
>patients in an attempt to remain objective. He cited a study that suggests
>that some choices, such as the different treatment of pain in white and
>minority patients, may be the result of unconscious choices in caregivers.
>
>"If you are very different from the person you are experimenting on, if you
>are intellectually curious about the outcome of your experiment, if you
>have more power than the subjects of the experiment, if you have more
>education, if you are of a different class, then you should take a deep
>breath and ask yourself if you are getting yourself into something that you
>shouldn't be getting into," Feldshuh said. "Miss Evers' Boys," he said, was
>a cautionary tale about the power of government to conduct such
>experiments.
>
>The play, which opened in 1989, was made into an HBO movie in 1996 that was
>seen by 30 million viewers. The movie influenced a formal 1997 government
>apology by President Bill Clinton to the Tuskegee survivors.
>
>The Bioethics Society of Cornell meets in 119 Stimson Hall every Monday at
>4:45 p.m. and is attended by faculty adviser the Rev. Robert S. Smith,
>Catholic chaplain for Cornell United Religious Work. Meetings are open to
>the public.
>
>-30-
>
>Media Contact: Press Relations Office
>Phone: (607) 255-6074
>E-mail: pressoffice_at_cornell.edu
>
>--
>
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