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This volume, which has developed from the Fourteenth Trans Disciplinary Symposium on Philosophy and Medicine, September 5-8, 1982, at Tel Aviv University, Israel, contains the contributions of a group of distinguished scholars who together examine the ethical issues raised by the advance of biomedical science and technology. We are, of course, still at the beginning of a revolution in our understanding of human biology; scientific medicine and clinical research are scarcely one hundred years old. Both the sciences and the technology of medicine until ten or fifteen years ago had the feeling of the 19th century about them; we sense that they belonged to an older time; that era is ending. The next twenty-five to fifty years of investigative work belong to neurobiology, genetics, and reproductive biology. The technologies of information processing and imaging will make diagnosis and treatment almost incomprehensible by my generation of physicians. Our science and technology will become so powerful that we shall require all of the art and wisdom we can muster to be sure that they remain dedicated, as Francis Bacon hoped four centuries ago, "to the uses of life." It is well that, as philosophers and physicians, we grapple with the issues now when they are relatively simple, and while the pace of change is relatively slow. We require a strategy for the future; that strategy must be worked out by scientists, philosophers, physicians, lawyers, theologians, and, I should like to add, artists and poets.
List of contents
Section I / Human Experimentation and the Legacy of Nuremberg.- The Search for Universality in the Ethics of Human Research: Andrew C. Ivy, Henry K. Beecher, and the Legacy of Nuremberg.- Section II / The Development in Medicine of the Imperative to Conduct Research with Human Subjects: an Historical Analysis.- Cultural Contents in the History of the Use of Human Subjects in Research.- Reflections on the History of Human Experimentation.- Comparative Models and Goals for the Regulation of Human Research.- Moral Appropriateness in Human Research.- Public Control over Biomedical Experiments Involving Human Beings: An Israeli Perspective.- Section III / Ethical and Epistemological Issues in Randomized Clinical Trials.- Diagnosing Well and Treating Prudently: Randomized Clinical Trials and the Problem of Knowing Truly.- Research Risks, Randomization, and Risks to Research: Reflections on the Prudential Use of "Pilot" Trials.- Epistemological Presuppositions Involved in the Programs of Human Research.- At What Level of Statistical Certainty Ought a Random Clinical Trial to be Interrupted?.- Comment on Michael Ruse's Essay.- Section IV / Obligations and the Avoidance of Injury.- Is There an Obligation to Participate in Biomedical Research?.- Physicians Experimenting on Themselves: Some Ethical and Philosophical Considerations.- Protection of Human Subjects: Remedies for Injury.- Israel Health Regulations: Experiments on Human Subjects - 1980.- Notes on Contributors.
About the author
NOGA ALON, PhD, is a Baumritter Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at Tel Aviv University. He is a member of the Israel National Academy of Sciences and received the Erdös Prize in 1989, the Feher Prize in 1991, and the Polya Prize in 2000.
