National Bioethics Panel to meet here

The National Bioethics Advisory Commission, the federal panel appointed by the president and charged with formulating and reviewing policy that relate to issues of modern bioscience, will hold its 40th public meeting in Madison May 4-5.

Related Web site: National Bioethics Advisory Commission Related stories: Medical ethics program branches out (4/19/00) Pediatrician nurtures growth of ethics program (12/1/98)

The agenda for the two-day meeting, including testimony from prominent UW–Madison medical ethicist Norman Fost, will focus on ethical and policy issues in biomedical research, including the oversight of human subjects research.

The panel is meeting in Madison in accordance with an NBAC tradition of meeting in locations near the institutions where commission members have their professional affiliations. R. Alta Charo, a UW–Madison professor of law and medical ethics, is an NBAC commissioner.

The meeting will be held at the Monona Terrace Community and Convention Center and is open to the public. The meeting begins on Thursday, May 4 at 8:30 a.m. and will run until 5 p.m. The commission will reconvene Friday at 8 a.m. and will meet until 12:15 p.m. Public comment (five-minute presentations and unlimited submission of written material) is welcome; to pre-register, call NBAC, (301) 402-4242. The public also can register at the meeting site. The public comment portion of the meeting will start at 1 p.m. Thursday, May 4.

An agenda follows. For more information, contact R. Alta Charo, (608) 262-5015; racharo@facstaff.wisc.edu.

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National Bioethics Advisory Commission
Monona Terrace Convention Center
May 4-5

• Thursday, May 4
• 8:30 a.m., Opening Remarks, Harold T. Shapiro, NBAC chair
• 8:40 a.m., Ethical Issues in International Research, Overview of Work to Date, Ruth Macklin and Alice Page.
• 8:50 a.m., Panel I: IRB Perspectives
• Norman Fost, director, UW–Madison Program in Medical Ethics; Susan Nayfield, National Cancer Institute, Rockville, Md.
• 9:20 a.m., Discussion with Commissioners
• 10:15 a.m., Break
• 10:30 a.m., Panel II: Human Rights Perspectives
• Sofia Gruskin, Harvard University School of Public Health, Boston; George Andreapoulos, City University of New York, New York.
• 11:45 a.m., Discussion with Commissioners
• Noon Lunch
• 1 p.m., public comment
• 1:30 p.m., Discussion with Commissioners
• 3 p.m., “Obligations to Subjects, Communities and Countries in Which Research Is Conducted,” Ruth Macklin and Alice Page
• 3:30 p.m., Break
• 3:45 p.m., Discussion with Commissioners continues
• 5:00 p.m., Adjournment

  Friday, May 5

• 8 a.m., Opening Remarks, Harold T. Shapiro, NBAC chair
• 8:10 a.m., “The Challenge of Equivalent Protection,” Bernard M. Dickens, Joint Centre for Bioethics, University of Toronto, Canada
• 9:15 a.m., “Other Approaches to Oversight of Human Subjects Research: The Canadian Perspective,” Dickens.
• 10:15 a.m., Break
• 10:30 a.m., Discussion with Commissioners, Marjorie A. Spears, definition of research.
• Noon, Next Steps, Shapiro.
• 12:15 p.m., Adjournment