WORLD BIOETHICS
COMMITTEE WILL DISCUSS GENETIC DATA
Paris, November 12 - A proposed international declaration on
human genetic data will be discussed for the first time at the
ninth session of UNESCO's International Bioethics Committee
(IBC) in Montreal from November 26 to 28. The meeting will also
tackle subjects ranging from religious views of bioethics to
pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, predisposition and genetic
susceptibility.
The draft declaration has been produced by the IBC's Drafting
Group for an international instrument on genetic data, which
has already met three times. It will incorporate amendments
suggested by the Montreal meeting and come up with a further
version to be submitted to the Intergovernmental Committee of
Bioethics (IGCB). The draft will be widely debated, notably
at a big meeting of government experts next year. The final
version should be presented for approval at UNESCO's General
Conference next autumn.
A round-table discussion on November 26 (at 10 a.m.) called
"Bioethics in the light of spiritual values and traditions
of humanity" will include Noritoshi Aramaki (Japan), of
the Department of Buddhist Studies at Otani University (Kyoto),
Bernard Kanovitch (France), director of the Rothschild Chair
of Ethics and professor of medicine at the University of Paris
XI, Sehdev Kumar (Canada), director of the Forum for Dialogue
between Science and Religion (Toronto), Hisham Nashabe (Lebanon),
director of the Institute for Advanced Studies at the Makassed
Institute in Beirut, Daniel Weinstock (Canada), director of
the Centre for Research in Ethics at Montreal University, and
Mgr Jean-Marie Mpendawatu (Holy See) of the Pontifical Council
for Health and Pastoral Care. The round-table will be chaired
by Michèle Jean (Canada), vice-president of the IBC and
a former Canadian deputy minister of health.
The afternoon session will focus on pre-implantation genetic
diagnosis. André van Steirteghem (Belgium), clinical
director of the Centre for Reproductive Medicine at the Free
University of Brussels, will review the current situation (2
p.m.) and Hans Galjaard (the Netherlands), emeritus professor
of human genetics at the University Hospital of Rotterdam, will
introduce the IBC Working Group's report on genetic diagnosis
and germ-line interventions.
The morning of November
27, under the chairmanship of Lebanon's minister for displaced
persons, Marwan Hamadé, will see discussion of the chances
of drawing up a universal instrument on bioethics. Leonardo
de Castro, professor of philosophy at the University of the
Philippines, and Giovanni Berlinguer, honorary chairperson of
Italy's National Bioethics Committee, will present the IBC Working
Group's preliminary report on this. Rémi Quirion, director
of Canada's Institute for Neurosciences, Mental Health and Addiction,
will also make a review of the state of research into the human
brain.
The afternoon's
theme will be "Predispositions, susceptibility and genomic
research: what implications for the future?" Claude Laberge
(Canada), director of the Network of Applied Genetic Medicine
of Quebec, will talk on "Genomics, health and society."
Michel Revel (Israel), professor of molecular genetics at the
Weizmann Institute of Sciences, will talk about "Ethical
issues raised by behavioural genetics" and Francisco Mauro
Salzano (Brazil), of the Institute of Biosciences of the Federal
University of Rio Grande do Sul, will discuss "Genomics
and environmental change."
The morning of November 28 will be devoted to drawing up an
international instrument on genetic data. The session, chaired
by IBC chairperson Ryuichi Ida (Japan), will allow the full
IBC to examine for the first time the proposed instrument produced
by the IBC's Drafting Group co-chaired by Nicole Questiaux,
vice-president of France's national advisory committee on ethics,
and Patrick Robinson, a Jamaican judge on the International
Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
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Contacts:
Pierre Gaillard
Bureau of Public Information, Editorial Section
Tel: +33 (0) 1 4568-1740
e-mail: p.gaillard@unesco.org
