Pharmaceutical companies are major sponsors of biomedical research. Most scholars and policymakers focus their attention on government and academic oversight activities, however. In this article, I consider the role of pharmaceutical companies’ internal ethics statements in guiding decisions about corporate research and development (R&D). I review materials from drug company websites and contributions from the business and medical ethics literature that address ethical responsibilities of businesses in general and pharmaceutical companies in particular. I discuss positive and negative uses of pharmaceutical (...) companies’ ethics materials and describe shortcomings in the companies’ existing ethics programs. To guide employees and reassure outsiders, companies must add rigor, independence, and transparency to their R&D ethics programs. (shrink)

If stem cell-based therapies are developed, we will likely confront a difficult problem of justice: for biological reasons alone, the new therapies might benefit only a limited range of patients. In fact, they might benefit primarily white Americans, thereby exacerbating long-standing differences in health and health care.

Many states in the U.S. have adopted policies regarding human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research in the last few years. Some have arrived at these policies through legislative debate, some by referendum, and some by executive order. New York has chosen a unique structure for addressing policy decisions regarding this morally controversial issue by creating the Empire State Stem Cell Board with two Committees—an Ethics Committee and a Funding Committee. This essay explores the pros and cons of various policy arrangements (...) for making public policy decisions about morally controversial issues in bioethics (as well as other issues) through the lens of Deliberative Democracy, focusing on the principles of reciprocity, publicity, and accountability. Although New York's unique mechanism potentially offers an opportunity to make policy decisions regarding a morally controversial subject like hESC research in accord with the principles of Deliberative Democracy, this essay demonstrates its failure to do so in actual fact. A few relatively simple changes could make New York's program a real model for putting Deliberative Democracy into practice in making policy decisions regarding controversial bioethical issues. (shrink)

Common sense and empirical evidence suggest that single-payer health insurance, combined with competitive private delivery, would be the most cost-effective way of achieving the major, widely accepted goals of health care reform. Among the current presidential candidates, Kucinich and Gravel have the most promising reform proposals, with Edwards’s and Obama’s as fall-backs.

Common sense and empirical evidence suggest that single-payer health insurance, combined with competitive private delivery, would be the most cost-effective way of achieving the major, widely accepted goals of health care reform. Among the current presidential candidates, Kucinich and Gravel have the most promising reform proposals, with Edwards’s and Obama’s as fall-backs.