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The telephone rings, and it's Mercy Viana, a press officer at the White House, responding to a query about President George W. Bush's Council on Bioethics, the creation of which was announced during the President's August national address on stem-cell policy. Asked when it will be formed, Viana replies, "We don't comment on timetables." Asked about the process by which the members of the council will be selected, Viana replies, "We don't comment on process."
Against the backdrop of war, the withholding of information about an emerging advisory council seems of little moment. Still, there may be some value in noting that the President's new council will not only advise on stem cells but also "consider all of the medical and ethical ramifications of biomedical innovation." In the era of the sequenced human genome, advances in cloning technology and ongoing experimentation with human genetic engineering, this is no small matter.
Indeed, while the debates over genetic "biomedical innovation" have not yet reached a status worthy of the metaphorical invocation of war, the battle has begun. Preceding a House of Representatives...