I was on a panel yesterday kicking off the University of MInnesota's celebration of the 40th anniversary of pancreas transplantation. But this panel was on “The First Face Transplant: Clinical, Ethical and Media Perspectives.” It featured French surgeon Dr. Jean-Michel Dubernard, who performed a partial face transplant one year ago.
That procedure, and Dubernard's earlier hand transplant work, are spectacular technical achievements. But Dubernard complained about the multiple levels of ethics committee oversight that he faces.
Such oversight is essential. Many questions should be and are being raised about patient selection, about informed consent, about alternatives, about evidence of harms and benefits, about costs, about access to such procedures.
I was on the panel to discuss issues of news media ethical issues surrounding coverage of such innovative surgical experiments. I argued that such coverage should be comprehensive and proportional: comprehensive in covering the range of issues outlined above and proportional in considering that there are 47-million Americans without insurance who have problems accessing basic preventive care much less costly experimental procedures.
Posted by schwitz at December 8, 2006 06:56 AM | TrackBack