(Garrison, NY) The latest issue of the Hastings Center Report features articles on "medicalized" weapons that temporarily incapacitate targets, sharing the benefits of newly found biological resources, and applications of GINA (the Genetic Information Nondisclosure Act). Highlights:"Medicalized" weapons.
Should physicians and other medical workers participate in the development of "medicalized" weapons? These nonlethal weapons - which rely on advances in neuroscience, physiology, and pharmacology to temporarily incapacitate their targets - are designed to reduce casualties, especially in "asymmetric" wars in which nations are pitted against insurgent forces. They include lasers that cause temporary blindness and disorientation and chemical agents that depress the central nervous system.
"Not since international law prohibited the development and use of biological and chemical weapons (in 1972 and 1993, respectively) have medical personnel been so directly involved with the design, manufacture, and testing of a weapon," writes Michael L. Gross, a professor of political science and chair of the Division of International Relations at the University of Haifa, Israel. "Do the principles of medical ethics - particularly the axiom `do no harm' - permit medical personnel to build nonlethal weapons?" Gross argues that they do. Even though these weapons can cause temporary harm and possibly even kill some people, they offer the prospect of reducing casualties and protecting civilians. Bioprospecting.
The search for natural biological resources of value to medicine and other industries is carried out mainly by people from wealthy countries and takes place mainly in developing countries that often lack the capacity to profit from it. While there is widespread agreement that the benefits should be shared with indigenous people, an article in the Hastings Center Report explores the challenges involved.