Johns Hopkins scholars to discuss bioethics issues with Hollywood filmmakers

The bioethicists are the Berman Institute's Director, Ruth Faden, and Deputy Director for Bioethics and Public Policy, Jeffrey Kahn. Faden is the author of Social Justice: The Moral Foundations of Public Health and Health Policy (with Madison Powers), and former appointed chair of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments (ACHRE), among many other books, articles and national committee positions.

Kahn's work focuses on the intersection of emerging biomedical technologies, science policy and ethics. He served as chair of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) committee on the use of chimpanzees in biomedical and behavioral research, which developed guidelines adopted by the National Institutes of Health that have resulted in an end to a vast number of federally-funded research projects on chimpanzees. Kahn's current work includes serving on the IOM committee requested by NASA to explore the ethical considerations of long-duration manned spaceflight.

Planned topics include the allocation of scarce medical resources in the event of a disaster, human enhancement, and the implications of big data for health and privacy. Faden and Kahn will be joined for the panel discussion by Michael Miller, director of the Center for Imaging Science at Johns Hopkins University Whiting School of Engineering, and Reed Tuckson, a trained physician and healthcare industry consultant who was formerly Chief Medical Officer for UnitedHealth Group, as well as Commissioner of Public Health for the District of Columbia.