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Preserving Human Potential As Freedom: A Framework For Regulating Epigenetic Harms, Fazal Khan
Preserving Human Potential As Freedom: A Framework For Regulating Epigenetic Harms, Fazal Khan
Fazal Khan
Epigenetics is a rapidly evolving scientific field of inquiry examining how a wide range of environmental, social, and nutritional exposures can dramatically control how genes are expressed without changing the underlying DNA. Research has demonstrated that epigenetics plays a large role in human development, and disease causation. In a sense, epigenetics blurs the distinction between “nature” and “nurture” as experiences (nurture) become a part of intrinsic biology (nature). Remarkably, some epigenetic modifications are durable across generations, meaning that exposures from our grandparents’ generation might affect our health now, even if we have not experienced the same exposures. In the same …
Paging King Solomon: Towards Allowing Organ Donation From Anencephalic Infants, Fazal Khan
Paging King Solomon: Towards Allowing Organ Donation From Anencephalic Infants, Fazal Khan
Fazal Khan
The article, Paging King Solomon: Towards Allowing Organ Donation from Anencephalic Infants, argues that organ donation from anencephalic infants is ethically and legally justifiable. Anencephaly is a medical condition characterized by a lack of brain development above the brainstem, so such children often lack a cerebrum, cerebellum and a skull. With an intact brainstem, these children can maintain heart and lung function. Without higher brain functioning though, these children are not capable of human consciousness and they typically have very short life spans measured in days or weeks. The way in which an anencephalic infant dies typically destroys the suitability …
The Human Factor: Globalizing Ethical Standards In Drug Trials Through Market Exclusion, Fazal R. Khan
The Human Factor: Globalizing Ethical Standards In Drug Trials Through Market Exclusion, Fazal R. Khan
Fazal Khan
This paper proposes a framework of international soft law and domestic drug regulations to a priori remove incentives for unethical clinical drug research in developing nations. The globalization of drug testing is very problematic from a bioethics perspective. While stringent regulations in the U.S. or E.U. may pose an adequate check on unethical research practices, many multinational corporations are engaging in regulatory arbitrage by outsourcing ethically questionable research to countries with less restrictive regulations. Given the tremendous financial reward a blockbuster therapy might generate, there is a strong incentive to move more research and development to countries with even looser …