Science and Ethics/La science et l'éthique ed. by Patricia Demers (review)

330 letters in canada 2001 university of toronto quarterly, volume 72, number 1, winter 2002/3 shared rationalism (the early Rawls). It means building into the public square >ways of reconciling or living with opposing convictions= (the later Rawls). This will involve going beyond the legitimate emphasis in this book on negotiations of difference to deal more fully with other aspects of an ethics of community such as the adjudication of unresolved differences in different contexts (e.g., courts, legislatures, and ecclesiastical authorities). (ROGER C. HUTCHINSON) Patricia Demers, editor. Science and Ethics/La science et l=éthique University of Toronto Press. 152. $15.00 In November 2000, the Royal Society of Canada hosted a symposium on the topic of science and ethics, and the result of what must have been a very interesting Saturday in Ottawa is collected in this timely and engaging book. The contributors are all intellectual heavyweights in their fields, which range from psychiatry and biotechnology to philosophy and law, and they don=t disappoint. Each of the six papers gathered here offers a glimpse into the ethical practices of Canada=s scientific communities. The result is a fairly well developed snapshot of the current state of ethics in scientific research and policy in Canada, and the picture doesn=t look so good. The authors agree that our current practices fall short B and depending on the author, way short B of any acceptable marker. Still, there is a tone of cautious optimism running throughout these papers, even when the discussion centres on Canada=s most tragic public policy failures in recent history. This is true of Colleen Clements=s article, >British Beef, Ontario Water and Dead Crows,= which documents the various breakdowns within the local Public Utility Commission, for instance, that led to the E. coli outbreak in Walkerton, Ontario, in May 2000, which killed seven people and made hundreds ill. Clements argues that such disastrous mishaps are avoidable, and she offers a recipe of seven ethical concepts or principles to help guide us through public health crises in the future. These principles, such as the >How and Where on the Don=t Panic Scenario vs. Doomsday Scenario to Place the Problem,= are palpably concrete and seem viable enough, if properly implemented. Other recommendations for sound public policy can be found in Bernard M. Dickens=s article, >Can Science or Ethics Compromise Each Other in Human Subject Research?= Dickens takes on some of the stickier ethical issues facing scientific researchers today, from embryonic harvesting and >designer babies= to privacy rights and informed consent of research subjects. He makes a good case for the view that sound ethics and sound science need not be in tension, although his claim that >the pursuit of human advantage through scientific research is itself an ethical enterprise= isn=t as obvious as he takes it to be. The article by Thérèse Leroux (in French) is on the scientific and ethical problems that arise from humanities 331 university of toronto quarterly, volume 72, number 1, winter 2002/3 xenotransplantation (transplanting organs, tissues, and cells from animals into humans). Marie-Hélène Parizeau=s article (also in French) focuses on the challenges facing research ethics committees, and there is a fascinating article by Michael Geist on Canadian copyright laws in the so-called digital millennium. But the most important paper of the bunch is by Michael McDonald, the first occupant of the Maurice Young Chair of Applied Ethics and founding director of the Centre for Applied Ethics at the University of British Columbia. McDonald=s paper focuses on health research involving humans, and it details the results of a recently published Law Commission of Canada study on this topic that he headed. His incisive commentary on Canadian policy shows that there are serious and systemic defects in the ethical governance of research involving humans. The governance arrangements in Canada are both complex and decentralized, leaving major gaps in regulation, resulting in a system that is >in general inadequate to withstand the major pressures on health research today.= Research institutions and sponsors aren=t sufficiently involved or responsible in the treatment of human subjects (or >human participants,= as McDonald would prefer...