TY - JOUR
T1 - Embryos, ethics and expertise
T2 - The emerging model of the research ethics regulator
AU - Allyse, Megan
N1 - Funding Information:
Megan Allyse is a post-doctoral fellow at the Center for the Integration of Research on Genetics and Ethics (an initiative funded by the National Institutes of Health and located within the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics). Her research focuses on the political stabilization of technology, comparative civil ideology and forms of constructive technology assessment. She is particularly interested in inter-cultural normative dialogue and the socio-cultural impacts of emerging technologies. In recent years, she has carried out field research in China, Japan, Hong Kong, the US and the UK. She is currently working on a book, based on her doctoral research, which explores the political stabilization of oocyte contribution to human cloning research in China, California and the UK.
Funding Information:
The author would like to thank Douglas Sipp and the two anonymous reviewers for this journal whose feedback was extremely helpful. The support of the Wellcome Trust and the Center for the Study of Law and Society at Berkeley Law School is gratefully acknowledged.
PY - 2010/10
Y1 - 2010/10
N2 - Embryonic stem cell research poses challenges for traditionally secular governing structures. An increasingly popular response has been to create research ethics regulators, bureaucratic agencies assigned to generate or enforce normative regulations surrounding the use of embryos in research. This paper examines three examples: Japan's Bioethics and Biosafety Office, the UK's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority and the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine. It explores the structure and mandate of each agency, its definition and employment of ethico-technical expertise and the extent to which the relocation of normative decision-making from the political sphere and into the voluntary sphere has democratized decision-making about the use of emerging technologies. We conclude that the model of the research ethics regulator appears successful at ameliorating public conflict and channeling dissent but there is little evidence to suggest that a reliance on ethico-technical, lay expertise has resulted in the relief of traditional critiques of regulatory culture.
AB - Embryonic stem cell research poses challenges for traditionally secular governing structures. An increasingly popular response has been to create research ethics regulators, bureaucratic agencies assigned to generate or enforce normative regulations surrounding the use of embryos in research. This paper examines three examples: Japan's Bioethics and Biosafety Office, the UK's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority and the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine. It explores the structure and mandate of each agency, its definition and employment of ethico-technical expertise and the extent to which the relocation of normative decision-making from the political sphere and into the voluntary sphere has democratized decision-making about the use of emerging technologies. We conclude that the model of the research ethics regulator appears successful at ameliorating public conflict and channeling dissent but there is little evidence to suggest that a reliance on ethico-technical, lay expertise has resulted in the relief of traditional critiques of regulatory culture.
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U2 - 10.3152/030234210X12767691861092
DO - 10.3152/030234210X12767691861092
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:78049512435
SN - 0302-3427
VL - 37
SP - 597
EP - 609
JO - Science and Public Policy
JF - Science and Public Policy
IS - 8
ER -