January 12, 2001

Setting a Common, Careful Policy for Bioethics

By GREGORY E. PENCE

Scientists are producing vast amounts of new information about human biology. Questions about who should have access to that information, and how it should be used, make the field of bioethics increasingly important to a growing number of people. But bioethicists' work is often too simplistic, even sensational.

How most of us in the field think about the Human Genome Project is a telling example. Typically, we emphasize the dangers of discrimination by employers and insurers, if they