Presidential bioethics advisor Kass to speak at U-M Health System on December 3

University of Michigan Health System
Friday, 21 November 2003

Free public lecture will focus on ethical aspects of medicine's "pursuit of perfection"

These days, medical and biotechnological marvels seem to promise better diagnosis and treatment for nearly every disease, or a chance to prevent them. And much of the progress being made in labs and clinics around the world aims to go beyond basic therapy, and into the realm of fulfilling basic human desires to live longer, better and happier lives, or to help the next generation do so.

But what are the implications of recent and potential scientific advances that could yield better children, superior human performance, ageless bodies and happy souls? And what moral and ethical issues come entwined with such advances?

A medical ethicist who has advised President George W. Bush will tackle some of these issues on Wednesday, Dec. 3, in a public lecture at the University of Michigan.

Leon R. Kass, M.D., Ph.D., who chairs the President's Council on Bioethics, will speak at 4 p.m. in the Ford Amphitheater on the second floor of the main University Hospital, at 1500 E. Medical Center Drive in Ann Arbor. There is no admission charge. For more information, call (734) 647-8762.

His talk will be the eighth annual Raymond W. Waggoner Lecture on Ethics and Values in Medicine, held in memory of a former U-M Medical School psychiatrist who spent much of his career exploring ethical and value-based questions in medicine.

Kass is the Addie Clark Harding Professor on Social Thought in The College at the University of Chicago, and the Hertog Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Trained in molecular biology, he has spent more than 30 years exploring ethical and philosophical issues raised by biomedical advances.

His talk, titled "Ageless Bodies, Happy Souls: Biotechnology and the Pursuit of Perfection," will echo themes found in the recently released Council on Bioethics report, "Beyond Therapy: Biotechnology and the Pursuit of Happiness." The report can be read online at www.bioethics.gov, and will soon be available for purchase.

Although the Council on Bioethics may be most known for its report on human cloning, and for its deliberations on the issue of human embryonic stem cells, Kass's talk will range beyond those two specific issues. The council's charter was recently renewed.

The Waggoner lectureship is named for the late Raymond Waggoner, M.D., who died in June, 2000 at the age of 98. He was chair of the U-M Department of Psychiatry for 33 years, from 1937 to 1970. Waggoner was a noted U-M psychiatrist, medical administrator and government advisor who was one of the first to see mental illness as both an emotional and physical problem.

For more information, or to contact University of Michigan Health System, see their website at: www.med.umich.edu