Well, the President’s Council on Bioethics is going to be back at it again this week.
Staying on their breakneck pace of “one month on, two months off” for meetings, the PCB will convene on Thursday and Friday in Arlington, VA, a well-known hot spot for democratic deliberation, to discuss the novel topics of health care reform….conscience in health professions….and medical futility! (Thanks to Medical Futility for the full announcement.)
When we’ve had commissions for decades, why would these heady bioethicists think that this group would be any more likely to make progress on, of all things, health care reform? And medical futility? Could there be a topic MORE discussed in the bioethics literature?
Now, maybe the Pellegrino gang have something to say with the conscience and the medical profession topic–but we’ve yet to see a report of any real relevance come out of this Council, so I won’t be holding my breath. I’d probably learn more in Arlington if I went to the Newseum.
No one really cares about commissions anyway–especially not this one. But please, isn’t it time someone stood up, again, and pointed out how ridiculous this all is? The churning of reports, scheduled all the way until mid-2009, that no one reads but worst of all on topics that are totally irrelevant is no way for government bioethics to function.
So will someone, anyone, from the Council explain to the taxpayers who make this activity possible, what are we really paying for? Books of essays? Chatter about the same old topics or ones about which there can be no real progress?
I’m ready for debate. I want the Pellegrino Council to take strong positions and to let those who oppose them stake their ground, too. But let’s make the dialogue purposeful, timely, and relevant–to somebody.
Summer Johnson, PhD