ABSTRACT
The roots of bioethics is associated with the eld of philosophy, but today’s bioethics requires collaboration among many additional areas of study, which include pharmaceuticals, law, medicine, stem cell research, biotechnology, politics, sociology, genetics, environmental toxicology, and public health. Interestingly, bioethical quandaries, once occasional, now are commonplace, in part because new medical technologies have overtaken our ability to understand their repercussions. Conventionally, bioethicists are known to deal with difcult medical decisions, but their role has stretched with the explosion of knowledge in the elds of genetics and biotechnology. Ethical decisions are required for issues as diverse as human cloning, the use of human embryonic stem cells, and the genetic-engineered crops. Recent growth in the elds of biomedical, bioengineering, and biotechnology
research has created an unparalleled need for our society to oppose the new and challenging ethical implications that arise. Moreover, it has been suggested that bioethics consists of identifying emerging moral issues related to human health and biological systems and analyzing them according to the principles determined by the value system of the community. The ethical issues kept haunting the health care and biotechnology industries over the last few decades, which resulted in the involvement of both private and government sectors and is debated in both public and congressional levels. Some of the major issues as shown in Figure 13.2 are considered major bioethical concerns affecting the diagnostics and treatment developments.
