While the question of bioethics has been receiving increased attention at business schools and within the scientific community, a new program at Harvard Law School seeks to match a study of ethics directly with the question of law. The recently opened Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics (www.law.harvard.edu/programs/petrie-flom) will promote research to address healthcare policy, biotech patent law, the bioethics of reproductive technologies, and other areas where science outstrips current laws.
"Most law schools don't have a strong health law component, even though healthcare represents 15% of the gross domestic product," says Barbara Fain, the center's executive director. The "idea was for a center to provide scholarship around these issues and also provide a training ground for academics teaching health law and bioethics." Fain says the center will focus on areas such as genetic therapies and testing "where the law is perhaps lagging behind the science."
The ...
