Debt’s Dominion: A History of Bankruptcy Law in America, an excerpt from a new book by Prof. David A. Skeel, Jr.

Professors Anita Allen- Castellitto and Arthur Caplan

“The Bioethics Center is indeed one of the jewels of the crown at Penn,” commented Dean Michael A. Fitts in introductory remarks before the first panel that asked the question “Who Are Bioethicists and What Do They Do?” Answers ranged from advising healthcare providers, drug companies, and biotech companies, to serving on government panels and commissions, counseling individual patients and families, and giving expert testimony in lawsuits.

Daniel Berger, Esq. led the discussion “From the Front Line: Litigating Ethics and Injury.” A partner with Berger and Montague P.C. in Philadelphia, Berger has been at the forefront of medical class action suits. He discussed the legal doctrine and framework the firm used to challenge the government’s use of human radiation experimentation (HRE) at the end of World War II when terminally ill patients were injected with plutonium. He presented another case in which students at a school for mentally disabled children in Massachusetts were fed radioactive oatmeal to test the effects of ingestion.

He characterized the terrain of building cases such as these “a complex, often bewildering, area. There was a tendency among public policymakers to minimize what was done. In many cases the offenses were committed decades ago and evidence was lacking. They claimed it was a time when biomedical ethics were different. The HRE victims were just the tip of the iceberg. There were uranium mineworkers, mostly poor Native Americans, who were injured. There were workers at the major nuclear facilities. We’re talking about every child born in the U.S. between 1951 to 1963 because of atmospheric effects of radiation testing. It is all a result of the entire nuclear arms and energy industry.”

Internationally recognized legal ethics expert Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr. Trustee Professor of Law contributed to a panel with three law professors from other institutions that discussed “The Duties of Bioethicists: Conceptualizing Professional Standards and Duties.”

Colin S. Diver Charles A. Heimbold Jr. Professor of Law and Arthur Caplan concluded the day’s symposium on the subject “Looking Ahead: Shaping the Policy and Research Agenda.” Caplan commented, “The research enterprise will be the single largest economic entity in the United States for the next 20, 30, 50 years. If lawyers get in the way of that they will get trampled.” Caplan extolled the positive value that bioethicists add to our society: “Why is bioethics so American? It’s a way that Americans can talk about life and death, and ethics, and cloning by crossing racial, religious and ethics boundaries. We get to have metaphysical conversations. I see bioethics as a cultural critic.” He concluded, repeating his vision, “There is a role bioethics will play in the future that the law shouldn’t stifle. Bioethicists should inspire a cultural dialogue.”