Biomedical ethics

Overview

The Medicine and Society Collection has a wide variety of resources on the ethical, social and legal implications of biomedical research. The collections also cover the ethical conduct of research. There is a particular emphasis on genetics.

Target audience

The collection will be of use to policy analysts, research managers, journalists, students and teachers, and members of the general public.

Available resources

The collection provides books, official reports, press cuttings files and statistical information as well as:

• Government legislation and regulations
• policy statements from political parties and independent organisations
• research publications on genetic engineering and the biotechnology industry
• journals and newsletters
• videos
• SPIN - a weekly abstracting service produced by the Wellcome Trust.

The collection focuses on the following subjects:

• general biomedical ethics
• animal experimentation
• biotechnology (including transgenic animals and genetically modified organisms)
• human genetics (including the Human Genome Project, gene therapy and genetic screening)
• cloning
• embryo research and in vitro fertilisation treatment
• the use of fetal tissue in medical research
• research and testing involving human subjects
• scientific misconduct/fraud.

Many of our journals and databases also focus on research ethics.

Links

BioethicsWeb
Internet resources relevant to biomedical ethics can now be accessed though BioethicsWeb, a gateway to evaluated, quality internet resources relating to biomedical ethics, covering the ethical, social, legal and public policy questions arising from advances in medicine and biology, issues relating to the conduct of biomedical research and approaches to bioethics.

BioethicsWeb provides links to websites, accompanied by resource descriptions, and offers a number of ways to search and browse its database, including keyword and phrase searching. Resources featured on BioethicsWeb include electronic journals, online primary source documents (such as legislation and guidelines), and electronic discussion lists.

BioethicsWeb was developed by staff at the Wellcome Library, in cooperation with the former BIOME health and life sciences hub (now Intute: Health and Life Sciences).