President's Commission

The U.S. Congress in November, 1978, authorized the creation of a presidential commission with continuing responsibility to study and report on the ethical and legal implications of a number of issues in medicine and research. The Commission also had the power to extend that list as it or the President saw fit. The Commission was charged with studying problems whose value components are at least as important as their technical aspects. In effect, the Commission was instructed to bring ethical analysis of the implications of medical practice and research out of the classrooms and into a public forum. The issues the Commission studied included: definition of death, informed consent, genetic screening and counseling, differences in the availability of health care, life sustaining treatment, confidentiality and privacy, genetic engineering, compensation for injured subjects, and whistle-blowing in research. The commission held 28 meetings between January 1980 and March 1983, hearing 300 scheduled witnesses from all different fields. Each report was published separately by the U.S. Government Printing Office.

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