University of Virginia Health System

U.Va. Biomedical Ethics Professor to Serve as Columnist for ABCNEWS.com

In each column, which will appear every two to three weeks, Moreno or one of his U.Va. colleagues will present the details of a medical ethics issue that has been in the news and offer alternative ways of handling the problem. Readers can then respond to the issue by answering questions in an online poll or posting their opinions to a linked bulletin board.

Rather than a mere opinion column, our page on ABCNEWS.com is designed to be informative and interactive, Moreno said. The aim is to help frame the important bioethical issues of our time in a balanced way. Our center is already considered a national leader in the field. This relationship with a major news organization will allow us to responsibly shape public discussion.

In his first column, which can be found at http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/living/Bioethics/bioethics990526.html, Moreno discusses an idea the Pennsylvania state health department is considering that would require organ recipients to pay up to $3,000 toward hospital and funeral expenses of the deceased organ donor.

The proposed amount in the Pennsylvania law, up to $3,000 if the health board approves, seems designed to be a real benefit but not so much money that it might coerce the poor into signing over organs, Moreno's column said. However, it continues, a reimbursement plan, even if the money didn't go directly to families, might pressure some poor families into donating organs just to avoid huge hospital and funeral bills. That would be both unfair and unhealthy for society.

Moreno's future columns will address research on human subjects, death and dying, and genetics research.

The Center for Biomedical Ethics at U.Va., founded in 1988, is dedicated to improving the identification, analysis, and resolution of ethical problems in health care through service, education and research. In addition to serving as Center director, Moreno is the Emily Davie and Joseph S. Kornfeld Professor of Biomedical Ethics at U.Va. and a senior research scholar at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the American Society of Law, Medicine, and Ethics and is the senior consultant to the National Bioethics Advisory Commission. He has previously served as a consultant to the National Institutes of Health and has been invited to testify before the U.S. House of Representatives. Moreno has published more than 150 papers and book chapters on various medical ethics issues and has written three books.

For more information, contact Jonathan D. Moreno at (804) 924-8274.

May 28, 1999