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Making All the Children Above Average: Ethical and Regulatory Concerns for Pediatricians in Pediatric Enhancement Research

School of Law and Department of Bioethics, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, jessica.berg{at}case.edu

Maxwell J. Mehlman, JD

School of Law and Department of Bioethics, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio

Daniel B. Rubin, MA

University of Michigan Law School, Ann Arbor

Eric Kodish, MD

the Department of Bioethics, The Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Cleveland, Ohio

Building on the knowledge generated by the long history of disease-oriented research, the next few decades will witness an explosion of biomedical enhancements to make people faster, stronger, smarter, less forgetful, happier, prettier, and live longer. Growing interest in pediatric enhancements is likely to stimulate the conduct of enhancement research involving children. However, guidelines for the protection of human subjects were developed for investigations of therapeutic modalities. To date, virtually no attention has been paid to whether these rules would be appropriate for investigations to establish the safety and efficacy of technologies intended for enhancement rather than therapeutic uses and, if not, whether ethically acceptable rules could be designed. This article discusses whether the current guidelines for pediatric research provide appropriate protections for pediatric subjects in enhancement research and considers what additional protections might be necessary.

Key Words: enhancement • research • genetics • ethics

This version was published on June 1, 2009

Clinical Pediatrics, Vol. 48, No. 5, 472-480 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0009922808330457


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