Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer, yet her cells--taken without her knowledge--became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first "immortal" human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer and viruses; helped lead to in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions. Yet Henrietta Lacks is buried in an unmarked grave. Her family did not learn of her "immortality" until more than twenty years after her death, when scientists began using her husband and children in research without informed consent. The story of the Lacks family is inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made of--From publisher description.

This book explores the psychological conditions that promote the human potential for evil, relating medical killing to broader principles of doubling and genocide.

"Eva Mozes Kor was just ten years old when she arrived in Auschwitz. While her parents and two older sisters were taken to the gas chambers, she and her twin, Miriam, were herded into the care of the man known as the Angel of Death, Dr. Josef Mengele. Subjected to sadistic medical experiments, she was forced to fight daily for her and her twin's survival. In this incredible true story written for young adults, readers learn of a child's endurance and survival in the face of truly extraordinary evil and Eva's recovery and her controversial but often misunderstood decision to publicly forgive the Nazis. Readers will learn of how she triumphed over unfathomable pain and suffering into a life-long work for peace, human rights, and Holocaust education. The new edition provides interesting details and important context to the events related in the original story. A new Afterword by publisher Peggy Porter Tierney offers a richer portrayal of Eva as a person, the truth behind the controversies, and the eventful last ten years of her life"--

Signed by author.

Award-winning American novelist Nicole Krauss first captivated readers with her groundbreaking debut novel Man Walks into a Room a novel in which Krauss explores what it is to lose one's identity and what it is to discover what makes us human. Samson Greene has been missing for eight days when he is discovered wandering through the Nevada desert 'ragged as a crow' and with no idea who he is. He is rushed to hospital where doctors save his life but all his memories after the age of twelve have been permanently lost. Now as he looks around the beautiful apartment he apparently shares with his wife and which is filed with all the souvenirs of a life well lived Samson feels nothing more than a vague admiration. In her first novel Nicole Krauss tells the story of a man suddenly liberated from the life he has made disconnected from the people who have defined him. Withdrawing from a wife he has no memory of loving Samson plunges weightless into the future. But when he agrees to participate in a revolutionary experiment what he experiences a revelation of what it means to be human. 'Krauss celebrates the anything-but-simple art of human connection' San Francisco Chronicle 'You'll savour the last page - and be hungry for future work from this talented author' The Washington Post Book World Nicole Krauss is an American bestselling author who has received international critical acclaim for her first three novels: Great House (shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction 2011) The History of Love (Shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction 2006 and winner of the 2006 Prix du Meilleur Livre tranger) and Man Walks into a Room all of which are available in Penguin paperback.

Relates the life story of Josef Mengele and quotes from the testimonies of twin children who were the victims of his sadistic pseudo-medical experiments in Auschwitz. They speak about the complicated psychological problems which they confronted after the war, and which caused their silence in the 1950s-70s. In 1984 the organization of surviving twins, CANDLES, was established, which organized a trip to Auschwitz in 1985 and publicized their reminiscences.

All investigators funded by the National Institutes of Health are now required to receive training about the ethics of clinical research. Based on a course taught by the editors at NIH, Ethical and Regulatory Aspects of Clinical Research is the first book designed to help investigators meet this new requirement. The book begins with the history of human subjects research and guidelines instituted since World War II. It then covers various stages and components of the clinical trial process: designing the trial, recruiting participants, ensuring informed consent, studying special populations, and conducting international research. Concluding chapters address conflicts of interest, scientific misconduct, and challenges to the IRB system. The appendix provides sample informed consent forms. This book will be used in undergraduate courses on research ethics and in schools of medicine and public health by students who are or will be carrying out clinical research. Professionals in need of such training and bioethicists also will be interested.

During the Soviet years, Russian science was touted as one of the greatest successes of the regime. Russian science was considered to be equal, if not superior, to that of the wealthy western nations. The Perversion of Knowledge, a history of Soviet science that focuses on its control by the KGB and the Communist Party, reveals the dark side of this glittering achievement. Based on the author's firsthand experience as a Soviet scientist, and drawing on extensive Russian language sources not easily available to the Western reader, the book includes shocking new information on biomedical experimentation on humans as well as an examination of the pernicious effects of Trofim Lysenko's pseudo-biology. Also included are many poignant case histories of those who collaborated and those who managed to resist, focusing on the moral choices and consequences. The text is accompanied by the author's own translations of key archival materials, making this work an essential resource for all those with a serious interest in Russian history.

Most of the essays appeared in the spring 1969 issue of Dædalus.

Undue Risk is an unprecedented and chilling history of the use of human subjects in atomic, biological, and chemical warfare experiments by the U.S. government from World War II to the present. Jonathan Moreno, a senior researcher on the president's special commission, goes where few researchers have gone before, exploring secret government documents which reveal a plethora of government experiments. He exposes startling details of experiments like those involving the exposure of soldiers to atomic blast fallout and secret LSD and mescaline experiments. From the courtrooms of Nuremberg to the battlefields of the Gulf War, Undue Risk exposes a variety of government policies and specific cases, including plutonium injections to unwilling hospital patients, and even the attempted recruitment of Nazi medical scientists by the U.S. government after World War II. New to the paperback edition, this exciting read covers recent objections by U.S. military personnel to required anthrax vaccinations and new developments in government policies on experiments involving vulnerable human subjects.

In his fascinating new book, Jonathan D. Moreno investigates the deeply intertwined worlds of cutting-edge brain science, U.S. defense agencies, and a volatile geopolitical landscape where a nation's weaponry must go far beyond bombs and men. The first-ever exploration of the connections between national security and brain research, Mind Wars: Brain Research and National Defense reveals how many questions crowd this gray intersection of science and government and urges us to begin to answer them. From neuropharmacology to neural imaging to brain-machine interface devices that relay images and sounds between human brains and machines, Moreno shows how national security entities seek to harness the human nervous system in a multitude of ways as a potent weapon against the enemy soldier. Moreno charts such projects as monkeys moving robotic arms with their minds, technology to read the brain’s thought patterns at a distance, the development of "anti-sleep" drugs to enhance soldiers’ battle performance and others to dampen their emotional reactions to the violence, and advances that could open the door to "neuroweapons"—virus-transported molecules to addle the brain. "As new kinds of weapons are added to the arsenal already at the disposal of fallible human leaders," Moreno writes, "we need to find new ways to address the problem"--of the ethical military application of so powerful and intimate a science. This book is the first step in confronting the quandaries inherent in this partnership of government and neuroscience, serves as a compelling wake-up call for scientists and citizens, and suggests that, with imagination, we might meet the needs of both security and civil liberty.

This book analyzes the major issues of research ethics through a careful review of the treatment in official policies on research ethics developed throughout the world (especially North America, Western Europe, and the Pacific Rim). Among the issues covered are animal research, research on human subjects, epidemiological research, genetic research, reproductive research, research on vulnerable subjects, clinical trials, drug approval and the research process, and research on women and minorities. Brody also evaluates the content and the methods of developing these policies in light of his philosophical position of pluralistic casuistry. This is the only book that analyzes all the major issues in research ethics. It is the only book which deals with these issues from an international perspective rather than just a US perspective. Major official policies from important research-intensive countries are reprinted in the appendix (close to 200 plates of otherwise difficult material).