Apr 26, 2008
In the April 25 edition of the Albany Business Review, Alden March Bioethics Institute is singled out among the institutions responsible for the new ranking of Albany as the "11th smartest metropolitan area in the nation" and the top city in New York for young talent. The story, which made the cover of the nation's Business Review magazines, is available to read online in full text and is a strong endorsement of the research of the Institute and its faculty's role in the region.

Apr 15, 2008
Both the Daily Gazette and the Albany Times-Union noted that the National Undergraduate Bioethics Conference was held by Union University, of which Albany Medical College is one part, by sponsor Union College in Schenectady. This is the first time that the national conference has been held in Albany, the only one of its kind. Among those speaking were a number of AMBI faculty and students including nationally prominent health reporter Benita Zahn, a graduate student in ourMasters program, and AMBI faculty member Dan Thompson, immediate past chair of the ethics committee of the Society for Critical Care Medicine. Another feather in the cap of the Capital District as it establishes itself as one of the top cities in the world for bioethics teaching and research - something that the majority of undergraduates interested in bioethics had a chance to see first hand!

Apr 15, 2008
FACEBOOK, created by a 22 year-old Harvard student, is now a place where virtually every highly prominent academic "meets" to discuss collaboration and build networks through what Harvard calls "the social nexus of Facebook." Facebook doubles in size every three days. Facebook's Board accepted Alden March Bioethics Institute as a Group several months ago, and AMBI's group now has 63 members including not only some of our students and faculty but friends of AMBI from places like Oxford University, and around the world. THIS MONTH, Facebook designated Alden March Institute a Network, alongside universities and major employers. Those who work with AMBI in any way can now identify themselves as bioethics scholars in New York's largest University-based bioethics program, and the only bioethics network on all of Facebook. To create your own Facebook page, visit , then request to sign up for Alden March Bioethics Institute as a Network, and as a Group. It will ask you for an email address at bioethics.org to validate that you work with AMBI - just make up an address (susan@bioethics.org), and we will approve it. You can also request to be a "friend" of Shiela Otto, Summer Johnson, or any of the other faculty and students. Network away!

Dec 27, 2007
Psychics may be useful, and in a time of short physician office visits it is easy to see why they are so popular, but ethical issues with "psychic care" are ... astronomical, comments Dr. McGee to the Times-Union, with whom he also speaks about the litigation involving experiments years ago at the VA. And in his column in The Scientist, McGee comments on the ethics of new visual enhancements [subscribers only; read summary here.

Dec 27, 2007
Psychics may be useful, and in a time of short physician office visits it is easy to see why they are so popular, but ethical issues with "psychic care" are ... astronomical, comments Dr. McGee to the Times-Union. And in his column in The Scientist, McGee comments on the ethics of new visual enhancements.

Apr 02, 2007
The AMBI MS in Bioethics program's inaugural class is among the largest in the nation, and comprises a distinguished group of mid-career clinicians, media members, regulators, industry leaders, attorneys and scientists. Director of the AMBI Health Law & Bioethics program at Albany Law, Alicia Ouellette, is interviewed In Albany Times-Union about our new Juris Doctorate/Master of Science in Bioethics 3 year degree program. Albany Business Review discussed the sponsorship of Apple for the new Masters program, which succeeds the previous AMBI masters degree program. Glenn McGee discusses online teaching of bioethics in "Socrates 2.0", an essay in The Scientist in April.

Mar 07, 2007
Glenn McGee asks why the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is destroying books and documents and shutting down its libraries right in the midst of an examination of its decades-long history of human experimentation. [The Scientist, March 2007]

Mar 07, 2007
A Hostile Environment for Documents?
Glenn McGee asks why the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is destroying books and documents and shutting down its libraries right in the midst of an examination of its decades-long history of human experimentation. [The Scientist, March 2007]

Feb 25, 2007
Should major research institutions be conducting clinical trials of hallucinogens like psilocybin and LSD? Glenn McGee argues against reckless experimentation with the drugs in a hotly debated essay in this month's issue of The Scientist

Feb 25, 2007
Should major research institutions be conducting human trials of hallucinogens like psilocybin and LSD? Glenn McGee argues against reckless experimentation with the drugs in a hotly debated essay in this month's issue of The Scientist

Feb 10, 2007
Summer Johnson discussed bioethics & nanotech on Science & Society.

Jan 17, 2007
Naturepoints to The Alden March Bioethics Institute as an example of the future of cutting edge research in New York.

Oct 02, 2006
Our partners at Albany Nanotech and the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering have been ranked #1 in the nation and featured in the New York Times; this alongside an outstanding piece in Nature talks about The Alden March Bioethics Institute as an example of the rapid increase in cutting edge research in upstate New York. This in its September 21st issue [PDF download is free].

Aug 25, 2006
• Glenn McGee spoke to many news outlets concerning a recent proposal to avoid the ethical debates about embryonic stem cell research by deriving embryonic cells during pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, including: Marketplace [link], CNN, CBS radio, BBC1, CTV.ca, BioIt World, Business Week, Fox News, USA Today, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Houston Chronicle, Newsweek and many others, including more than two dozen newspapers that printed commentary by McGee to the Associated Press

• McGee was also very critical of a local IVF firm's contest, in which the couple with the most persuasive essay was given free IVF treatment. He spoke to NBC 13 [video link] and ABC 10; he also discussed the increasing role of genetics in profiling and mapping of children's futures [video link]

Aug 17, 2006
• Our AMBI/ASBH conference "Politics & Bioethics" at the Crowne Plaza made news in Inside Albany, and a protest at the outset was covered in the Times Union as part of its accolades for the importance of bioethics. Video will be up soon • Timothy Hoff, AMBI faculty member and professor in the SUNY School of Public Health of UAlbany, has published in the journal Pediatrics a major study of the perceptions of newborn screening program directors of the long term followup that occurs after screening - and the practices actually in place for that followup • The American Journal of Bioethics' Editors Blog has received the "Top 50 Science Blogs" designation from Nature

Jul 10, 2006
Dr. John Balint has created quite a stir with his call for New York to adopt a single payer system for healthcare. Among those calling for discussion of Balint's proposal are a number of New York Republicans.

Jun 23, 2006
Business Review is just one of dozens reporting on the buzz surrounding the upcoming conference to be held by AMBI at the Albany Crown Plaza. There are only a few seats left for the conference, and none for the dinner featuring President's Council on Bioethics Chair Edmund Pellegrino, as the John A. Balint lecturer, although those wishing to come may be able to participate in Dr. Pellegrino's session in a separate room by teleconference, and then join the dessert reception.

May 18, 2006
The Sunday Times London covers two recent commentaries by Dr. McGee about clinical trials in India: "perhaps The Scientist is justified in asking how long before the people of the nation of Gandhi rise up to reject a new imperialism?"

May 01, 2006
AMBI Director Glenn McGee is quoted extensively in a story in this week's Nature on the illegal body parts market in scientific research, and its implications for human dignity.

Apr 30, 2006
Prayer Is Not a Drug or a Therapy, according to AMBI director Glenn McGee and his fellow columnist Art Caplan, who write in this week's Times Union that "the most troubling aspect of prayer treatment is the eerie clarity that its advocates have about the idea that death is a failure. What if the Harvard study had shown that more patients who had been the subject of intercessory prayer were slower to heal or had more health problems? Would that show that God does not exist? That all prayer is pointless? On the other hand, what would intercessory prayer do for medicine if it actually worked? Would we have to warn those with no family and few friends that they aren't going to do as well because sadly they are prayer deficient? Would HMOs and insurance companies have to cover the costs for professional prayers?"