Raising the threshold for pain: Gene transfer, gene enhancement, or gene doping?

Posted on April 30, 2013 | Leave a comment

In this paper, co-authored with Professor House MD PillsMike McNamee from Swansea University,  we address the question whether it can be ethically justifiable to seek gene transfer to raise one’s own tolerance to pain in a therapeutic and in an elite sports context. As a case study we analyse a currently recruiting Phase 1 study that seeks to transfer Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor to treat pain in patients with peripheral artery disease, but that could plausibly be applied also in an elite sports context. We presented this paper at the International Association for Philosophy of Sport, Porto, Sept 12-15, 2012.

Camporesi S, McNamee MJ (2012) ‘Gene Transfer for Pain: A tool to cope with the intractable, or an unethical endurance-enhancing technology?’ Life Sciences, Society & Policy Journal 8: 20-31 doi:10.1186/1746-5354-8-1-20

You can read the full paper free of charge here.

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Posted in Bioethics, Ethics & Sports, Philosophy of Medicine

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Trading participation for access to healthcare: the COMPAS trial

Posted on October 22, 2012 | Leave a comment

This short paper is an open-peer commentary (OPC) to Dave Wendler‘s new justification of paediatric research without therapeutic benefits. Synflorix packshotWendler argues that pediatric clinical research that offers no therapeutic benefits to the participants can be justified on the basis that participating in clinical research qualifies as contributing to a valuable project. Matteo Mameli and I disagree and argue that Wendler’s argument is unsatisfactory in that it fails to consider the context of clinical research, i.e. the conditions in which participants find themselves and, more specifically, the kind of access to health care that they have. In our OPC we provide a concrete example to our arguments, by focusing on the recent COMPAS-Synflorix trial (Argentina, 2008).

Camporesi S, Mameli M. (2012) The context of clinical research and its ethical relevance: The COMPAS trial as a case study. Am Journal Bioethics, 12(1):39-40.

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Posted in Research Ethics

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Hyperandrogenism, unfair advantage and the myth of the level playing field in competition

Posted on July 11, 2012 | Leave a comment

In this paper, published on the American Journal of Bioethics and co-authored with Katrina Karkazis (Department of Biomedical Ethics, Stanford), Rebecca Jordan-Young (Barnard College, NYC), and Georgiann Davis (Southern Illinois University), I analyse and question the 2011 IAAF  policies on the eligibility of female athletes with hyperandrogenism to compete in the female category.

Caster Semenya

Caster Semenya

We argue that the policies are  flawed on at least three grounds: 1) the underlying scientific assumptions; 2) the policy-making process; and 3) the concept of fairness for female athletes, and that they should be withdrawn.

The new IAAF policies aim at  isolating the presumed positive effect of increased androgen levels on athletic performance from a myriad of other factors. However, as we show in the paper, such a move is logically flawed, and consequently, the new regulations themselves are logically flawed—it is impossible to reduce the complexity of athletic excellence to a univocal relationship between androgen levels and performance.

Read more: my post for Somatosphere.

Karkazis K, Jordan-Young R, Davis G, Camporesi S. (2012) Out of bounds? A critique of the new policies on hyperandrogenism in elite female athletes,  Am Journal Bioethics; 12(7):3-16. 

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Posted in Bioethics, Ethics & Sports

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