Dr Silvia Camporesi | King's College London (original) (raw)

Papers by Dr Silvia Camporesi

Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, 2010

Journal of Medical Ethics

The Concussion in Sport Group guidelines have successfully brought the attention of brain injurie... more The Concussion in Sport Group guidelines have successfully brought the attention of brain injuries to the global medical and sport research communities, and has significantly impacted brain injury-related practices and rules of international sport. Despite being the global repository of state-of-the-art science, diagnostic tools and guides to clinical practice, the ensuing consensus statements remain the object of ethical and sociocultural criticism. The purpose of this paper is to bring to bear a broad range of multidisciplinary challenges to the processes and products of sport-related concussion movement. We identify lacunae in scientific research and clinical guidance in relation to age, disability, gender and race. We also identify, through multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary analysis, a range of ethical problems resulting from conflicts of interest, processes of attributing expertise in sport-related concussion, unjustifiably narrow methodological control and insufficient a...

Bioethics, Genetics and Sport, 2018

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 2022

This qualitative case study is part of the international research project ESCaPE (Evaluating Scie... more This qualitative case study is part of the international research project ESCaPE (Evaluating Scientific Advice in a Pandemic Emergency) and aims at understanding how expert advice has been sought, produced and utilized in the management of the Covid-19 emergency in Italy in 2020. Italy was the first country after China having to face the devastating effects of the Covid-19 soon to be pandemic. The state of national emergency was declared on January 31st, 2020, and the Italian Government sought expert advice as an important resource in the management of the pandemic. The Covid-19 crisis in Italy witnessed the emergence of different expert advisory groups: some envisaged by the law; some instituted ad hoc and tasked to deal with specific aspects of the emergency; and others that were already in place before the pandemic but that came to play a crucial role during the unfolding of the outbreak. This case study relies on a mix of both primary (stakeholder interviews) and secondary data ...

International Emergency Nursing, 2021

Bioethics, Genetics and Sport, 2018

Bioethics, Genetics and Sport, 2018

Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Sport, 2015

Bioethics, Genetics and Sport, 2018

Bioethics, Genetics and Sport, 2018

Bioethics, Genetics and Sport, 2018

Reproductive Biomedicine Online, 2020

ABASTRACT Bioethics operates on two dimensions: one is the future, i.e. the temporal subject of b... more ABASTRACT Bioethics operates on two dimensions: one is the future, i.e. the temporal subject of bioethicists’ speculations, and one is the present, the point of inf luence of bioethics. In order for bioethics to operate on two dimensions, bioethicists have to resort to biofutures, or imaginaries of possible futures populated by extrapolations of uses of emerging biotechnologies. This paper discusses the possible biofuture in which we are able to grow humanised organs in pigs for the purposes of human transplantation, which has brought xenotransplantation closer to the present thanks to experiments conducted by George Church at MIT, which use CRISPR genome editing technologies to edit out a number of retroviruses that are endogenous in pigs and can pose a risk of human infection in xenotransplantation. This paper juxtaposes the biofuture imagined by Church, where organ transplants become routine and are customized on the basis of the recipient, with the biofuture imagined by Canadian...

Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, 2010

Journal of Medical Ethics

The Concussion in Sport Group guidelines have successfully brought the attention of brain injurie... more The Concussion in Sport Group guidelines have successfully brought the attention of brain injuries to the global medical and sport research communities, and has significantly impacted brain injury-related practices and rules of international sport. Despite being the global repository of state-of-the-art science, diagnostic tools and guides to clinical practice, the ensuing consensus statements remain the object of ethical and sociocultural criticism. The purpose of this paper is to bring to bear a broad range of multidisciplinary challenges to the processes and products of sport-related concussion movement. We identify lacunae in scientific research and clinical guidance in relation to age, disability, gender and race. We also identify, through multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary analysis, a range of ethical problems resulting from conflicts of interest, processes of attributing expertise in sport-related concussion, unjustifiably narrow methodological control and insufficient a...

Bioethics, Genetics and Sport, 2018

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 2022

This qualitative case study is part of the international research project ESCaPE (Evaluating Scie... more This qualitative case study is part of the international research project ESCaPE (Evaluating Scientific Advice in a Pandemic Emergency) and aims at understanding how expert advice has been sought, produced and utilized in the management of the Covid-19 emergency in Italy in 2020. Italy was the first country after China having to face the devastating effects of the Covid-19 soon to be pandemic. The state of national emergency was declared on January 31st, 2020, and the Italian Government sought expert advice as an important resource in the management of the pandemic. The Covid-19 crisis in Italy witnessed the emergence of different expert advisory groups: some envisaged by the law; some instituted ad hoc and tasked to deal with specific aspects of the emergency; and others that were already in place before the pandemic but that came to play a crucial role during the unfolding of the outbreak. This case study relies on a mix of both primary (stakeholder interviews) and secondary data ...

International Emergency Nursing, 2021

Bioethics, Genetics and Sport, 2018

Bioethics, Genetics and Sport, 2018

Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Sport, 2015

Bioethics, Genetics and Sport, 2018

Bioethics, Genetics and Sport, 2018

Bioethics, Genetics and Sport, 2018

Reproductive Biomedicine Online, 2020

ABASTRACT Bioethics operates on two dimensions: one is the future, i.e. the temporal subject of b... more ABASTRACT Bioethics operates on two dimensions: one is the future, i.e. the temporal subject of bioethicists’ speculations, and one is the present, the point of inf luence of bioethics. In order for bioethics to operate on two dimensions, bioethicists have to resort to biofutures, or imaginaries of possible futures populated by extrapolations of uses of emerging biotechnologies. This paper discusses the possible biofuture in which we are able to grow humanised organs in pigs for the purposes of human transplantation, which has brought xenotransplantation closer to the present thanks to experiments conducted by George Church at MIT, which use CRISPR genome editing technologies to edit out a number of retroviruses that are endogenous in pigs and can pose a risk of human infection in xenotransplantation. This paper juxtaposes the biofuture imagined by Church, where organ transplants become routine and are customized on the basis of the recipient, with the biofuture imagined by Canadian...

This is a talk I gave at Santa Clara University on April 28th, 2016.

In this paper we discuss the ethics of genetics-based talent identification programmes in sports.... more In this paper we discuss the ethics of genetics-based talent identification programmes in sports. We discuss the validity and reliability of the tests and the claims made by direct to consumer companies, before presenting a range of ethical issues concerning child-parent/guardian relations raised by these tests, which we frame in terms of parental duties, children's rights, and best interests. We argue that greater ethical emphasis needs to be put on the parental decision on the wellbeing on the child going forward, not on ex post justifications on the basis of the consequences. Best Interests decisions, made by a third party seem to comprise both subjective and objective elements but only a holistic approach can do justice to these questions by addressing the wellbeing of the child in a temporal manner and taking into account the child's perspective on its wellbeing. Such decisions must address wider questions of what a good (sports)parent ought do to help the child flourish and how to balance the future-adult focus necessary to nurture talent with the wellbeing of the child in the present. We conclude that current genetic tests for 'talent' do not predict aptitude or success to any significant degree and are therefore only marginally pertinent for talent identification. Claims that go beyond current science are culpable, and attempt to exploit widespread but naïve perceptions of the efficacy of genetics information to predict athletic futures. Sports physicians and health care professionals involved in sport medicine should therefore discourage the use of these tests.

In this paper I argue that the current media and academic discourse surrounding reproductive gen... more In this paper I argue that the current media and academic discourse surrounding reproductive genetic technologies (RGT) needs rethinking. The talk will be structured in two parts. A first level of analysis will concern whether the comparison between RGT and eugenics is justified. Examples of the media and academic narratives framing RGT as a resurgence of eugenics abound. I will that we should abandon the use of the term “new eugenics” or “neogenics” in reference to the RGT. This does not mean that there are no ethical issues in how parents engage today with RGT, only that there are different ethical issues from the ones raised by the current prevalent ethical discourse. In the second part of this talk I will argue that an analysis of RGT grounded only in Robertson’s concept of procreative liberty (2003) is also inadequate, and that we should look at RGTs as “practices of ethical self-formation”, borrowing from Catherine Mills (2013). I will propose a new term, “eligogenics”, to refer to RGT, where the prefix “eligo” reflects the fact that the RGT are used not only, as often portrayed, to improve on existing capacities as within the realm of enhancement, but also to choose (from the Latin ‘eligere’) what parents consider to be “good” for their children. This includes traits traditionally considered disabilities, such as deafness, or dwarfism. In conclusion, I will argue that once we recognise the shortsightedness of the current discourse surrounding RGT, we will have opened up space for much more interesting discussions, such as discussions of identity and different conceptions of human flourishing.
The recording of this talk is now available online.

On February 27, 2015 I was interviewed by David Eades of the BBC World News to comment on the BB... more On February 27, 2015 I was interviewed by David Eades of the BBC World News to comment on the BBC story on the eugenics victims in the US who had been forcibly sterilised during the state of Virginia's eugenics programme. More than 8,000 Virginians were operated on between the 1920s and 1970s.

When asked by David whether we should be worried about eugenics programmes today, I argued that while we often hear about the 'resurgence' of eugenics in the context of the selection of children's traits with genetic technologies, we should be careful when we draw this comparison.

The negative connotation we have of eugenics today is something that we have acquired relatively recently, in the aftermath of WWII. When the term eugenics was invented by Francis Galton in 1883, it did not have a negative connotation; quite on the contrary, it was considered a duty of society to pursue the selection of "good genes", both with negative measures (such as sterilisation laws) and with positive measures (such as support for young families).

We now think, in the Western world at least, that people have a right to 'reproductive freedom' which includes when and with whom to reproduce, but this was not the case with classical eugenics when reproductive decisions were considered a legitimate sphere of intervention of the state.

I have also argued that the use of eugenics as a word mobilises anxieties in the public, and can mask real ethical issues that we have with selection, which are different from those of the past.

"I argued elsewhere that parents should not be allowed to resort to pre-implantation genetic diag... more "I argued elsewhere that parents should not be allowed to resort to pre-implantation genetic diagnosis to choose to have deaf children like themselves, on the basis of the rights of children to an open future and on the limits of parental freedom as contoured by children’s autonomy and exercise of self-determination (Camporesi S, CQHE 2010). In the conclusion of that paper I claimed I would elaborate on the implications of that line of thought in other contexts related to the education and rearing of children. In this paper, I want to follow up on that claim and consider a kind of intervention that may at first appear less radical than intervening at the level of PGD to steer and channel a child’s future, but that I find nonetheless quite troublesome. This intervention is the use of genetic tests, sometimes coupled with more traditional methods of ‘talent scouting’, to assess a child’s predisposition to athletic performance. The recent boom of direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic tests (especially but not only in the US) aimed at measuring children’s athletic potential , and the parental decision in terms of education and investing in the children’s future taken on the basis of the results of those tests, is the starting point for my analysis on the role of parenthood in education, the autonomy of children, and the meaning and role of sports in childhood. In this paper I also discuss the scientific evidence at the basis of these tests.

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This talk will offer a window on my current research focused on analysing the ethical, scientific... more This talk will offer a window on my current research focused on analysing the ethical, scientific and regulatory underpinnings of gene doping for the 2012 London Olympics. In doing so, I will take as a case study a gene transfer clinical trial that can have ap- plications in both a therapeutic and an enhancement context, and compare the ethical frameworks of the two cases showing on which basis the same technique finds an ethical justification, or not.

Edited by Jonathan Ives (University of Bristol), Michael Dunn (University of Oxford), and Alan Cr... more Edited by Jonathan Ives (University of Bristol), Michael
Dunn (University of Oxford), and Alan Cribb (King’s College
London), Empirical Bioethics is the first book systematically
tackling the epistemological questions raised by the
use of empirical data to answer normative questions in
bioethics.
While it is difficult to define empirical bioethics, if
there is one thing on which we can all agree, and on which
this book is based, it is that empirical bioethics must take
seriously both normative and empirical epistemologies.
This is what the editors clearly state in the introduction to
the first part of the book. Hence their choice of a volume
that offers examples of “how to think through the various
challenges that empirical bioethics research presents.”
That is why this volume does not aim to be a textbook. It
aims instead to be a “source book” (using the words of the
editors), that is, a book to which those of us interested in
doing empirical ethics work can turn to look at how other
researchers have attempted to answer key epistemological
challenges in this field.

Futures of Reproduction: Bioethics and Biopolitics, by Monash University-based philosopher Cather... more Futures of Reproduction: Bioethics and Biopolitics, by Monash
University-based philosopher Catherine Mills, is a breath
of fresh air in the bioethics discourse on reproduction and
the impact that technologies have on shaping new ways of
life.
This book is a contribution to the bioethics literature
that, while discussing the ethical contours of new ways of
creating life through technologies, also discusses and creates
new spaces for bioethics. Mills takes readers beyond
the usual understanding of the ethical issues inherent in
reproduction, usually understood within the reproductive
freedom framework, by bringing in phenomenological
and feminist perspectives on embodiment, a discussion of
the relationality element intrinsic in ethical concepts such
as autonomy, and Foucault’s concept of biopolitics, with a
discussion of the values intrinsic in the emergence and
implementation of new biomedical technologies for the
governance of life.

If bioethics is the answer, what was the question? Posed by British philosopher Richard Ashcroft ... more If bioethics is the answer, what was the question? Posed by British philosopher Richard Ashcroft (2004), this question influenced Duncan Wilson when writing The Making of British Bioethics, published by Manchester University Press in 2014 in open access form, thanks to support from the Wellcome Trust .

Duncan Wilson is a historian of medicine based at the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine (CHSTM) at Manchester University. His book is the first of its kind addressing the history of the emergence of bioethics in the United Kingdom through a wide range of sources, from archives and interviews, to bulletins and academic papers.

As Wilson puts it, the “making” of bioethics is “an active and ongoing process that owes as much to agency as to broader political changes” .

As demonstrated by sociologist David Reubi [also at SSHM], specific factors shape what counts as “bioethics” in different times and places (Reubi 2010, cited in Wilson 2013, 7–8). The Making of British Bioethics shares Reubi’s view and adopts an “actor-centred outlook” that investigates the interplay between how specific actors have emerged as bioethicists while at the same time states (the United Kingdom in this case) have created a demand for bioethics (Jasanoff 2005, referenced by Wilson 2014, 11). Adopting this method, Wilson distances himself from other histories of bioethics that focus on topics (e.g., Ferber 2013) or on social factors (Fox and Swazey 2008)."

Journal of Bioethical Inquiry, Mar 5, 2015

This is an excerpt from the content The Ethics of the New Eugenics, edited by Calum MacKellar an... more This is an excerpt from the content
The Ethics of the New Eugenics, edited by Calum MacKellar and Christopher Bechtel (2014),
An introductory “Note on the Text” states: “The research on which this book is based was commissioned by the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics. It is the result of the collective work of many individuals at the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics. Initial drafting and subsequent editing was the work of Calum MacKellar and Christopher Bechtel, as agreed to by the Ethics Committee of the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics. They were appointed principal editors by the Council.”
is a useful introductory reference book for those interested in the use of genetic technologies to improve the human species. MacKellar is the director of research for the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics (SCHB) and a visiting professor of bioethics at St. Mary’s University College London, and Bechtel is a research fellow at the SCHB. The Scottish Council on Bioethics commissioned and supported research for this volume.

Simona Giordano, Exercise and Eating Disorders: An Ethical and Legal Analysis. London: Routledge,... more Simona Giordano, Exercise and Eating Disorders: An Ethical and Legal Analysis. London:
Routledge, 2010, Pp. 230. £ 32.99 (pb). ISBN: 978-0-415-47606-5
Simona Giordano’s book, ‘Exercise and Eating Disorder: an ethical and legal analysis’
does what it says in the title: it provides a comprehensive, accessible and accurate
account from an ethical and legal point of view of how to coach and assist people who
are ‘eating disordered exercisers’, or, more specifically, individuals who exercise and are
affected by anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa. The starting point of her analysis is
the increasing prevalence of individuals who are affected by eating disorders and who
exercise in gym or another fitness setting, and the complete absence of guidelines on
how to coach and assist them. What are the risks and benefits of exercise for people
who have or may have eating disorders? At what level can exercise be beneficial to
people with eating disorders? Do coaches/trainers have a moral duty to prohibit people
with eating disorders from training?

Dissertation Reviews, Feb 13, 2013

Since their inception, clinical trials have sparked intense debate over their ethical acceptabili... more Since their inception, clinical trials have sparked intense debate over their ethical acceptability and their potential misuse. In her dissertation, Silvia Camporesi engages in this discussion with the intention to provide the community at large with an innovative approach that would overcome the standard free market vs. exploitation dilemma. Her final goal is to provide the theoretical groundwork for the construction of a new model of clinical research. To keep the scope of her dissertation more focused, Camporesi has opted to pay attention to the application of the notion of informed consent only to one specific study: the ABT-888 (Phase 0 Cancer Trial), performed at the National Cancer Institute-National Institute of Health (NCI-NIH) Center in Bethesda, United States in August 2007.

Routledge

Advances in genetics and related biotechnologies are having a profound effect on sport, raising i... more Advances in genetics and related biotechnologies are having a profound effect on sport, raising important ethical questions about the limits and possibilities of the human body. Drawing on real case studies and grounded in rigorous scientific evidence, this book offers an ethical critique of current practice and explores the intersection of genetics, ethics and sport.

Written by two of the world's leading authorities on the ethics of biotechnology in sport, the book addresses the philosophical implications of the latest scientific developments and technological data. Distinguishing fact from popular myth and science fiction, it covers key topics such as the genetic basis of sport performance and the role of genetic testing in talent identification and development. Its ten chapters discuss current debates surrounding issues such as the shifting relationship between genetics, sports medicine and sports science, gene enhancement, gene transfer technology, doping and disability sport.

The first book to be published on this important subject in ten years, this is fascinating reading for anyone with an interest in the ethics of sport, bioethics or sport performance.

What is it to talk about gene transfer, gene therapy, and gene doping? Is choosing deafness with ... more What is it to talk about gene transfer, gene therapy, and gene doping? Is choosing deafness with preimplantation genetic diagnosis an ethical way to carry on a cultural bloodline? What are the ethical and social implications of genetic testing to identify precocious talents? Should sponsors be held responsible for the doping behaviours of their athletes? These are only some of the questions that Dr. Silvia Camporesi addresses in this book, through a contextual, bottom up approach based on real-world ethical dilemmas. This book represents a unique contribution to the debate on enhancement technologies as it spans from the bench of molecular biology where the technologies are being developed, to the bedside of a clinical trial where they are used for selective reproduction or for first-in-human gene therapy studies, to the track & field where they are being applied to enhance human athletic performance. These investigations address current debates regarding the resurgence of eugenics in relation to genetic technologies, and provide a clear and much needed ethical autopsy of contemporary genetic practices.

Interview Global Biotech GAP Summit Cambridge UK (April 2016)

Dr. Brian Dolan, Director of UC Medical Humanities Press and Professor of Social Medicine at UCSF... more Dr. Brian Dolan, Director of UC Medical Humanities Press and Professor of Social Medicine at UCSF, interviews Dr. Silvia Camporesi, professor of bioethics and society at King's College, London, about her book: From Bench to Bedside, to Track and Field: The Context of Enhancement and its Ethical Relevance.

This paper provides an overview of the ethical issues in the international clustered regularly in... more This paper provides an overview of the ethical issues in the international clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) genome editing debate from March 2015 to September 2016. We present the regulatory framework for embryo research in the UK, and explain why CRISPR is not a significant break with the past. We discuss the ethical issues arising from CRISPR applications beyond human embryos, namely the use of gene drive-engineered mosquitoes to eradicate diseases, engineering nonhuman animals to harvest organs for human transplant and engineering crops. We discuss the experiments that have demonstrated the technical feasibility of cultivating embryos in vitro for up to 14 days, and possibly beyond this limit, and the ethical issues arising from the proposal to extend the limit beyond 14 days.

San Jose Mercury News, 2011

A new international rule that determines whether certain female athletes can compete in the 2012 ... more A new international rule that determines whether certain female athletes can compete in the 2012 London Olympics and beyond has just gone into effect. After a lengthy review, the International Association of Athletics Federations and the International Olympic Committee have decided that female athletes with unusually high androgen levels, a condition known as hyperandrogenism, will be banned from competition unless they undergo surgery or take drugs to lower their testosterone levels.