Press Releases

Can patients and the health system look forward to a tailormade medicine of the future which uses diagnostic tests to find the best therapy for each individual? In its Annual Meeting on 24 May, the German Ethics Council considered this question, putting the patient in the foreground.

On 3 May 2012 the German Ethics Council held a public hearing in which experts were consulted on the possibilities and limits of genetic testing for the prediction and diagnosis of widespread severe diseases. The results will be incorporated in the Opinion on the future of genetic diagnosis which the Ethics Council is currently compiling in response to a request from the Federal Government.

Christiane Woopen is the future Chair of the German Ethics Council. Wolf-Michael Catenhusen, Peter Dabrock and Jochen Taupitz are her deputies (Vice-Chairs).

The German Ethics Council is today presenting its Opinion Dementia and Self-Determination, whose aim is to facilitate understanding of the situation of persons with dementia and which contains recommendations for more account to be taken of the individual situation of those concerned so as to assist the preservation of their self-determination.

On 22 March 2012, in a public hearing, the German Ethics Council informed itself of the latest technological procedures of genetic diagnosis and their use in medical practice. The background to this hearing is the Opinion on the future of genetic diagnosis which the Ethics Council is currently preparing on the instructions of the Federal Government.

On 21 March, in its “Bioethics Forum” series of events, the German Ethics Council discussed new arguments on the question of when life ends and what consequences this has for transplantation medicine.