The setting up of the National Bioethics Committee followed
resolution no. 6-00038 approved on 5 July 1988 in which the
Chamber of Deputies committed the Government
to promoting an international level comparison on the state of
the art of biomedical research and genetic engineering which
might serve as a valid point of reference for future choices in
which the progress of science can be reconciled with the respect
for human freedom and dignity.
The Committee's Tasks
The National Bioethics Committee was established by a decree
signed by the President of the Council of Ministers on 28 March
1990 with the following tasks:
- to make, if necessary by exercising its faculty to access
the required information in the existing national operating
centres, as well as by liaising with similar committees set up in
other countries and other international organizations operating
in the sector, an outline summary of the programmes, objectives
and results of research and experimentation in the field of the
life sciences and human health;
- to express opinions and suggest solutions, also for the
purpose of preparing legislative acts, to address the ethical and
legal problems that may emerge as a result of the progress of
research and the emergence of possible new applications of
clinical interest, taking into account the safeguarding of
fundamental human rights and human dignity and the other values
as expressed in the Constitutional Charter and in the
international instruments supported by Italy;
- to propose solutions for the functions of control over both
the safeguarding of human and environmental security in the
production of biological material and the protection from all
risk of all patients treated with products produced by genetic
engineering or who are subjected to gene therapy; to promote
the drawing up of codes of conduct for practitioners operating in
the various sectors concerned and to encourage the proper
informing of public opinion.
Address:
Via della Mercede, 96
00187 Roma (Italy) Europe
e-mail: cnbioetica@palazzochigi.it
Tel. 0039-06-67794601
Fax 0039-06-67794686
