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Public debate on the philosophical issues surrounding the nature of health and technological alteration of the human body has been informed and influenced by means of public events, media interviews and freely available online resources. These have informed both the general public and stakeholder groups, building on insights from research at UWE Bristol. Meacham has written for a general audience on the use of pharmaceutical enhancement in sports and education, influencing attitudes toward `doping' in these two spheres. Public debates (on eugenics and smart drugs) have impacted individual practice toward disabled people and attitudes of stakeholders toward the use of `smart drugs'. Meacham's interventions in the international press have been used as a model of effective communication by major trade unions.
Tim Lewens' research into risk, trust and bioethics can be shown to have informed and influenced policy debate. This work has shaped reports of the Business Innovation and Skills working group on Science and Trust, and also reports from the Nuffield Council on Bioethics. Lewens' key contributions to the latter's Human Bodies Report have resulted in invitations to give evidence to the Welsh National Assembly, thus helping to shape the Assembly's drafting of its new bill on human transplantation. His work on the Council's report on Mitochondrial Disorders has been echoed in the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority's (HFEA's) recent advice to UK Ministers, which aims to inform forthcoming debate to alter existing legislation on experimental mitochondrial therapies. Lewens' research has also led to his being asked to take on consulting roles to industry, most recently with AstraZeneca.
Professor Andy Miah's research on the ethics of human enhancement has transformed the working lives of three principal professional communities: curators of UK flagship festivals and exhibitions (Abandon Normal Devices festival, the Wellcome Trust, Edinburgh International Science Festival); journalists (coverage on doping); and politicians and civil servants working on technology policy (European Parliament, World Anti-Doping Agency). His pioneering research has led to the creation of new artistic work, shaped policy directions, contributed to public engagement with bioethics, and advanced debate on the ethics of digital and biological technology.
Dr Toby Ord is the founder of an international organisation called Giving What We Can. This organization is dedicated to the fight against poverty in the developing world. Its members pledge to give at least 10% of their income to aid and to direct their giving to the organisations that have a demonstrated ability to use their incomes most efficiently. The impetus for the founding of the organization was provided by Dr Ord's early work in ethics. He subsequently undertook additional research into how his ethical ideas could be put into practice. The fruits both of this research and of related research by other Oxford philosophers appear on the organisation's website, where, through a combination of pure and applied philosophy, the ethical case for making the pledge is urged. The arguments advanced have proved to be extremely persuasive: many people have been moved by them, and to great effect. The organisation has over 326 members, from seventeen countries, who together have pledged to give over US $130,000,000 to charity.
Drawing on his longstanding research in theology and medical ethics, Robin Gill has been an active member of four of the most important national health-care ethics and bioethics committees in the UK (the British Medical Association's Ethics Committee, the Medical Research Council's Stem Cell Bank Steering Committee, the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists Ethics Committee). Through this work he has produced the content of some of the most widely-used ethical guidance and training by medical practitioners in the UK, contributed to a working group that has led to the Welsh Assembly establishing an opt-out organ donation system in Wales (the first part of the UK to do so), been an active member of the committee which determines what forms of stem cell research are authorized in the UK, and shaped major policy reports on bioethics. Given the scale of his contribution and the influence of the organizations with which he has worked, this has arguably made Gill one of the most important influences on professional medical ethics and bioethics in the UK from the field of theology and religious studies during this REF cycle.
Chappell's recent work developing an anti-systematic philosophical ethics, and in particular his work on the notions of personhood and second-personality, has had an impact on (1) provision of public and health services, (2) policy-making, and (3) cultural life. He has presented work on ethics and persons to public audiences in Northampton, Mexico City, Oxford, St Andrews, Leeds, Milan, and Sydney. Besides a general intellectual-cultural impact on these public audiences, he has had specific impacts on thinking and practice (1) in paediatrics at The Northampton General Hospital and (2) in religious and educational constituencies in Britain and Australia.
Widdows has shaped policy-making in areas of genetic ethics and especially biobanking. She has had impact:
In these arenas her work on consent, trust and genetic governance has shaped understandings of genetic ethics, which has created new policy: