The Business Ethics Blog Lesson Plans:

Lesson 3: Biotech

  

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The Business Ethics Blog

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Other Lessons in this Series:

Lesson 1: Wal-Mart

Lesson 2: Pharma

Lesson 4: Philanthropy

Lesson 5: Information Technology

Lesson 6: Enron

Lesson 7: Google

Lesson 8: Business Ethics in Film

Lesson 9: CSR

Lesson 10:SUV

 

 

 

 

Intro:
 

Blog Entries:

  • Company Suing Government over Vaccine Contract (May 24, 2006)
    • Here's a bit of a "man-bites-dog" story (i.e., a story that's interesting in part because it involves a reversal of a more common story-line).
      The biotech firm, Vaxgen, is "pursuing legal remedies" after the U.S. government (in particular, the Department of Health and Human Services) apparently changed the requirements in a contract to develop a new anthrax vaccine.

  • Monstanto, Argentina, and Trade in GM Crops (May 19, 2006)
    • The latest in the ongoing battle over genetically modified crops, intellectual property, and international trade: Soy imports delayed as Argentina fights Monsanto over GM...

  • Pioneer's Business Model for Genetically Modified Foods for Africa (March 27, 2006)
    • Reuters had this story today, "Scientists seek biotech answer to hunger", about researchers in the U.S. working to genetically tweak sorghum (a cereal crop) to make it richer in essential nutrients...

  • Business Ethics & Commercial Clinical Trials (March 26, 2006)
    • MSNBC featured a commentary by Art Caplan (director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania), on a couple of recent clinical drug trials that went very wrong. One of them happend in London, and the other in Montreal...

  • Biotech Industry Ethics in the Developing World (March 11, 2006)
    • People worry about how the lure of profits will affect the judgement of biotech companies in the highly competitive, aggressively capitalist North American business context...

  •  Authors, Biotech, Conflict of Interest (January 16, 2006)

  • Commerce in Genetically Modified Pets (November 25, 2005)
    • This one would make a terrific case-study for anyone teaching business ethics. CBC ran a story back in February on the few Canadian stores then selling GloFish™. In case you haven't heard of it, the GloFish™ is a small tropical fish (a zebra fish, to be exact) that has been genetically modified so that it glows in the dark. They were developed (and are now legally sold) in the U.S.

 
 


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© Chris MacDonald