Mark A. Rothstein, J.D.

KurzweilAI.net recently reported on the New York Times article The Problem With an Almost-Perfect Genetic World. In this article, Mark Rothstein, director of the Bioethics Institute at the University of Louisville School of Medicine, said

Where do you draw the line? On the one hand we have to view this as a positive in terms of preventing disability and illness. But at what point are we engaging in eugenics and not accepting the normal diversity within a population?

Mark A. Rothstein, J.D. holds the Herbert F. Boehl (pronounced “Bail”) Chair of Law and Medicine and is Director of the Institute for Bioethics, Health Policy and Law at the University of Louisville. His institute is working on several research projects funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The studies include study of pharmacogenomics and population groups, genetic information and life-insurance underwriting, ethics education for genetics researchers, and biobanks regulation. Much of the work is designed to help officials devise health policy on significant issues.
 
Mark has appointments in the Departments of Medicine and Family and Community Medicine at the School of Medicine and at the Louis D. Brandeis School of Law. He is a leading authority on the ethical, legal, and social implications of genetics, privacy, health policy, and employment law. He is Chair of the Privacy and Confidentiality Subcommittee of the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics, the federal advisory committee that advises Congress and the Secretary of Health and Human Services on health information policy, including the privacy regulations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. He is also a member of the National Board of Medical Examiners and the Board of Directors of the American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics.
 
He is the author or editor of 19 books. His books include Genetic Secrets : Protecting Privacy and Confidentiality in the Genetic Era, Pharmacogenomics: Social, Ethical, and Clinical Dimensions, Hornbook on Employment Law (Hornbook Series Student Edition), and The Human Genome Project and the Future of Health Care (Medical Ethics Series). His latest book is Genetic Ties and the Family : The Impact of Paternity Testing on Parents and Children.
 
Mark earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Pittsburgh and his doctor of jurisprudence from Georgetown University.