International Events

Dr Aamir Jafarey represented CBEC-SIUT at the 15th WHO Collaborating Centres for Bioethics meeting held in Utrecht. The University Medical Centre (UMC) Utrecht was the venue of this meeting since this also marked the inclusion of the Bioethics Centre at Utrecht as the 14th WHO CC for Bioethics in this growing network. All the WHO CCs were represented, physically or virtually, at the occasion.

While the first day was the WHO Bioethics CC meeting in which centers presented progress reports and discussed ongoing projects and potential collaborations, the second day was the formal launch of the Utrecht Center as a formal partner in the WHO network. There was a rich academic program with several talks and lively discussions. Details of this event can be accessed at https://juliuscentrum.umcutrecht.nl/en/speakers-conference-launch-ceremony-who-collaboration

The GFBR serves as a global platform to share experiences on research ethics among researchers, ethicists and policymakers. Each year, the forum has a different theme centering on emerging ethical concerns. Recognizing that research priority setting often ignores vital stakeholders, this year’s topic was “Ethics of health research priority setting.”

The two-day conference, with representation from 46 countries, was packed with a full agenda. The conference on both days featured five-minute PechaKucha presentations, ten-minute full presentations and breakout sessions organized in a small group format.

Ms. Sualeha Shekhani represented Pakistan at this year’s GFBR. She also presented a PechaKucha titled, “Sualeha in ResearchEthics Land: Down the Rabbit Hole” uncovered the ethics of conducting “high priority” research on malnutrition in certain “over- researched” communities in Sindh, Pakistan for the past three decades. Using her experience as a reviewer of the National Bioethics Committee for Research (NBC-R), Ms. Sualeha shared her concerns about research being conducted without any community representation, creating little impact on health systems and improvement in health conditions of people. Her PechaKucha talk won the best presentation award.

Dr. Aamir Jafarey was invited as a panelist in a webinar titled ‘The Role of Social Justice in Triage’. This virtual event was organized by the Institute of Biomedical Ethics and History of Medicine, a WHO Collaborating Center at the University of Zurich. Dr. Aamir Jafarey emphasized the importance of maintaining a functional triage system to ensure that limited medical resources are appropriately allocated among salvageable patients.

Dr. Farhat Moazam and Dr. Aamir Jafarey attended the 17th International Conference on Clinical Ethics and Consultation (ICCEC) held in Rome from June 7 to 10, 2023.

This annual meeting of WHO Bioethics Collaborating Centers (CCs) 2023 was the first physical meeting post-pandemic. It was attended by directors and co-directors of the CCs around the world and representatives from other bioethics centers. Dr. Andreis Reis from the WHO Geneva Office and Dr. Ahmed Mandil from the WHO-EMR Office were also among the attendees. Dr. Moazam and Dr. Aamir Jafarey from CBEC attended the meeting.

The Asia Pacific Bioethics Education Network (APBEN), established in 2018, aims to bring together professionals working in bioethics education in the Asia Pacific region. APBEN organizes yearly congresses, and the 2023 event was held at the St. Luke’s Medical Center in Manila, Philippines from June 1-3, 2023.

CBEC faculty, including Dr. Aamir Jafarey, Dr. Bushra Shirazi and Ms. Sualeha Shekhani presented Pakistan in person. Dr. Nida Wahid Bashir and Mr. Farid Bin Masood participated virtually. Dr. Aamir reported on the NIH-funded CBEC collaboration with KEMRI and its goal of developing a bioethics curriculum and training participants in Kenya. Dr. Bushra discussed the challenges of including bioethics in medical college curricula in Pakistan. Ms. Sualeha presented the CBEC experience of converting to online bioethics education during the COVID-19 pandemic. The PechaKucha sessions by Ms. Sualeha, Dr. Nida, and Mr. Farid presented how CBEC has incorporated humanities in bioethics education.

CBEC, a WHO Bioethics Collaborating Centre, held an international hybrid seminar on “Scientific and Ethical Challenges in Human Reproduction, within the context of the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region.” The seminar focused on sociocultural and religious implications of Artificial Reproductive Technologies (ART) and human genomics. Dr. Gemal Serour, an OB-GYN scholar from Egypt, delivered a keynote address on the first day of the seminar and discussed the opinions of Muslim ulema regarding the permissibility of ART. On Day 2, Dr. Salman Kirmani, a physician and geneticist from Pakistan, talked about the advantages and disadvantages of consanguineous marriages, which is a social norm in many Muslim societies. Other notable speakers included Professor Sadiah Pal (South Asian Federation of Obstetricians and Gynecologists), Professor Saghar Salehpour (Shahid Behishti University of Medical Sciences), Dr Ahmed Mandil (WHO), Dr Thalia Arawi (Salim El-Hoss Bioethics and Professionalism Programme), Dr Emmanuelle Tuerlings (WHO), Ms Fizza Akbar (Aga Khan University). The panel discussions were moderated by Professor Farhat Moazzam and Dr Natasha Anwar. More than 60 participants attended the webinar from different countries of the Region.

Dr. Farhat Moazam was invited as a panelist to an online event conferring Dr. Amar Jesani the “Award for Bioethics Service in the Face of Challenges” for 2021, by the International Association of Bioethics (IAB). The award is conferred on individuals who have “put bioethics into action, mobilizing knowledge into impact, doing so in the face of challenges.” The 2021 award for bioethics service recognized Dr. Jesani’s long-term activism against human rights violations, his contributions to ethics in the fields of public health, medicine and research, and his sustained efforts for the advancement of bioethics. The event was held online, which was moderated by the President of the IAB, Dr. Vardit Ravitsky, Professor, the Bioethics Program, School of Public Health, University of Montreal, Canada, and Senior Lecturer on Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School, USA.

Dr. Aamir Jafarey attended the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Eastern Mediterranean Research Ethics (EMR) Review Committee meeting in Cairo in December 2021. He presented a pilot situation analysis of ethics governance systems in Pakistan, a project commissioned by a request from the EMR Office. The main take-home message of this report was that Pakistan requires a comprehensive mapping of all institutional ethics review committees, as well as their registration with a central authority like the National Bioethics Committee. The EMR Region of WHO now has three Bioethics Collaborating Centres, in Karachi, Tehran, and Beirut, with CBEC being the oldest. Another outcome of the meeting was to develop a network within the three centers so that they could utilize each other’s strengths.

Dr. Farhat Moazam participated virtually in the ICCEC Conference with the overarching theme, “Beyond Borders: Exploring New Frontiers.” During her talk, Dr. Moazam highlighted the grave ethical implications of precision medicine within the context of low and middle-income countries. An important aspect of her talk was that due to the rise in precision medicine, pharmaceutical funding will flow towards costly targeted drugs for small groups of patients and specific diseases, which will ignore global health issues such as child and maternal mortality and vaccines for diseases faced disproportionately by the LMICs. She also noted in her talk that people in LMICs often fail to look critically at scientific developments that come from high-income countries and instead adopt technology that fails to address public health issues on the ground.

Dr. Aamir Jafarey was invited to participate in and Chair a session during a WHO consultation on “Ethics and vector-borne diseases” at the WHO Headquarters in Geneva from 23-25 July 2019. This was the third and final consultation of a group of international ethicists and subject specialists. The outcome of this meeting is to come up with a guidance document for researchers, public health workers, policymakers, ethicists and others who are involved in vector control measures to reduce the incidence of vector-borne diseases.

Dr. Farhat Moazam was invited as a speaker in a closed workshop on the ethics of personalized medicine at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences at Vatican City. The workshop was attended by twenty participants. Various aspects of personalized medicine were discussed during the workshop including the historical aspects and the ethical and social issues associated with personalized medicine. Dr. Moazam gave a talk titled “Ethics and Precision Medicine Through Another Prism” in which she discussed the possibilities of personalized medicine but also spoke about its issues.

Dr. Aamir Jafarey was invited to participate in a training workshop that looked at ethical issues encountered while researching in humanitarian settings. The workshop was attended by 20 participants mainly from the Middle East area including Palestine, Syria, Sudan, Yemen, Somalia, Iraq and Jordan. Dr. Jafarey led three sessions during the workshop covering topics such as informed consent, therapeutic misconception, conflict of interest, and scientific misconduct. According to Dr. Jafarey, the workshop was an eye-opener as participants shared their lived experiences of operating in conflict-struck regions.

Dr. Aamir Jafarey was invited to participate in this annual meeting as a member of the Research Ethics Review Committee (RERC) of the EMR region of WHO. The meeting reviews research proposals that qualify to be considered for funding from the EMR office. Additionally, in this year’s meeting, participants also gave updates on WHO related activities in which they had been participating throughout the year. Dr. Jafarey made a presentation on the ethical issues in vector-borne diseases as he is part of a WHO working group looking at this particular problem.

In June 2018, WHO constituted a taskforce on Donation and Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues consisting of an international panel of experts in the field. Dr. Farhat Moazam represented Pakistan and attended the first meeting in November in Geneva. The role of the taskforce includes supporting WHO in advising countries about WHO’s guiding principles regarding organ and tissue donation/transplantation.

This was a follow up to a February meeting that took place in Geneva. Members of the previous group were invited along with additional area experts. Dr. Jafarey represented CBEC as a WHO Collaborating Centre of Bioethics. The objectives were to formulate ethical guidelines to guide researchers and public health intervention experts regarding the actions to be taken ito control vectors and the diseases they spread.

Dr. Aamir Jafarey, a member of the ERC of the Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean (EMRO) was invited to participate in a meeting along with members from other regional countries. The terms of reference of the newly constituted committee were finalized and a road map developed for its future working.

The University of Florida, USA invited Dr. Moazam to present the “James Talbert Lecture” in the Grand Rounds at the Shands Teaching Hospital. Her talk, titled “Living kidney donation in Pakistan: A different ethical universe” highlighted the ethical complexities surrounding kidney donation and transplantation within the cultural landscape of Pakistan. She illustrated these complexities through examples from her own ethnographic research, conducted at a tertiary care hospital in Pakistan as part of her doctoral studies at the University of Virginia, US.

Dr. Moazam represented CBEC as WHO Collaborating Centre of Bioethics at a meeting on Big Data and Artificial Intelligence. The meeting held at the Institute of Bioethics situated within the University of Miami had participants from different parts of the world. The aim was to introduce the concept of Big Data and ways in which it can be used within healthcare systems worldwide, and also to deliberate upon the ethical challenges associated with its use.

Dr. Aamir Jafarey represented CBEC in this scoping meeting which brought together ethicists, policy makers, researchers, entomologists, and WHO personnel to study in detail and identify the ethical aspects of vector control, research on vectors and ethical limits to modifying vector behaviour, phenotype and genotype.

The CBEC team which included Dr. Aamir Jafarey, Dr. Nida Wahid Bashir and Ms. Sualeha Siddiq Shekhani joined Prof. Alistair Campbell from Singapore, and Dr. Amar Jesani, Dr. Olinda Timms and Ms. Sunita Bandewar from India in conducting a one day workshop on clinical ethics at Pune’s Bharati Hospital and Research Centre. In addition to formal conceptual talks, the CBEC team used CBEC produced bioethics films to discuss different issues, while Dr. Timms shared cases she had encountered during her clinical practice to generate discussion.

The participants included faculty at different levels within the Bharati Hospital as well as others from different hospitals. A healthy discussion was generated throughout the workshop, revealing the commonality of ethical issues in both India and Pakistan.

A five member team from CBEC, including Dr. Farhat Maozam, Dr. Aamir Jafarey, Dr. Nida Wahid Bashir, Ms. Sualeha Siddiq Shekhani and PGD alumnus, Dr. Abeer Salim attended the 7th National Bioethics Conference (NBC) held in Pune, India in January 2017. The Conference was themed “Healing and dying with dignity: Ethical issues in palliative care, end-of-life care and euthanasia.”

Dr. Adib Rizvi, Director SIUT was also invited to the 7th NBC where he was felicitated for his lifetime contribution to developing the field of organ transplantation in Pakistan and working towards the elimination of organ trade globally. Dr. Rizvi launched an anthology of organ transplantation articles compiled by the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics (IJME) on the occasion.

Dr. Abeer Saleem and Dr. Nida Wahid Bashir presented a paper they had coauthored on medical initiatives undertaken in their parent institution, Patel Hospital, Karachi. Ms. Sualeha Shekhani presented two papers: one paper coauthored with Dr. Moazam detailed socio-cultural factors surrounding female dropout in medical colleges in Pakistan whereas the other paper, coauthored with Dr. Aamir Jafarey, discussed the ethical challenges related to biobanking in the developing world context. Dr. Nida and Dr. Aamir also conducted a workshop on “Medical Error’” during the Conference. The workshop and the talks by the Pakistani delegates were well-received by the Indian audience. The conference also highlighted the similarities in the ethical issues across the two countries.

The visit to India was an enriching experience, with four of the team members arriving in Amritsar, India via Wagah Border, and then making their way to Mumbai and finally Pune. The attendees were touched by the hospitality shown by the Indian hosts who provided them an excellent opportunity to enjoy the sights, the rich Indian cuisine and local culture.

A nine member team including faculty and alumni from CBEC was invited to the Javanese city of Yogyakarta to participate in a three day collaborative workshop with the Indonesian Centre of Bioethics and Medical Humanities (CBMH). The three day event featured academic sessions conducted by the faculty and alumni of both Centres and culminated in a meeting to discuss possibilities for future collaboration.

The workshop was organised at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Gadjah Mada (UGM), where CBMH is located. The focus of the first day was on the two Centres getting to know each other and understanding the scope of each other’s activities. The following two days were devoted to hands-on sessions in which CBEC faculty and alumni described their experiences in translating bioethics theory into practice and led animated discussions on ethical dilemmas in the clinical and research domains.

Dr. Jafarey was nominated to represent the National Bioethics Committee of Pakistan at this event which featured 200 representatives from national Ethics/Bioethics Committees of 100 countries. Dr. Jafarey was also serving as an Adviser to the Steering Committee organizing this event. At the event Dr. Jafarey chaired a session and also participated in the Regional (EMRO region) meeting. This event served as a forum for exchange of ideas on the working of national committees and to chalk out priorities that ought to be taken up by the committees at the national level. Since these committees vary widely in how they function, there were several models to look at and analyze. The Pakistani model was discussed by Dr. Jafarey in which he described the quarterly meetings of the National Bioethics Committee, liaising with the four Provincial Bioethics Committees as well as with the Regional Committee in Azad Kashmir, and training workshops coupled with most meetings. This model was widely appreciated at the meeting. Dr. Jafarey also pointed out the relative inactivity in the EMRO region and the need to strengthen such committees in the region through mutual cooperation.

Dr. Farhat Moazam was invited by the Centre for Biomedical Ethics at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore to attend the Second Asian Bioethics Colloquium held on February 22 to 24, 2016 at Park Avenue Rochester Hotel, Singapore.

Dr. Moazam was invited to attend the World Health Organization Meeting to Develop Ethical Guidance for a Public Health Response to Epidemics held on November 22-24 at the Monash Prato Centre in Italy. Dr Moazam participated in a one hour session involving small group work in which she presented, “Translating ethics guidance into practice – developing tools for different audiences.”

Dr. Aamir Jafarey attended the 16th annual Asian Bioethics Conference and presented a paper on “Emerging ethical challenges related to Biobanking”. The conference was held at St. Paul University, Quenzon City and at De La Salle University, Manila, Philippines. Dr. Jafarey also attended the Board meeting in the capacity of the past president of the Asian Bioethics Association.

The meeting was also attended by CBEC alumnus Dr. Shahid Shamim who is a current Vice-President of the Asian Bioethics Association.

Dr. Farhat Moazam was invited to deliver a plenary opening lecture on ‘The challenge of “doing” bioethics in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan’ at the 4th International Conference on Islamic Bioethics held on August 5-6, 2015 at Coimbra, Portugal.

Dr. Farhat Moazam was invited to participate as an expert consultant in the field of ethics for a workshop on Ebola, Ethics and Epidemics in order to develop a comprehensive World Health Organization (WHO) guidance document at Dublin City University (DCU) on May 25-26, 2015. The workshop was jointly organised and funded by the World Health Organization and COST Action IS1201: Disaster Bioethics with additional funding from 3U Global Health, a partnership involving DCU. During the event, Dr. Moazam gave a talk on ‘Creating a framework for a typology’.

A workshop was organized by the University of Copenhagen to discuss the ethical issues of biobanking, with a special focus on the transfer of biological materials including DNA from developing countries to centres in the developed countries. The participants included bioscientists and ethicists from several European countries, USA and Canada. An ongoing collaboration between the University of Copenhagen and a Pakistani genetic research institution was used as a case study for the discussion. Among the several ethical areas discussed were the transnational movement of genetic materials and its regulation, the challenges for obtaining informed consent for research on genetic materials to be stored in biobanks for indefinite periods of time, the ownership of genetic information and so on. The Pakistani-Danish collaboration case study highlighted the grey areas that still remain in the ethical regulation of such collaborative research, where the developing country provides genetic material and the developed country provides the biobanking and research facilities. In addition to the need to further discuss these issues, what emerged from the discussions was the fact that Pakistan did not have any regulations regarding the transfer of biomaterials across borders, and even the established regulations for review of human subject research were not uniformly known even among the Pakistani bioscientists community.

Dr. Aamir Jafarey was invited as a keynote speaker to the 15th Asian Bioethics Conference (ABC) held in two cities of Japan, Beppu and Kumamoto, from November 1 to 8, 2014. Dr. Jafarey is currently the President of the Asian Bioethics Association (ABA). At Beppu, the meeting was held at the picturesque site of the Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University where Dr. Jafarey gave a presidential talk entitled “Bioethics beyond borders: Responding to challenges to a globalized world.” In Kumamoto, the host institution was Kumamoto University where he spoke on “Bioethics: From a scandalous past to a perilous future”. As is the tradition of the ABC, all the talks were held in a plenary and covered a very wide range of topics.

During the board meeting of the ABA, Dr. Shahid Shamin, an alumnus of the CBEC PGD program, was elected unopposed as Vice President of ABA for Pakistan. Dr. Shamim replaces Dr. Bushra Shirazi who finished her second two year term as Vice President for Pakistan.

Drs. Farhat Moazam and Aamir Jafarey attended an international bioethics conference entitled “Bioethics in the Muslim and Developing Worlds.” This was organized by the Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilizations, Aga Khan University, and was held at London on October 3-4, 2014. Farhat Moazam presented a paper entitled “Teaching Bioethics in Pakistan: The principlist paradigm and social realities” in which she described the challenges to the dominant paradigm of contemporary bioethics as it is applied in the context of Pakistan in particular and developing countries in general.

Dr. Aamir Jafarey spoke on “A decade of doing bioethics in Karachi: The CBEC experience.” He described Pakistan’s only and longest running academic program in bioethics, offered through the Centre. This was followed by a panel discussion on the challenges to bioethics education in Pakistan and other developing countries including Muslim nations.

Dr. Aamir Jafarey was invited to attend the First Aga Khan University Surgical Trans-Indian Ocean Collaboration, (AKUSTIC 2014), in Nairobi, Kenya. He gave a talk entitled “Good people doing bad things: The conundrum of research”. The conference was attended by surgeons from the Department of Surgery of the Aga Khan University from its campuses in Karachi, Dar e Salaam, Nairobi and Kabul.

Drs. Farhat Moazam and Aamir Jafarey attended the 12th World Congress of Bioethics, which was convened by the global organization, International Association of Bioethics in Mexico, from June 25-28, 2014. Dr. Aamir Jafarey was invited for a poster presentation on “Use of Facebook by Physicians,” whereas Dr. Moazam, in addition to chairing a session, also presented papers “Reading Caplan in Karachi,” and “Pakistan and Kidney Trade: Experiences and Lessons”, the latter during the WHO Special Symposium on Tissue and Organ Transplantation at the World Congress. Dr. Moazam also participated in the IAB board meetings in the capacity of a member.

Both Drs. Moazam and Jafarey were also involved in a satellite meeting before the World Congress. Dr. Jafarey attended the day long meeting of the Steering Committee of Global Forum for Bioethics in Research, while Dr. Moazam attended the 10th Global Summit for National Bioethics Committees where she was representing the National Bioethics Committee of Pakistan as its current member.

Dr. Farhat Moazam, Co-chairperson of the TTS Ethics Committee, was part of the organizing committee and facilitator for the meeting.

Dr. Farhat Moazam was invited to deliver the 5th Annual Renee C. Fox Lecture and gave a talk titled “We are the Children of our Landscape: Practicing Medicine in Pakistan.” She also participated in a daylong seminar with UPenn faculty and students.

Workshop on Ethical Issues in Global Health Research, Dhaka, July 28-30, 2013, held at the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b).

Dr. Aamir Jafarey was invited as guest faculty to conduct this 3 day workshop in Dhaka. Other faculty included Dr. Richard Cash (Public Health Foundation, India and Harvard School of Public Health, Boston MA, USA), Dr. Amar Jesani (Indian Journal of Medical Ethics, Mumbai, India) and Dr. Angus Dawson (University of Birmingham, UK). The participants included more than 40 researchers from different academic levels and different institutions in Dhaka. Dr. Jafarey used video cases to highlight issues around informed consent, scientific misconduct, and conflict of interest.

Dr. Farhat Moazam attended the 3rd ELPAT Congress in Rotterdam as chair of a workshop on “Cultural and Religious Aspects of Living and Deceased Donation.” She also gave a talk in the workshop entitled “Kidneys from deceased donors: Public views from Pakistan.”

Dr. Farhat Moazam was invited as a speaker to a two-day conference in Singapore on family involvement in healthcare and the resulting ethical issues. In a session entitled “Multi-cultural approaches to family conflict,” Dr. Moazam’s discussion centred around CBEC’s video “More than meets the eye” which is adapted from a real case of a 16 year old quadriplegic who was admitted to a university hospital in Karachi. Depicting the conflict between the scientific knowledge of physicians and the religious values and social realities of the family, the video illustrated how local cultural norms could shape ethics consultations.

The 13th Asian Bioethics Conference was held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from 27th to 30th August. The theme of the conference was “Bioethics and Life: Security, Science and Society.” Pakistan was represented by an impressive contingent consisting of nine participants. This was the second largest group at the conference after the host country.

Dr. Aamir Jafarey (CBEC) presented a paper entitled “Bioethics in Pakistan: Future Direction”. Dr. Bushra Shirazi (CBEC and Ziauddin University) spoke on “Language and Decision Making: Breast Cancer Patients in Pakistan”, and Dr. Saima Iqbal (Shifa College of Medicine, Islamabad) presented a talk “Perceptions on Being Involved in Medical Education”. These three papers were based on the research conducted by them for their Masters in Bioethics theses. Drs. Jafarey and Shirazi also chaired sessions in the conference.

Ms. Sumaira Khowaja (SIUT) presented two papers entitled “Research Integrity and Responsibility” and “Religious Fatwa by Experts to Guide Medical Practice”. This was the first time a nurse from SIUT had presented an ethics related paper at an international conference. Dr. Mumtaz Muhammad (Postgraduate Medical Institute, Peshawar), who is a member of the Ethical Review Committee at this institute and has attended several ethics workshops in Peshawar conducted by CBEC, spoke on “Common causes of resubmission/rejection of research proposals, experience from a developing country”. Dr. Masood Kadir (Aga Khan University Karachi) presented a paper “How do medical students perceive medico-ethical dilemmas”, based on the research conducted by medical students rotating through his department. The youngest presenter from Pakistan was Ms. Nisreen Feroz Ali, a medical student from Ziauddin University Karachi. She presented research that she had conducted along with her colleagues in a paper entitled “Knowledge and ethical perception regarding organ donation among medical students”. This was the first time a medical student from Pakistan was participating in an international ethics conference. Additionally, Dr. Farhat Moazam (CBEC) and Dr. Tashfeen Ahmad (Aga Khan University) participated in the conference without oral presentations.

Although all the papers from the Pakistani contingent were focusing on various aspects of medical ethics, the fifteen sessions in the conference covered a wide range of issues including climate and environmental ethics, ethics in food and agriculture, human security, human enhancement, world views and common wisdoms apart from the usual themes like clinical ethics, bioethics education and religion and ethics.

The conference provided an excellent opportunity for interaction with members of the Asian Bioethics Association.

Drs. Farhat Moazam and Aamir Jafarey attended the 20th International Association of Bioethics Congress at Rotterdam, The Netherlands, from June 26-29, 2012. Dr. Jafarey was invited for one plenary talk, two symposia talks, and also had a free paper whereas Farhat Moazam chaired a plenary session and a poster session in addition to participating in the IAB board meetings, of which she is a member.

Dr. Jafarey’s invited plenary talk was a critique of the Four Principles approach as described by Beauchamp and Childress. Tom Beauchamp was also participating in the session and presented a defence of the approach.

In a seminar arranged by the Asian Bioethics Review, Dr. Jafarey was invited to give a talk entitled “Research in South Asian Communities and Conflict of Interest: The Challenge”. Two other speakers gave their own regional perspectives in the session.

Another seminar entitled “Next Gen Medicine meets Next Gen Ethics” was arranged by the Young Health Council of The Netherlands in collaboration with Generation Next of the International Association of Bioethics. In this session Dr. Jafarey was asked to give a response to the so-called pragmatic approach for supporting regulation of the trade in human organs and the reproductive market as opposed to outright criminalizing them. He gave a talk entitled “Available…Cheap! Human Body Parts for Sale and Rent.” In this talk, he put forward arguments against such an approach. This was a very well attended session and resulted in heated debate.

His fourth talk was a free paper in the “Bioethics Education” session and was based on his research on the shaping of the Pakistani bioethics spectrum, entitled “Bioethics in Pakistan: Foreign seeds in desi (local) soil”.

The conference provided an excellent opportunity to meet the international bioethics community and to highlight the role being played by CBEC in particular and Pakistan in general in promoting bioethics.

UNESCO Bangkok and Chulalongkorn University organized a 3 day conference to discuss the development of a graduate program in bioethics for Chulalongkorn University. The organizers had invited 20 participants from the Asia Pacific region and a few others from outside the region to share their experiences in developing and conducting various graduate level bioethics programs in their countries. These included a variety of full-time on site programs, and at least one Postgraduate Diploma program in Bioethics entirely based on distance learning which has just been initiated in India. The Postgraduate Diploma in Biomedical Ethics and Masters in Bioethics from the Centre of Biomedical Ethics and Culture (CBEC) were the only two hybrid programs, with both on site and distance learning components.

Dr. Aamir Jafarey’s talk at the conference described the current status of the three degree programs from Pakistan, one from the Aga Khan University and two from CBEC. He informed an interested audience about the CBEC programs which run concurrently, and outlined the course structure as well as selection and evaluation strategies.

This bioethics conference was held in the midst of Thailand’s biggest disaster in over half a century. After extraordinary rainfall, the entire kingdom, including Bangkok, was flooded. In fact, while the conference was in progress, flood waters reached up to 3 KM from the conference venue and were gradually progressing forward. Dr. Jafarey began his talk by commiserating with the Thai people and sharing experiences from the floods in Pakistan in 2010 and 2011 while expressing his appreciation of the determination and resilience with which the Thai organizers held the conference as planned.

The 12th Asian Bioethics Conference was held in Taipei, Taiwan from 28th September to 1st October 2011. The theme for the year 2011 was “Practicing Bioethics with Cultural Engagement in Asia.” This forum is a mix of junior and senior researchers, clinicians and educationists who exchange views and gain experience from one another.

The conference included a broad spectrum of talks and shared views on education in bioethics, clinical practice in medicine, scientific research and environment. Among some of the topics that came under discussions were surrogacy, community health and changing paradigms in the family structure in places like Japan. Two new areas that were introduced and discussed in separate sessions were the issues of bio-banking and environmental ethics.

Although 11 abstracts had been accepted for presentation at the conference from Pakistan, due to visa difficulties and the expense of travel and accommodation at Taipei, apart from Dr. Bushra Shirazi (VP West Asia), none of the others were able to attend the conference. Dr. Shirazi presented a paper entitled “Views and practices of physicians with the pharmaceutical representatives; A pilot survey”. She also chaired a session that looked at the issues of assisted reproduction.

The meeting also coincided with the International Association of Bioethics (IAB) Board Meeting and their presentations.

Dr. Moazam was invited by the Global Alliance for Biomedical Ethics Centers (GABEX) to give a talk at their Tokyo meeting. The proceedings of the meeting are to be compiled in the shape of a book. Several eminent bioethicists from across the world are working on this book project. Dr. Moazam’s talk was entitled “Living organ donation and organ shortages: Another perspective”.

The CBEC team visited New Delhi to attend the Third National Bioethics Conference held at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. Drs. Natasha Anwar (Class of 2008), Mariam Hassan (Class of 2010) and Saima Faisal (their colleague at Shaukat Khanum Hospital and Cancer Research Centre) co-authored a paper entitled “Review of patient information leaflets and consent forms used in genetic research studies at a cancer hospital in Pakistan.” Dr. Aamir Jafarey gave a presentation on “Perspectives from Pakistan: After the transplant law: what next?” Drs. Natasha and Aamir also conducted a workshop on “Using movies to teach Bioethics,” in which they used a CBEC teaching video to generate discussion. Dr. Jafarey was also asked to take a special session describing the different bioethics programs being offered in Pakistan. Dr. Farkhanda Ghafoor (Class of 2006) also participated in the conference.

The visit to Delhi also provided an excellent opportunity for sightseeing and shopping but the highlight of the meeting was the bus trip from Lahore to New Delhi and back which Drs. Mariam, Saima and Farkhanda chose to take.

Dr. Aamir Jafarey presented papers entitled “Comparison of CBEC Bioethics Curriculum with UNESCO Core Curriculum,” and “Karachi Bioethics Group’s Ethical Guidelines for Physician-Pharmaceutical Industry Interactions,” at the 11th Asian Bioethics Association conference held on August 01 – 03, 2010 in Singapore.

Dr. Moazam presented a keynote talk on “Beyond the Gift: Reflections on Kidney Donation in Pakistan,” in a Plenary Session of the 10th World Congress of Bioethics on July 30.

Dr. Moazam delivered an invited lecture at the Second ELPAT Congress, held on April 17 – 20, 2010 in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Her talk was entitled, “Organ Donation and Transplantation through the lens of Muslim Scholars.”

A joint European Union and World Health Organization global consultation meeting was held on March 23 – 25, 2010 in Madrid, Spain. The theme was “European Conference and Global Consultation on Organ Donation and Transplantation: Striving to achieve Self-Sufficiency.” Dr. Moazam participated as a member of the subcommittee that developed the section of the conference report on the “Ethics of the pursuit of self-sufficiency.”

Wellcome Trust School of Bioethics workshop took place in Mumbai. This year’s theme was Gender, Sex and Ethics. Dr. Moazam was an invited speaker while Dr. Aamir Jafarey, Dr. Yasmin Wajahat, Dr. Nausheen Saeed and Dr. Moin Siddiqui attended the school and workshop on grantsmanship as participants.

Dr. Aamir Jafarey led a group of alumni and CBEC associate faculty to the 10th Asian Bioethics Conference in Tehran, Iran. Dr. Jafarey presented a paper entitled “Bioethics Education Initiatives in Pakistan: early impact of an innovative program.” CBEC’s associate faculty, Dr. Bushra Shirazi, presented a survey she had conducted on surgeons, exploring their knowledge about ethics in general and the Code of Ethics published by the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council. Dr. Rubina Naqvi presented the content and methodology of an ethics course she had developed for biotechnology students. CBEC’s alumni, Dr. Yasmin Wajahat, Dr. Tashmeem Razzaqi and Dr. Ashraf Hussain also presented papers on bioethics-related topics.

Dr. Farhat Moazam was invited to give a talk at the Global Ministerial Forum entitled “Without Ethics, Research and Health make a Two-legged Stool.”

Drs. Aamir Jafarey and Bushra Shirazi attended the 9th Asian Bioethics Conference and presented papers. Dr. Jafarey participated in a panel on Regulating Organ Transplantation and presented a paper entitled “An ethnographic study of kidney vendors of Pakistan.” He also presented proposed guidelines of research ethics in disaster situations. Dr. Shirazi presented the findings of her study on “Attitudes and Perceptions Regarding Plagiarism” which had recently been conducted in Karachi.

Dr. Moazam was invited to deliver a keynote address at the 9th World Congress of Bioethics, in Croatia, entitled “Live Kidney Transplantation in Pakistan: Kinships, Language and Metaphors.”

Drs. Farhat Moazam, Aamir Jafarey and Rana Muzaffar attended this important regional conference. Dr. Moazam was invited to give a keynote lecture and Dr. Jafarey presented the CBEC educational programs at the meeting.

A workshop on Clinical Ethics was held at Sultan Qaboos University (SQU) Muscat, Oman, on January 18, 2008. This was the second workshop that CBEC organized at SQU’s invitation.

Dr. Farhat Moazam was invited to give a Dean Lecture on “Biomedical Ethics and Medical Practice in Pakistan, A Tale of Two Worlds,” at Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Oman.

This international conference was organised by the Islamic Organization for Medical Sciences in collaboration with ISESCO and the EMRO-WHO. Dr. Farhat Moazam delivered an invited talk on “Genetic Technologies and Social Justice: Confluence of Religious and Secular Concerns.”

Members of the organizing committee included Jonathan Brockopp (Penn State University), Thomas Eich (Universitä´ Bochum), Ersilia Francesca (Università Studi di Napoli “l’Orientale”), Ilhan Ilkilic (Universitä´ Mainz), Birgit Krawietz (Universitä´ Tübingen), Vardit Rispler-Chaim (Haifa University), and Farhat Moazam (CBEC).

This conference was a joint event by the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard and the Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies at the University of Michigan, conducted by the Harvard Center for Middle Eastern Studies. Dr. Farhat Moazam was invited to give the keynote address and spoke on “Universality of Science and Particularities of Local Worlds.”

This conference was organized by the Korean National Commission for UNESCO and the Korean Ministry of Health and Welfare. There were 24 participants from the Asia-Pacific region and Dr. Aamir Jafarey was representing CBEC. His plenary talk was entitled “Educating Health Care Professionals in Bioethics: A Strategy for Pakistan.”

In the session devoted to Ethics, Dr. Anwar Naqvi gave a guest lecture on “Organ Vendors: Social, Psychological and Economics Realities.”

Dr. Farhat Moazam moderated and summarized the session on Ethics.