Abstract
Nanotechnology is an important platform technology which will add new features like improved biocompatibility, smaller size, and more sophisticated electronics to neuro-implants improving their therapeutic potential. Especially in view of possible advantages for patients, research and development of nanotechnologically improved neuro implants is a moral obligation. However, the development of brain implants by itself touches many ethical, social and legal issues, which also apply in a specific way to devices enabled or improved by nanotechnology. For researchers developing nanotechnology such issues are rather distant from their daily work in the lab, but as soon as they use their materials or devices in medical applications such as therapy of brain diseases they have to be aware of and deal with them. This paper is intended to raise sensitivity for the ethical, legal and social aspects (ELSA) involved in applying nanotechnology in brain implants or other devices by highlighting the short term problems of testing and clinical trials within the existing regulatory frameworks (A), the short and medium-term questions of risks in the application of the devices (B) and the long-term perspectives related to problems of enhancement (C). To identify and address such issues properly nanotechnologists should involve ethical, legal and social experts and regulatory bodies in their research as early as possible. This will help to remove pressure from regulatory bodies, to settle public concern and to prevent non-acceptable developments for the benefit of the patients.
Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht/Nanoethics, 2, 2008, p. 241–249, Ethical, Legal and Social Aspects of Brain-Implants Using Nano-Scale Materials and Techniques, Francois Berger, Sjef Gevers, Ludwig Siep & Klaus-Michael Weltring, Received: 29 January 2008/Accepted: 18 September 2008/Published online: 11 October 2008, with kind permission from Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2012.
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Notes
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Compare for instance the European Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine, Preamble and Art. 3 (Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being with regard to the Application of Biology and Medicine: Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine 1997).
- 2.
We are discussing here the regulations on the marketing of both kind of products; when a drug or a device has been introduced on the market and it turns out to be unsafe, the manufacturer is in both cases liable for physical injury caused by the product; this product liability is stricter than liability based on negligence.
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For a discussion of the transhumanist arguments see Siep (2006).
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This paper is in large parts the result of intensive discussions between members of the ELSA Board and Scientists of the European Network of Excellence Nano2Life.
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Berger, F., Gevers, S., Siep, L., Weltring, KM. (2013). Ethical, Legal and Social Aspects of Brain-Implants Using Nano-Scale Materials and Techniques. In: Hays, S., Robert, J., Miller, C., Bennett, I. (eds) Nanotechnology, the Brain, and the Future. Yearbook of Nanotechnology in Society, vol 3. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1787-9_11
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