Clicking here will take you to the Book Review

Sarah Masters reviews the film

Ethics for the New Millennium

The film Ethics for the New Millennium focuses cameras on the Dalai Lama during a speech he gave to 5,000 individuals gathered in the Royal Albert Hall in London in 1999. Though the venue was large, his words and his rapport with the audience were intimate, humorous and warm.

The Dalai Lama’s basic premise was that the new millennium will not bring change “…unless there is a new millennium inside.” He called for new ways of thinking about the moral principles that guide daily life. Unless there is inner transformation, he said, “…the new millennium will not change much - same days and nights, same sun and moon.”

The key to change, he said, is to “link individual happiness to an ethical vision of the world.” He was delightfully direct and playful with the audience as he described the inner changes that individuals could make that would help to shape a world in which “we care about each other.”

Interestingly, the Dalai Lama concluded that “…whether or not a person is a religious believer does not matter much. Far more important is that they be a good human being. I am Tibetan before I am Dalai Lama, and I am human before I am Tibetan. So while as Dalai Lama I have a special responsibility to Tibetans, and as a monk I have a special responsibility toward furthering inter-religious harmony, as a human being I have a much larger responsibility toward the whole human family - which indeed we all have. And since the majority does not practice religion, I am concerned to try to find a way to serve all humanity without appealing to religious faith.”

He observed that among the general population “…the influence of religion on people’s lives is marginal, especially in the developed world,” though he acknowledged that the majority of the world’s population likely held to a faith tradition.

It is a riveting talk in its entirety and I recommend this film’s multi-camera coverage of the Royal Albert Hall event.

______________________________

Completed: 2003
Running Time: 81 Minutes
Director: Morgan Harris
Executive Producer: Geoff Jukes

If you are interested in purchasing this film, you can do so at www.tlavideo.com. The price for a DVD of the Dalai Lama’s talk is $20.99.

Book Review

Rev. Dr. Jeffery T. Garland reviews

African American Bioethics: Culture, Race, and Identity

In African American Bioethics, Prograis and Pellegrino ask bioethicists the question, “How much weight should be given to individual’s and each group’s customs and practices?” J. L. A. Garcia points out the need to understand the “epistemology stance,” of the various cultures of African Americans when considering the evolution of bioethics, specifically in the United States of America.

Chapters 1 and 2, set the background for the historical need to revisit the perspectives on biomedical ethics surrounding distinctiveness and other questions about African Americans and bioethics. African Americans and non African Americans were asked to take part in a symposium on African American Perspectives in bioethics in 2004, and, to help formulate specific questions, such as, "Is there a need to understand African American bioethics?"

It is not until chapter 3 on “Whitewashing Black Health: Lies, Deceptions, Assumptions, and Assertions-and the Disparities Continue,” (pp. 47ff) that the author begins to outline the various reasons that there is a need to focus on specifically researching the question of African American bioethics. For example, in 1985, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services published the Report of the Secretary’s Task Force on Black and Minority Health, which acknowledged the tragic dilemma of persistent health disparities between whites and minority populations. (pp. 47ff). Approximately thirteen years later, then-president Bill Clinton put in place an initiative to reduce and eliminate racial and ethnic disparities by the year 2010. This chapter also outlines five specific questions – “Story/Lie,” – as they relate to studies conducted by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), National Institute of Health (NIH), National Center for Minority Health and Health Disparities (NCMHD), Tuskegee Syphilis Study (TSS), and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

It is in the question, “Story/Lie No. 2: Environmental pollutants do not contribute to health disparities,” that Christopher Foreman of the Brookings Institution and Michael Gough of the Cato Institute, correctly point out that African American health care disparities and poor health difficulties begin long before visiting a doctor’s office. The disparities begin where minorities live, work and are exposed to toxic substances from factories and chemicals placed into the nearby rivers where minorities live. A prime example is a disposal waste station in Harlem, New York, on Manhattan’s west side. It is the site of a garbage landfill; it has been covered over and is now a state-of-the-art athletic field. Recent research has suggested an increase of asthma reported among children in this area.

The remaining four chapters repeatedly ask the same question from different perspectives on the need for and the establishing of African American bioethics in our current health care system, and in the future. The practice of medicine, biomedical research, and health care are all linked together. Prograis points to Elie Wiesel’s, The Fifth Son, to illustrate his attempts to shine light in the shadows of objects concerning different perspectives in the area of bioethics and African Americans.

I found this book to be interesting and revealing about recent disparities in the health care systems for minorities. At times I found the book repeating the same theme, just from a different perspective. Much of what was written by Prograis and Pellegrino makes a very good attempt at asking a very important question for those who may feel they do not have a voice when they are in the health care system.

Prograis, Lawrence Jr., Edmund D. Pellegrino. African American Bioethics: Culture, Race, and Identity. Georgetown University Press, Washington, D.C., 2007. pp 169.

Do you have thoughts about these reviews you’d like to share with your colleagues? Send an e-mail to info@PlainViews.org