A bioethicist working in the White House who took much of the heat over “Obamacare death panels”, Ezechiel Emanuel, is moving to the University of Pennsylvania.

A bioethicist working in the White House who took much of the heat over “Obamacare death panels”, Ezechiel Emanuel, is moving to the University of Pennsylvania. Dr Emanuel, a former White House health policy advisor, and brother of Chicago Mayor Rahm and Hollywood agent Ari, is an oncologist who has written extensively on the bioethics of health care. An oncologist with an interest in the ethics of health care, Dr Emanuel took leave from his job at the National Institutes of Health bioethics department to join the Obama White House as a health policy advisor. He is also a regular contributor to the New York Times op-ed page. At UPenn he will serve as the director of the Department of Medical Ethics & Health Policy, along with other responsibilities, including vice provost for global initiatives.

UPenn is becoming a leading centre for progressive public policy bioethics, with such stars as Art Caplan, its head, who is probably the most quoted bioethicist in the US; Jonathan Moreno, who was in charge of reviewing the President’s bioethics council on Obama’s transition team; and Martha J. Farah, a leading figure in the new field of neuroethics. And, of course, the chair of the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues is Amy Gutmann, the president of the University. 

Michael Cook