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Bioethics and Biosafety in Venezuela

All sectors linked in one way or another to these issues will have a legal framework for scientific research and health care when the Bioethics Commission, created by the Venezuelan Government in 2010, begins activities.

Scientific research in Venezuela, as well as health promotion, prevention, diagnosis and treatment of illness shall count with regulations and supervision that will open up new opportunities.

Prior acknowledgement of these rules will provide the researcher with the bioethics and biosafety responsibility on the results he obtains, including the consequences and impacts of his scientific activity. (*)

To those who market products and services related to the different levels of health care delivery will be provided with well-defined rules that facilitate their performance.

Bioethics and Biosafety is widely known around the world. In Latin America, Mexico established a Commission on Bioethics in 1992, Argentina in 1998, Colombia and Uruguay in 2011, Panama in 2003, Dominican Republic in 2008, Guatemala in 2009, among others. (**)

In Venezuela the creation of this Commission on Bioethics and Biosafety convened to participate consciously in search of better perspectives for human life, through new biomedical knowledge and application of technological advances derived from the development of scientific research within the domain of health.

The ultimate goal of this Commission will be to recognize the principles of ethics for science, technology, innovation and applications, as well as ethical principles for life. It will open a range of possibilities for research and development of new bioethics knowledge as well as its application and development. In turn, this knowledge should be treated with caution and the balance required by the complexity of these issues, which directly affect the health and integrity of human beings.

Accordingly, the legislative framework of intellectual property should be reviewed to try to unify the criteria on the subject of Bioethics and Biosafety in health, coupled with the patentability of biotechnological inventions that comes from research and development, for the benefit of human and public health.

* Source FONICIT

** Source Unesco, University of Chile, newspapers in the region

Carmen Sánchez-Puelles