BEIRUT: The second annual bioethics conference will kick off in Beirut Friday, amid efforts to make the region’s first bioethics society a reality. The conference, entitled “Current Controversies in Research Ethics,” will focus on research ethics and integrity and is being held in partnership with UNESCO.

Scholars and practitioners from universities around the world are expected to attend, including representatives from the United States, Egypt, Syria and the U.A.E.

Thalia Arawi, a clinical bioethicist from the American University of Beirut’s Faculty of Medicine and Medical Center, is one of the conference organizers and is set to give the opening remarks.

Arawi is also a driving force behind the establishment of the first bioethics society in the region, which is a key item on the conference agenda.

The first bioethics conference was held last September, coinciding with Global Medical Ethics Day, and brought specialists from across the region to Beirut.

While it was during the first conference that preparations for the Arab Bioethics Society began, Arawi told The Daily Star she hoped that this year’s conference will signal its establishment.

“We have now a draft strategic document. The hope is that shortly after the meeting, the founding of the society will be announced,” Arawi says.

According to Dr. Michel Daher, director of the Bioethics Program at Balamand University and a member of the Lebanese Committee for Bioethics, bioethics falls under the wider umbrella of medical ethics, which is “everything in medicine that has to do with ethics, and can include the behavior of the doctor toward the patient.”

Daher distinguishes between two categories of medical ethics. The first deals with rules between the patient and physician such as the patient’s rights, while the other, known more specifically as bioethics, is the ethics behind the science of health and life, and includes issues like medical-assisted procreation, genetics and end-of-life issues.

Dahar also emphasizes that mental illnesses and the treatment of prisoners under their right to medical care also fall under the umbrella of bioethics.

According to Arawi, the Arab Bioethics Society will not be limited to bioethics, but will include broader issues such as patient rights.

“The ABS aims at encouraging the interchange of ideas and promoting multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and interprofessional scholarship, research, teaching, policy development, professional development and collegiality among professionals engaged in clinical as well as academic bioethics and medical humanities,” she says. “It also enhances the respect of the rights of patients and subjects, respects the culture and the ways of behavior typical of the Arab world.”

Until now, the Arab world has looked to the West for issues of bioethics, and the Arab Bioethics Society is modeled after the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities.

According to Daher, while Lebanon’s openness to Western countries and its multiculturalism facilitates the creation of a bioethics society, bioethics is not universally applicable.

“As soon as it is transposed in a country, there are cultural, spiritual and religious elements that transform it,” he says.

“Just as science, medicine and literature have started with the Arabs,” Arawi says, “we would like to see research ethics develop from within the Arab circles a well. This is the most important aim of the conference.

With this in mind, one of the topics on the conference agenda is methods of promoting awareness of Islamic ethical standards in science.

While Daher says that interest in bioethics is recent in Lebanon, Arawi notes that it’s on the rise.

“The mere fact that we have such a big number of participants in this year’s conference tells us that bioethics has become a hot topic,” she says.

Daher stresses that while the field bioethics is still developing in its application in Arab society and legislation, it should still be seen as vitally relevant and important.

“Applying bioethics is respecting human rights,” he adds.