medicine and the laity, to include organizational and social ethics, environmental ethics. as of 2019 textbooks of green bioethics existed. ethical issues in gene therapy gene therapy involves ethics, because scientists are making changes to genes, the building blocks of the human body. currently, therapeutic gene therapy is available to treat specific genetic disorders by editing cells in specific body parts. for example, gene therapy can treat hematopoietic disease. there is also a controversial gene therapy called "germline gene therapy", in which genes in a sperm or egg can be edited to prevent genetic disorder in the future generation. it is unknown how this type of gene therapy affects long-term human development. in the united states, federal funding cannot be used to research germline gene therapy. professional practice bioethics as a subject of expert exercise (although now not a formal profession) developed at the beginning in north america in the nineteen eighties and nineteen nineties, in the areas of clinical / medical ethics and research ethics. slowly internationalizing as a field, since the 2000s professional bioethics has expanded to include other specialties, such as organizational ethics in health systems, public health ethics, and more recently ethics of artificial intelligence. professional ethicists may be called consultants, ethicists, coordinators, or even analysts; and they may work in healthcare organizations, government agencies, and in both the public and private sectors. they may also be full-time employees, unbiased consultants, or have cross-appointments with educational institutions, such as lookup centres or universities. learned societies and professional associations the field of bioethics has developed national and international learned societies and professional associations, such as the american society for bioethics and humanities, the canadian bioethics society, the canadian association of research ethics boards, the association of bioethics program directors, the bangladesh bioethics society and the international association of bioethics. education bioethics is taught in courses at the undergraduate and graduate level in different academic disciplines or programs, such as philosophy, medicine, law, social sciences. it has become a requirement for professional accreditation in many health professional programs (medicine, nursing, rehabilitation), to have obligatory training in ethics (e.g., professional ethics, medical ethics, clinical ethics, nursing ethics). interest in the field and professional opportunities have led to the development of dedicated programs with concentrations in bioethics, largely in the united states, canada (list of canadian bioethics programs) and europe, offering undergraduate majors/minors, graduate certificates, and master's and doctoral degrees. training in bioethics (usually clinical, medical, or professional ethics) are part of core competency requirements for health professionals in fields such as nursing, medicine or rehabilitation. for example, every medical school in canada teaches bioethics so that students can gain an understanding of biomedical ethics and use the knowledge gained in their future careers to provide better patient care. canadian residency training programs are required to teach bioethics as it is one of the conditions of accreditation, and is a requirement by the college of family physicians of canada and by the royal college of physicians and surgeons of canada. criticism as a field of study, bioethics has also drawn criticism. for instance, paul farmer noted that bioethics tends to focus its attention on problems that arise from "too much care" for patients in industrialized nations while giving little or no attention to the ethical problem of too little care for the poor.: 196–212 farmer characterizes the bioethics of handling morally difficult clinical situations, normally in hospitals in industrialized countries, as "quandary ethics".: 205 he does not regard quandary ethics and clinical bioethics as unimportant; he argues, rather, that bioethics must be balanced and give due weight to the poor. additionally, bioethics has been condemned for its lack of diversity in thought, particularly concerning race. even as the field has grown to include the areas of public opinion, policymaking, and medical decision-making, little to no academic writing has been authored concerning the intersection between race–especially the cultural values imbued in that construct–and bioethical literature. john hoberman illustrates this in a 2016 critique, in which he points out that bioethicists have been traditionally resistant to expanding their discourse to include sociological and historically relevant applications. central to this is the notion of white normativity, which establishes the dominance of white hegemonic structures in bioethical academia and tends to reinforce existing biases. these points and critiques, along with the neglect of women's perspectives within bioethics, have also been discussed amongst feminist bioethical scholars. however, differing views on bioethics' lack of diversity of thought and social inclusivity have also been advanced. for example, one historian has argued that the diversity of thought and social inclusivity are the two essential cornerstones of bioethics, albeit they have not been fully realized. in order to practice critical bioethics, bioethicists must base their investigations in empirical research, refute ideas with facts, engage in self-reflection, and be skeptical of the assertions made by other bioethicists, scientists, and doctors. a thorough normative study of actual moral experience is what is intended. issues research in bioethics is conducted by a broad and interdisciplinary community of scholars, and is not restricted only to those researchers who define themselves as "bioethicists": it includes researchers from the humanities, social sciences, health sciences and health professions, law, the fundamental sciences, etc. these researchers may be working in specialized bioethics centers and institutes associated with university bioethics training programs; but they may also be based in disciplinary departments without a specific bioethics focus. notable examples of research centers include, amongst others, the hastings center, the kennedy institute of ethics, the yale interdisciplinary center for bioethics, the centre for human bioethics. areas of bioethics research that are the subject of published, peer-reviewed bioethical analysis include: abortion alternative medicine animal rights applied ethics artificial insemination artificial life artificial womb assisted suicide biocentrism biological agent biological patent biopiracy biorisk biotic ethics blood transfusion body modification brain–computer interface chimeras circumcision cloning cognitive liberty confidentiality (medical records) conflict of interest in the healthcare industry consent contraception (birth control) cryonics disability end-of-life care eugenics euthanasia (human, non-human animal) exorcism faith healing feeding tube gain-of-function research gene theft gene therapy genetic testing genetically modified food genetically modified organism genomics great ape project hela cells human cloning human enhancement human experimentation in the united states human genetic engineering iatrogenesis infertility treatments intersex life extension life support lobotomy medicalization medical malpractice medical research medical torture mediation mitochondrial donation moral obligation moral status of animals nanomedicine neuroethics neuroenhancement nazi human experimentation ordinary and extraordinary care overtreatment organ donation organ transplant pain management parthenogenesis patients' bill of rights placebo pharmacogenetics political abuse of psychiatry population control prescription drug prices in the united states procreative beneficence professional ethics psychosurgery quality of life (healthcare) quaternary prevention recreational drug use reproductive rights reproductive technology reprogenetics research ethics resource allocation sex reassignment therapy sperm and egg donation spiritual drug use stem cell research sterilization (medicine) suicide surrogacy transsexuality transhumanism transplant trade triage tubal ligation vaccination controversy xenotransfusion xenotransplantation