The U.S. Supreme Court's 1991 decision in United Automobile Workers v. Johnson Controls capped a decade of adjudication of fetal protection policies under Title VII. In its decision, the Supreme Court barred the use of these policies, holding that the policies constituted unlawful gender discrimination. Prior to Johnson Controls, employers had justified these policies, which barred “fertile” women from certain workplaces, by contending that the workplace was not safe for women or their fetuses. Given this implicit disclosure by employers that their workplaces were unsafe, it is surprising that federal and state occupational safety and health agencies, charged with ensuring that employers furnish a workplace free from recognized hazards, did not play a larger role in the debate over these policies. This article examines the response of these agencies to the proliferation of fetal protection policies in the 1980s. It concludes that neither federal nor state occupational safety and health agencies crafted an adequate response to these policies during these years.

The future effectiveness of the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC) will be dependent largely on the introduction of an effective verification system. If such a system is to be effective, it will need to be underpinned by the expertise and reagents that have already been used to produce battlefield detectors for biological warfare (BW) agents. Samples for analysis could range from those taken from a fermenter vessel to samples taken from the environment surrounding the suspect facility. The analysis of such samples could be carried out in the field or at specialist laboratories. Specialist laboratories would offer a wider range of tests and a higher degree of test sensitivity; however, the problem of sample transport to the laboratory will need to be addressed. In the longer term, improved fieldable verification equipment could be developed.

The program on the Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications (ELSI) of human genome research is a branch of the National Center for Human Genome Research (NCHGR) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The NCHGR is responsible, in conjunction with the Office of Health and Environment at the Department of Energy (DOE), for administration and coordination of the U.S. component of the Human Genome Project.

In the winter semester of 1993, I offered on my campus a four-credit course on “Biopolitics.” The course included both advanced undergraduate and graduate students, and was conducted as a graduate level seminar. It was a first both for me and for students in political science at Wayne State University. It appears to have been successful.

On May 11, 1993, the National Academy of Sciences hosted a workshop convened to address the scientific, medical, and social issues arising from attempts to enlist gene therapy experimentation in the fight against AIDS. The 100 participants represented a cross-section of federal governmental, industrial, academic, and research-practitioner expertise. I was invited presumably because I am a member of the Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee (RAC), an arm of the National Institutes of Health, which oversees (in effect, licenses) human gene therapy protocols, and because I have recently published reports bearing on that policy process (Carmen, 1992, 1993).