Sir

You report, without critique, the opinion of Canadian bioethicist Margaret Somerville that “science will need to wait and to help ethics to catch up” (Nature 399, 12; 1999). Any regular reader of your journal is sure to wonder on what planet Somerville has grown up. It is certainly not one on which science or private industry exist, for if it was she would surely know the lunacy of her proposition.

We would be better served if bioethicists were willing and able to work within the realm of the modern, market-oriented world to come up with practical solutions to bioethical problems.