Addiction: Ethics, Integrity & The Policy-Maker
Seizing the initiative of our lifelong experiences in science diplomacy and our appointments as President of the European Group on Ethics (EGE) and UN Special Envoy on HIV/AIDS, SciCom organised a one-day, High-Level Consultation Event titled: ‘Addiction: Ethics, Integrity & The Policy-Maker’.
This engagement initiative, purposely limited to a select group of forty leading public health stakeholders, was held in Brussels at the South African Mission to the EU on Tuesday 10th June. It was preceded by a Networking Dinner from 7 pm on Monday 9th June (full programme below).
This was the third in a thematic series looking at issues of extreme importance to the global scientific community around ‘evidence-based policy versus policy-biased evidence’.
The first edition in 2012 examined ‘Harm Reduction Science’ and resulted in fifteen key findings and recommendations. It brought together twenty-seven eminent European, African and American-based thought-leaders from fifteen countries under the Co-Chairmanship of Professor Anne Glover, Chief Science Adviser to President Barroso and Professor Patrick Cunningham, then Irish Chief Science Adviser.
Building Global Partnerships: Sharing Discovery & Innovation; Protecting Difference & Competition
Organised by Dr Phil Mjwara, Director-General of the Department of Science and Technology, South African Ministry for Science and Technology & Co-organised by Aidan Gilligan, SciCom
Sunday 16 February, 15h00 PM – 16h30 PM, (Hyatt Regency Chicago)
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Annual Meeting 2014, 13-17 February, Chicago
Meeting Global Challenges: Discovery and Innovation
Session Description
A global village, an inter-connected world, a harmonious scientific community: these are some of the well-quoted end points of science diplomacy. As we strive to understand and mitigate challenges in climate change, energy and resource efficiency, health and demographic change, food security, and the digital divide, global partnerships must be built and sustained. It is not easy. Neither is a one-size-fits-all approach always the best option. Protecting difference and promoting winner-takes-all scientific competition is equally important. This high-profile session spotlights decision-makers from Brussels, Cape Town, and Washington responsible for striking this balance and influencing the largest budgets in global science.
Resolving Our Greatest Public Health Challenges Via Science Diplomacy
Organised by Dr. Michel Kazatchkine, UN Secretary General’s Ban-Ki Moon’s Special Envoy on HIV/AIDS in Eastern Europe and Central Asia & Co-organised by Aidan Gilligan, SciCom
Sunday 16 February, 13h00 PM – 14h30 PM, (Hyatt Regency Chicago)
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Annual Meeting 2014, 13-17 February, Chicago
Meeting Global Challenges: Discovery and Innovation
Session Description
Science-based issues are crucial to the conduct of foreign policy. Countries large and small, developed and developing, express a clear interest in implementing science diplomacy through politics. This is for the purpose of representation, cooperation, resolving disputes, improving systems, and securing the right to science for citizens and our most vulnerable populations. The same applies to global companies and institutions operating in a complex matrix of technical and relational challenges. This symposium will test this theory against the successes and failures of health diplomacy strategies around two challenging issues: global responses to HIV/AIDS; and harm reduction science linked to lifestyle.
Addiction: Our Compulsions and Brain Reward Systems
Organised by Wilson M. Compton, NIDA & Co-organised by Aidan Gilligan, SciCom
Friday 14 February, 08h00 AM – 09h30 AM, Regency (Hyatt Regency Chicago)
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Annual Meeting 2014, 13-17 February, Chicago
Meeting Global Challenges: Discovery and Innovation
Session Description
Wouldn't it be wonderful to attribute our compulsion for addictive damaging activities, such as overeating, taking illicit drugs or smoking, wholly to our genetic makeup? Then we could blame our parents for everything! We know it is bad for us but we still do it. Why? This session explores the latest scientific evidence behind compulsive behaviour. Personalised medicine provides plenty of research linking genetics and disease, but establishing a relationship between genetic variation and behaviour is trickier. How does over-consumption of high-fat food trigger addiction-like neuro adaptive responses in our brain-reward circuitry?
