LLB, BCL, DCL.
kathleen [dot] glass [at] mcgill [dot] ca (Email)
Contact Information:
Biomedical Ethics Unit
3647 Peel Street
Montreal, Quebec H3A 1X1 Canada
Tel: 514-398-6945
Fax: 514-398-8349
Email: Kathleen [dot] glass [at] mcgill [dot] ca
Academic background
B.A. Barat College
M.A. University of Chicago
LL.B, B.C.L. McGill University Faculty of Law
D.C.L. Institute of Comparative Law, McGill
Post-doctoral training:
Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law, McGill University
Division of Medical Ethics, Harvard Medical School
Academic appointments:
Professor Emerita, Department of Human Genetics
Professor Emerita, Department of Pediatrics
Other appointments:
Associate Member, McGill Centre for Studies in Aging
Research
My research interests include ethical and legal issues relevant to children, the elderly, psychiatric patients and research subjects. At the Clinical Trials Research Group (CTRG) of the Biomedical Ethics Unit my work has focused on the design, review, conduct and monitoring of clinical trials. My publications concern clinical equipoise and the use of placebo in clinical trials, genetic screening of children and incompetent adults, embryonic stem call transplantation, reporting genetic results from research studies and ethical issues in community based research, including research with Aboriginal communities. While most of my work is conceptual, some of the recent collaborative work of the CTRG combines empirical and conceptual methodologies when looking at issues such as the use of placebo and clinical trial blinding.
Teaching
My teaching is both university and hospital based. I teach a graduate seminar course, "Genetics and Bioethics", in the Department of Human Genetics. I also participate in the Ethics and Jurisprudence course for undergraduate medical students as small group leader and conduct seminars and other teaching sessions in neonatal and pediatric intensive care, plastic surgery, endocrinology, emergency medicine and oncology. I also lecture in the course "Practical Aspects of Protocol Development" in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics.
Committees:
Pediatric Ethics Committee, The Montreal Children’s Hospital
Selected publications
Shapiro, S, Fergusson, D. Glass, K.” Substituting placebo for established, effective therapy: Why not?”, CMAJ 182 (16): 1749. (2010)
Wayne, K & Glass, K.C. “Considerations for Advancing the Debate surrounding Medical Research and Moral Imperative’, Perspectives in Biology and Medicine,“ 53(3): 373-87 (2010)
Glass, K.C. & Binik, A., “Rethinking Risk in Pediatric Research”, J. Law, Med & Ethics 36:3 (2008)
Glass, K.C. & Kaufert, J., “Aboriginal Community Values and Research Ethics Review: Can the Two Be Reconciled?,” Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics 2(2):25-40 (2007)
Fergusson, D., Glass, K.C. , Waring, D., Shapiro, S, “Turning a blind eye: The success of blinding reported in a random sample of randomized, placebo-controlled trials”, BMJ 2004: 328-432 (2004)
Lemmens, T.M., Sprumont, D., Nys, H., Singh, J., and Glass, K.C. , “CIOMS’ Placebo Rule and the Promotion of Negligent Medical Practice”, European Journal of Health Law 11:153-174 (2004)
Glass, K.C., "Ethical Issues In Neonatal Intensive Care: Perspectives for the Neurologist", Pediatric Neurology 9(1): 35-40 (2002)
Glass, K.C. and Waring, D., "Effective Patient Care Need Not Conflict With Good Trial Design" American Journal of Bioethics 2(2): 25-6 (2002)
Knoppers, B.M., Avard, D., Cardinale, G., Glass, K.C., "Children and Incompetent Adults in Genetic Research: Consent and Safeguards" Nature Reviews: Genetics 3: 221-5 (2002)
Glass, K.C. and Kaufert, J. (eds.), Research Involving Aboriginal Individuals and Communities: Genetics as a Focus (Ottawa: National Council on Ethics in Human Research, 2001)
Campbell, A., Glass, K.C., "The Legal Status of Ethics Policies, Codes and Guide-lines in Medical Research and Practice", McGill Law Journal 46(2): 473-489 (2001)
Szebik, I., Glass, K.C., "Ethical Issuses in Germ-Cell Therapy: a Preparation for Public Debate", Academic Medicine 76(1): 32-38 (2001)
Shapiro, S.H., Glass, K.C., "Why Sackett's analysis of randomized controlled trials (RTCs) fails, but needn't", CMAJ 163(7): 834-5 (2000)
Weijer, C., Glass, K.C., Shapiro, S.H., "Clinical equipoise, and not the uncertainty principle, is the moral underpinning of the randomized clinical trial", BMJ 321: 756-758 (2000)
Knoppers, B.M., Hirtle, M., Glass, K.C., "Commercialization of Genetic Research and Public Policy", Science 286:2277-2278 (1999)
Glass, K.C., Lemmens, T.M., "Conflict of Interest and Commercialization of Biomedical Research: What is the Role of Research Ethics Review?" in T. Caulfield, B. Williams-Jones (eds.), The Commercialization of Genetic Research: Ethical, Legal and Policy Issues (New York: Plenum, 1999)
Glass, K.C., Weijer C., Cournoyer, D., Lemmens, T., Palmour, R.M., Shapiro, S.H., "Structuring the Review of Human Genetics Protocols Part III: Gene Therapy Studies", IRB: A Review of Human Subjects research 21(2):1-9(1999)
Freedman, B., Glass, K.C., Weijer, C., "Placebo Orthodoxy in Clinical Research: Exposing the Myths. Part II: Ethical, Legal and Regulatory Myths", Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics 24:252-259 (1996); reprinted in Monash Bioethics Review 17(3):10-22 (1997)
Glass, K.C., Speyer-Ofenberg, M., "Incompetent Persons as Research Subjects and the Ethics of Minimal Risk", Cambridge Quarterly of Health Care Ethics 5:3 (1996)
Keyserlingk, E.W., Glass, K.C., Kogan, S., Gauthier, S., "Proposed Guidelines for the Participation of Persons with Dementia as Research Subjects", Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 32:2 (1995)