New technologies in biomedicine. Opinions of young Romanian physicians/Nuevas tecnologías en biomedicina. Opiniones de médicos jóvenes de Rumanía/Novas tecnologias em biomedicina. Opinioes de jovens medicos Romenos

The purpose of this article is to summarize the way young medical professionals view these modern biomedical procedures and their moral acceptability. Materials and methods: A survey, filled in online, analyzing items in four main areas: genetic techniques, cloning, stem cell research, and assisted reproduction. Results: Most subjects agreed that the right to the genetic material should be a fundamental human right and that genetic engineering should be used if it could lead to the elimination os severe genetic diseases like cystic fibrosis and thalassemia. The least acceptance rate was obtained for techniques that would either change physical traits (like eye or hair color) or augment them. Most subjects agreed that the prenatal screening should be mandatory, and if the screening detects a severe congenital malformation the physician should recommend therapeutic abortion. Most subjects disagreed that cloning of any type, either therapeutic or reproductive, using human, animal, or vegetal genetic material. Most subjects agreed with the collection and storage of cord blood stem cells and the use of adult stem cells, and most of them disagreed with the creation of embryos specifically for obtaining stem cells. Conclusions: Even if the national legislation in this area is very scarce, the responses have usually identified the highly controversial techniques. If however the national legislation has elements similar to the items from the survey, they tended to take the respective items as morally acceptable without trying to analyze them critically. Key words: genetic, cloning, stem cell research, assisted reproductive techniques El proposito de este articulo es conocer la forma en que jovenes profesionales medicos ven los procedimientos biomedicos modernos y su aceptabilidad moral. Materiales y metodos: Una encuesta, rellenada online, que analiza elementos en cuatro areas principales: tecnicas geneticas, clonacion, investigacion con celulas madre y reproduccion asistida. Resultados: La mayoria de los sujetos acepta que el derecho a material genetico deberia ser un derecho humano fundamental y que la ingenieria genetica deberia usarse si pudiese eliminar enfermedades geneticas severas, como la fibrosis quistica y la talasemia. Se obtuvo una frecuencia de aceptacion menor para tecnicas que pudieran o cambiar caracteristicas fisicas (como el color de los ojos o del pelo) o aumentarlas. La mayoria de los sujetos acepta que el examen de deteccion prenatal debiera s