Are clinical ethics consultants in danger? An analysis of the potential legal liability of individual clinical ethicists.

In September 1999, eighteen-year-old Jesse Gelsinger tragically died while participating in a University of Pennsylvania gene transfer experiment.' The lawsuit that followed this unfortunate incident named as defendants not only the researchers involved but also renowned bioethicist Arthur Caplan. Although a hospital ethics committee was named in a lawsuit more than ten years earlier,' there had