The editors of the American Journal of Bioethics report that Leon Kass, current chair of the President’s Bioethics Council, will be replaced by Edmund Pellegrino. They offer a very positive reaction to the news, and a clear slap at Kass:

“It is possible to gush about the White House’s decision – a rare opportunity these days – in part because Pellegrino is a good, honest and kind person, but also because Pellegrino is not afraid to engage his academic peers and will not operate like a cheerleader for the administration, nor will he treat the Council like an oversized ethics seminar for neoconservatives. So, for example, I do not expect to hear that the American Enterprise Institute is going to be selling the products of the deliberations by the Council in the future. The sun will never rise on a day where Edmund Pellegrino lobbies Congress as a “private Citizen” for a “second term bioethics agenda,” or writes Op Eds defending Presidential stem cell policy while sitting as Chair during a Presidential election year.”

We discussed Leon Kass several times over the past year (here and here). It will be interesting to see what role the Council will play in advising the President under Pellegrino.