[An introduction into bioethics and parasitology]

Bioethical considerations increasingly affect the process of integrating scientific and medical findings into the moral conceivabilities of a society and, consequentially, into the stock of laws. In a natural science like parasitology a social consensus must be reached in the areas of species protection, of the red biotechnology, of human prenatal diagnosis, and of animal experiments. The crucial problem is the social value of an individual's dignity and the conjoined question of the admissibility of an exploitation of a creature. The responsibility of man for other organisms, in that particular case parasites and their hosts, is brought up for discussion in a bioethic debate.