Last week the US Ambassador visited the Medical School to meet with Maltese doctors to discuss the US health plan. He came across as a humble person, actually asking us about our system and how they, as Americans, can learn from Europeans, who have managed to create health care systems which are based on a social justice system different from that in the US. (The Malta Independent

It’s been one year since President Barack Obama lifted the Bush era’s eight-year ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. Read excerpts from producer Susan Goldstein’s and correspondent Betty Rollin’s recent interview about ethical guidelines, current research, and the limitations of Obama’s policy with Dr. George Daley of Children’s Hospital Boston, where a new web site is now available on the state of stem cell research. (PBS)

Criticisms of the ethical justification of antidoping legislation are not uncommon in the literatures of medical ethics, sports ethics and sports medicine. Critics of antidoping point to inconsistencies of principle in the application of legislation and the unjustifiability of ethical postures enshrined in the World Anti-Doping Code, a new version of which came into effect in January 2009. This article explores the arguments concerning the apparent legal peculiarities of antidoping legislation and their ethically salient features in terms of: notions of culpability, liability and guilt; aspects of potential duplication of punishments and the limitations of athlete privacy in antidoping practice and policy. It is noted that tensions still exist between legal and ethical principles and norms that require further critical attention. [Premium (Journal of Medical Ethics)]

Many people are worried that the health-care reform proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats will fail to bend the “cost curve.” A number of commentators are urging no votes because of this, and Republicans have asked the president to start health reform over, focusing squarely on the issue of cost reduction. [Premium (Wall Street Journal)]

I have proposed that a scenario of slower-than-disruptive tech development over the next 15-20 years combined with weak or reduced opposition to human enhancement could result in “increasing irrelevance” for transhumanists. But what exactly does that mean? (IEET)

Dr. Peter J. Pronovost, 45, is medical director of the Quality and Safety Research Group at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, which means he leads that institution’s quest for safer ways to care for its patients. He also travels the country, advising hospitals on innovative safety measures. The Hudson Street Press has just released his book, “Safe Patients, Smart Hospitals: How One Doctor’s Checklist Can Help Us Change Health Care from the Inside Out,” written with Eric Vohr. An edited version of a two-hour conversation follows. (New York Times)

Disability groups are split over a Family Court decision to approve the sterilisation of an 11-year-old girl. Family Court judge Paul Cronin found that the performance of a hysterectomy on the child, identified only as Angela, was “in the child’s best interests”. (Sydney Morning Herald)

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) can infect bone marrow cells — including, possibly, hematopoietic stem cells, according to a study published online today (March 7) in Nature. The findings suggest the virus can hide in an inactive state for long periods of time, evading treatment, even in individuals without detectable viral loads. (The Scientist)

The UK Human Tissue Authority (HTA) has issued an official warning that unlawful collections of umbilical cord blood have been taking place in the UK, and that such instances ‘may compromise safety and quality standards’. (PHG Foundation)

THE JUDGE Rotenberg Center in Canton, which stands alone in its use of painful skin shocks to eradicate self-mutilation and sudden assault, is a storehouse of ethical and medical dilemmas. But it’s no shock - and no shame - that the parents of some autistic and mentally retarded children embrace this controversial school. (The Boston Globe)

Among patients with advanced heart failure, blacks and Hispanics are less likely to receive hospice care than whites, researchers found. After adjustment for sociodemographic, clinical, and geographic factors, blacks were 41% less likely to have hospice care than whites (OR 0.59, 95% CI 0.47 to 0.73) and Hispanics were 51% less likely (OR 0.49, 95% CI 0.37 to 0.66), according to Jane Givens, MD, of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, and colleagues. (MedPage Today)

The judge who sentenced an Oregon couple to prison Monday for the death of their son says members of their church must quit relying on faith healing when their children’s lives are at stake. (The Associated Press)

A campaign to give elderly people in the Netherlands the right to assisted suicide said Monday it has gathered more than 100,000 signatures, hoping to push the boundaries another notch in the country that first legalized euthanasia. (The Associated Press)

When 87-year-old Bunny Olenick suffered a massive stroke in December 2008, doctors told her family there was no chance she could recover fully, although her limitations probably wouldn’t be known for months. A neurologist told her sons that if she did survive, her ability to communicate would be diminished, and she would likely need around-the-clock care for the rest of her life. (Kaiser Health News)

Studies in Ethics, Law, and Technology (Volume 3, Issue 3, 2009) is now available by subscription only.

Articles include:

• “Nanotechnologies and Equal Access to Healthcare” by Eduardo Missoni and Guglielmo Foffani.
• “The Impact of Nanomedicine Development on North-South Equity and Equal Opportunities in Healthcare” by Michael G. Tyshenko.
• “Nano Applications, Mega Challenges: The Case of the Health Sector in India” by Jayashree Vivekanandan.
• “The Principle of Justice and Access to Nanomedicine in National Healthcare Systems” by Mette Ebbesen.
• “International Harmonization of Regulation of Nanomedicine” by Gary E. Marchant, Douglas J. Sylvester, Kenneth W. Abbott, and Tara Lynn Danforth.
• “Avoiding the Mistakes of Biotech: How Intellectual Property Can Be Better Managed to Advance Nanotechnology Research” by Richard Gold.”

Sociology of Health & Illness (Volume 32, Issue 2, February 2010) is now available by subscription only.

Articles include:

• “A Sociological Approach to Ageing, Technology and Health” by Kelly Joyce and Meika Loe, 171-180.
• “A History of the Future: The Emergence of Contemporary Anti-Ageing Medicine” by Courtney Everts Mykytyn, 181-196.
• “In the Vanguard of Biomedicine? The Curious and Contradictory Case of Anti-Ageing Medicine” by Jennifer R. Fishman, Richard A. Settersten Jr, and Michael A. Flatt; 197-210.
• “Ageing in Place and Technologies of Place: The Lived Experience of People with Dementia in Changing Social, Physical and Technological Environments” by Katherine Brittain, Lynne Corner, Louise Robinson, and John Bond; 272-287.
• “‘But Obviously Not for Me’: Robots, Laboratories and the Defiant Identity of Elder Test Users” by Louis neve, 335-347.

A challenge to the state’s assisted-suicide law will face a major test Monday in Superior Court in Hartford. Two Fairfield County doctors, Gary Blick and Ronald M. Levine, sued the state last year hoping to ensure that doctors who prescribe medication to enable a patient to end his own life won’t be charged with second-degree manslaughter under the law. (The New Haven Register)

It is feared that English libel law may be making it possible for financially well endowed groups to effectively silence scientific dissent about their own claims. (PHG Foundation)

From January 16, 2002, to June 11, 2009, I served on the President’s Council on Bioethics. Chaired first by Leon Kass (2001–2005) and then by Edmund Pellegrino (2005–2009), the Council met thirty-six times. Of its original eighteen members, nine served throughout the life of the Council. When asked, as I often was, whether I enjoyed the experience, my standard answer was: “It depends on what day you ask me.” (The New Atlantis)

Those who debate insurance reform in Washington and pit public against privately funded care are framing the problem incorrectly. Here’s a better way to think about it: Economists are wrong in asserting that competition controls costs. Most often innovation and competition drive prices up, not down, because bringing better, higher-priced products to market is more profitable. Hospital-vs.-hospital competition causes providers to expand their scope and offer more premium-priced services. Equipment suppliers boost the capability and cost of their machines and devices. Drugmakers develop products that bring the highest prices. It’s because we have such competition, not because we lack it, that health costs are rising by 10% a year. (BusinessWeek)

Young adults who were conceived through in-vitro fertilization are doing as well as the average young American as far as physical health, though their rates of certain psychological problems appear elevated, a new study finds. (Reuters)