A new issue of the New England Journal of Medicine (February 28, 2013) is now available online and in print.

There is an extended debate on Open Access, Patient Privacy, and the future of medical publishing including:

• Protecting Patient Privacy and Data Security by JK Taitsman, CM Grimm, and S Agrawal
• For the Sake of Inquiry and Knowledge — The Inevitability of Open Access by AJ Wolpert (Free Full Text)
• The Downside of Open-Access Publishing by C Haug (Free Full Text)

The German Ministry of Education and Research
Research Ethics: Current Challenges in Preclinical, Clinical and Public Health Research
An international conference for young scholars
August 26-30, 2013
Hannover Medical School
Germany

For more information: Conference Brochure (English)

A top university has asked its students to take part in a cocaine study - and they’ll get paid to do so. (Huffington Post)

The nanotoxicology community has numerous ideas and initiatives for improving the quality of published papers. (Nature Nanotechnology)

Harvard geneticists and anthropologists challenge the work of two economists who say there’s a link between genetic diversity and wealth. (The Scientist)

The longstanding ethical framework for protecting human volunteers in medical research needs to be replaced because it is outdated and can impede efforts to improve health care quality, assert leaders in bioethics, medicine, and health policy in two companion articles in a Hastings Center Report special report, “Ethical Oversight of Learning Health Care Systems.” One of the authors calling for a new approach is the main architect of the current ethical framework. (Eurekalert)

Male and older scientists are more likely than female and younger colleagues to commit research misconduct, according to a new study. (Health News)

FDA and its partners in Sub-Saharan Africa have made great strides in improving the oversight of the clinical trials of medical products in development—an important advance in protecting public health in both the U.S. and Africa. (FDA.gov)

Tom Beauchamp, Ph.D., an invited speaker at the 12^th meeting of the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, has been a Senior Research Scholar at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics and a Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University for more than 30 years. (Bioethics.gov)

In what they acknowledge as a seismic shift in the ethical foundation of medical research, practice and policy, a prominent group of interdisciplinary healthcare experts, led by bioethicists at Johns Hopkins, rejects an ethical paradigm that has guided the American system since the 1970s and calls for morally obligatory participation in a “learning healthcare system” more in step with the digital age. (Science Daily)

As cases of misconduct rise, ethicists test an approach for reforming offenders. (Nature)

But there are hidden dangers to today’s stem cell treatments, both in the U.S. and offshore, scientists said at the recent World Stem Cell Summit in West Palm Beach. They pointed to reports of deaths, tumors, lumbar punctures and other potential harm, as well as vulnerable people being conned out of thousands of dollars. (Sun Sentinel)

Children born with a rare, genetic brain disorder that causes severe atrophy and often leads to death within three years are alive seven to 10 years after being treated with an experimental gene therapy, a study showed. (Seattle Times)

The causes of infertility, which affects around 10% of couples, are often unknown, but may in some cases result from the body’s inability to produce viable gametes — also known as sperm and egg cells. The first study of the development of such ‘germ cells’ from humans could help scientists to learn how to create them in the laboratory instead. (Nature)

Decades after a risky Cold War experiment, a scientist lives with secrets. (The New Yorker)

Eva Kor will never forget the day her childhood ended. The images of that day, and the weeks after, are burned into her memory, as brutally permanent as the tattoo on her left forearm. (Science Daily)

Mathew Martoma knew from an early age he wanted to blend his interests in health care, business and law into a career, and he excelled as a bioethics student. Yet the 38-year-old Florida man now finds himself embroiled in what could prove one of the biggest ethical lapses in Wall Street’s history. (Associated Press)

The tiny spots of blood left after routine tests on newborns could provide valuable information for researchers, but clear policies that govern their use are needed so that the samples are not destroyed or otherwise lost entirely, experts say. (Fox News)

After the stock soared on the positive news, two top executives profited by selling shares at the highest price in more than four years as part of a pre-determined program. When the first of those patients, a 7-year-old girl with a bone- marrow disease, died four months after the company said her life had been saved, Pluristem was silent. The company raised $34 million selling shares a week later. (Businessweek)

Our nation’s public health system plays a critical role in helping prevent, respond to and recover from public health emergencies, such as infectious disease outbreaks and terrorist attacks. Dr. Georges Benjamin will speak to the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues at its eleventh public meeting being held today and tomorrow in Chicago where the Commission will continue its analysis of the ethical issues related to conducting clinical trials of medical countermeasures for children. (bioethics.gov)

A patient’s genetic makeup may explain the “placebo effect,” in which people perceive that a fake treatment makes them feel better, according to a study that may help researchers design better clinical trials. (Businessweek)