Australians are helping fuel a predatory international transplant trade by travelling overseas to buy organs illegally.

The Transplantation Society says there are still Australians willing to ignore health and ethical considerations to source organs on the overseas market. (ABC News)

A federal decision not to fund clinical trials for an experimental multiple sclerosis treatment cannot stop Saskatchewan from going ahead, but the province would have other scientific and ethical hoops to jump through first. (Healthzone.ca)

Tens of millions of people in low and middle income countries would be pushed below the poverty line by buying common but vital medicines which are already unaffordable to hundreds of millions more, a study has found. (Reuters)

Brazilians endlessly repeat the old saw that the world thinks of only three things when it thinks of Brazil: samba, carnivale and football. But its healthcare industry would like to add a fourth–surgery. As part of Brazil’s efforts to leverage both the tourists and the infrastructure investments expected in the wake of the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio, the country hosted its first medical tourism conference last week in São Paulo. (Fast Company)

round 12,000 Germans are waiting for an organ donation. Some politicians think that a model where everyone is presumed to be a donor unless they have said otherwise could give a much-needed boost to organ donation. (Deutsche Welle)

Illegal organ harvesting has become worse under reforms put in place by the Chinese leadership to stop it, says a Canadian human rights lawyer. (Epoch Times)

For a while there, things didn’t look too good for British writer Simon Singh. The best-selling author of the science histories Big Bang and Fermat’s Enigma knew he was heading into controversial territory when he switched tracks to cowrite a book investigating alternative medicine, Trick or Treatment? What Singh didn’t count on, however, was that writing a seemingly innocuous article for London’s The Guardian newspaper about especially outrageous chiropractic claims—one of the subjects he researched for the book—would end up threatening his career. The British Chiropractic Association sued Singh, hoping to use Britain’s draconian libel laws to force him to withdraw his statements and issue an apology. Losing the case would have cost Singh both his reputation and a substantial amount of his personal wealth. Such is the state of science, where sometimes even stating simple truths (like the fact that there’s no reliable evidence chiropractic can alleviate asthma in children) can bring the wrath of the antiscience crowd. What the British chiropractors didn’t count on, however, was Singh himself. Having earned a PhD from Cambridge for his work at the Swiss particle physics lab CERN, he wasn’t about to back down from a scientific gunfight. Singh spent more than two years and well over $200,000 of his own money battling the case in court, and this past April he finally prevailed. In the process, he became a hero to those challenging the pseudoscience surrounding everything from global warming to vaccines to evolution. It’s not necessarily a role he sought for himself, but it’s one he has embraced—he’s currently touring the world, talking about his case, libel reform, and how important it is to make sure scientists can speak truthfully and openly. Wired spoke with Singh about his case and the struggle against the forces of irrationality. (Wired Magazine)

According to a recent Léger Marketing survey, an extraordinarily high proportion of Quebeckers – 71 per cent – favour decriminalizing euthanasia and assisted suicide. This, in a province that’s been the major bastion of Catholicism in North America for so many decades. The question is so complex, and so deeply fraught with moral issues and potential abuses, that it’s difficult to understand why so many people can opt for a radical solution without being, at least, a little anxious about the consequences of their choice. The Globe and Mail

Busy childless couples and even singles who cannot afford to take extended leaves are now shipping their children-in-the-making to state clinics to be implanted in the wombs of surrogates.

In a growing practice, embryos from the fertilised eggs and sperm of the couple are couriered in controlled cool conditions and delivered to infertility clinics which are then transferred into the surrogate mother’s womb! (The Times of India)

You can outsource just about any work to India these days, including making babies. Reproductive tourism in India is now a half-a-billion-dollar-a-year industry, with surrogacy services offered in 350 clinics across the country since it was legalized in 2002. The primary appeal of India is that it is cheap, hardly regulated, and relatively safe. Surrogacy can cost up to $100,000 in the United States, while many Indian clinics charge $22,000 or less. Very few questions are asked. Same-sex couples, single parents and even busy women who just don’t have time to give birth are welcomed by doctors. As a bonus, many Indians speak English and Indian surrogate mothers are less likely to use illegal drugs. Plus medical standards in private hospitals are very high (not all good Indian doctors left in the brain drain). (Slate Magazine)

A law intended to speed up development of new drugs for US kids has ended up financing clinical trials in poor countries, where the medicines might never become available. (The Times of India)

More Polish women are traveling abroad to have an abortion to bypass strict laws outlawing the practice in their overwhelmingly Catholic country, a pro-choice group said on Thursday. (Reuters)

A group of medical specialists is speaking out against euthanasia ahead of a Quebec-wide consultation on the controversial practice, warning that previous attempts at legislation elsewhere in the world have failed. (CBC News)

Concern has been growing in the academic literature and popular media about the licensing, introduction and adoption of surgical devices before full effectiveness and safety evidence is available to inform clinical practice. Our research will seek empirical survey evidence about the roles, responsibilities, and information and policy needs of the key stakeholders in the introduction into clinical practice of new surgical devices for pelvic floor surgery, in terms of the underlying ethical principles involved in the economic decision-making process, using the example of pelvic floor procedures. (BMC)

There are so many developments on the euthanasia front in the UK this week that they are best grouped together. (BioEdge)

The government of Argentina’s president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, has reversed steps toward protecting women’s health and reproductive rights, and backtracked on its intention to guarantee access to legal abortions, according to a Human Rights Watch report released Tuesday. (New York Times)

There is expected to be a major step toward so-called “Dying with Dignity” laws in Victoria today.

The Greens MP Colleen Hartland plans to introduce a motion to the the Upper House of Parliament seeking a review of the 22 year old Medical Treatment Act. (ABC News)

In the first of its kind in recent memory, a woman had sought the high court’s permission to die (voluntary euthanasia) claiming that she is not willing to live a life of heavy pain and misery. (The Times of India)

In June 2010, Bloc MP Francine Lalonde’s private member’s bill seeking to legalize euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide was soundly defeated 228 votes to 59. But the issue is still very much alive, especially in Quebec. In December 2009, the Quebec Legislative Assembly authorized the Health and Social Services Commission to undertake a consultation on the question of “dying with dignity.” The public consultation phase of this enquiry is currently taking place. (The Mark)

The official installation of Unesco’s first francophone Africa chair of bioethics has taken place at the University of Bouaké, based in Abidjan. (University World News)

Developing World Bioethics (Volume 10, Issue 2, 2010) is now available by subscription only.

Articles Include:

• “The Future of Bioethics” by Udo Schüklenk, ii-iii.
• “Reproductive Tourism in Argentina: Clinic Accreditation and its Implications for Consumers, Health Professionals and Policy Makers” by Elsie Smith, Jason Behrmann, Carolina Martin, and Bryn Williams-Jones, 59-69.
• “Curriculum Guide for Research Ethics Workshops for Countries in the Middle East” by Henry Silverman, Babiker Ahmed, Samar Ajeilet, Sumaia Al-Fadil, Suhail Al-Amad, Hadir El-Dessouky, Ibrahim El-Gendy, Mohamed El-Guindi, Mustafa El-Nimeiri, Rana Muzaffar, and Azza Saleh, 70-77.
• “Access to Treatment in HIV Prevention Trials: Perspectives from a South African Community” by Nicola Barsdorf, Suzanne Maman, Nancy Kass, and Catherine Slack, 78-87.
• “Training Needs Assessment in Research Ethics Evaluation Among Research Ethics Committee Members in Three African Countries: Cameroon, Mali, and Tanzania” by Jêrôme Ateudjieu, John Willians, Marie Hirtle, Cédric Baume, Joyce Ikingura, Alassane Niaré, and Dominique Sprumont, 88-98.
• “From Medical Rationing to Rationalizing the Use of Human Resources for AIDS Care and Treatment in Africa: A Case for Task Shifting” by Jessica Price and Agnes Binagwaho, 99-103.
• “You Can Use My Name; You Don’t Have to Steal My Story - A Critique of Anonymity in Indigenous Studies” by Anna-Lydia Svalastog and Stefan Eriksson, 104-110.

Book Reviews Include:

• “Bioethics and Armed Conflict: Moral Dilemmas of Medicine and War - By Michael L. Gross” by Deanne-Peter Baker, 113.
• “When Experiments Travel: Clinical Trials and the Global Search for Human Subjects - By Adriana Petryna” by Stuart Rennie, 114-115.