People and policymakers may eventually wake up to the fact that we are not a bunch of sick individuals, each of us having a bunch of psychiatric diagnoses, cumulatively constituting a sick society. This is a myth generated by an overly ambitious psychiatry and a remarkably greedy pharmaceutical industry. (Wired)

If you ask a hospital in your neighborhood to give you a package price on a standard surgical procedure, you will probably be turned down. After the suppression of normal market forces for the better part of a century, hospitals are rarely interested in competing on price for patients they are likely to get as customers anyway. (Psychology Today)

This is National Nurses Week, and a perfect moment to highlight the special training, ability and insights that distinguish hospice nurses in truly remarkable ways. (Huffington Post)

Some bioethicists who feel at home in the utilitarian common room of the Journal of Medical Ethics described the imbroglio as an attack on academic freedom. (BioEdge)

My problem with euthanasia is not that it is a immoral way to die, but that it has its roots in a fearful way to live. (The Guardian)

The killings we’ve seen at a Connecticut elementary school, and more recently at the Boston Marathon, are fortunately rare events. Mass killings have remained at a stable level for the past two decades. But they are just the tip of a chilling violence iceberg that has titanic financial and social costs to society. (CNN)

Yesterday, on the Hastings Center Bioethics Forum, Carl Elliott pondered the question of why a petition asking the governor of Minnesota to investigate ethically problematic research at the University of Minnesota has gathered hundreds of signatures from scholars in bioethics, clinical research, medical humanities, and related disciplines — but only a handful of signatures from scholars and researchers at the University of Minnesota. (Scientific American)

In theory, legal assisted suicide sounds compassionate and safe, promising autonomy. How could one person’s decision about their own body possibly harm someone else? In reality, assisted suicide doesn’t live up to its billing. (CBC News)

In Canada, if you are a competent adult, then you have the legal as well as the moral right to insist that life-support be withheld or withdrawn, even if this will result in your immediate death. If, however, you are suffering irremediably but are not dependent on technology to keep you alive then you may be stuck. (CBC News)

The man who pioneered in vitro fertilization also stirred deep unease about what he was doing. (The Wall Street Journal)

Italy’s parliament must listen to expert advice before deregulating stem-cell therapies. (Nature)

Genetic testing has saved many people from cancer. But the tests require a significant investment of time and money. To create tests for hereditary breast cancer and ovarian cancer, our company and its investors spent more than $500 million over 17 years before we were able to recoup this investment. (U.S.A. Today, op-ed by CEO of Myriad Genetics, Inc.)

The long list of roles Margaret Thatcher played during her 87 years — potent politician, free-market evangelist, labor antagonist, dominant global leader — includes the one she never publicly discussed: person with dementia. (New York Times)

Egg freezing is the newest reproductive technology: a recently perfected form of flash-freezing that allows human eggs to be successfully stored in egg banks. Only commercially available in American IVF clinics since October 2012, when the “experimental” label was lifted, egg freezing is being heralded as a “revolution in the way women age,” a “reproductive backstop,” a “fertility insurance policy,” an “egg savings account” and in particular, a way for ambitious career women to postpone motherhood until they are ready. (CNN)

Of all the arguments swirling around the legality of same-sex marriage, it’s clear that a major concern is, as always, the kids. (CNN)

Overachievers are popping Adderall to get ahead. Is that a good idea? (Slate)

It is characteristic of the American condition that we want to save the world. This may be seen economically, politically, in terms of human rights, consumption of resources, education or healthcare - any way one chooses. (The Yemen Times)

An 18th Century automaton that could beat human chess opponents seemingly marked the arrival of artificial intelligence. But what turned out to be an elaborate hoax had its own sense of genius, says Adam Gopnik. (BBC)

The urban dictionary defines “cheech” as a verb used among physicians in training that refers to the act of ordering every conceivable radiological and laboratory test for a patient, often to diagnose a condition that once diagnosed is untreatable. Thirty years ago, the macabre joke during my three-month stint as an intern in the medical ICU was first cheech, then death. (CNN)

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority is considering whether to recommend legalisation of “mitochondrial replacement” techniques designed to avoid the transmission of mitochondrial diseases. We believe the benefits to a small number of parents are heavily outweighed by the risks to the child and to society. (The Guardian)

Health research projects are increasingly being conducted that do not fit the standard picture of biomedical research…Such participant-led research (PLR) is gaining popularity and attention, especially as its outcomes have started infiltrating peer-reviewed scientific journals. (The Scientist)