bioethics.com

Pills tracked from doctor to patient to aid drug marketing

Bioethics Pundit — Fri, 17 May 2013 16:01:19 +0000

In the old days, sales representatives from drug companies would chat up local pharmacists to learn what drugs doctors were prescribing. Now such shoulder-rubbing is becoming a quaint memory — thanks to vast databases of patient and doctor information being used by pharmaceutical companies to market drugs. (New York Times)

Brain stimulation promises ‘long-lasting’ math boost

Bioethics Pundit — Fri, 17 May 2013 15:59:44 +0000

Applying high-frequency electrical noise to the brain can boost maths skills up to six months later, say Oxford University researchers. (BBC)

Let’s fight big pharma’s crusade to turn eccentricity into illness

Bioethics Pundit — Fri, 17 May 2013 15:57:55 +0000

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)

China tries paying for organs

Bioethics Pundit — Fri, 17 May 2013 15:55:07 +0000

The People’s Republic of China’s new system for acquiring organs—and the man behind it, former Vice Minister of Health Huang Jiefu—has been lauded in some circles as a decisive break from the use of executed prisoners as organ sources. But critics regard the new arrangements as implicitly coercive, and argue that the lack of transparency allows organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience and others to continue. (The Epoch Times)

Going viral

Bioethics Pundit — Fri, 17 May 2013 15:52:26 +0000

IF A new and deadly strain of influenza were to arise, putting together a vaccine against it in the least possible time would be a priority. To test how quickly that could be done a group of researchers have just had a race with themselves. (The Economist)

Google buys a quantum computer

Bioethics Pundit — Fri, 17 May 2013 15:50:43 +0000

Google and NASA are forming a laboratory to study artificial intelligence by means of computers that use the unusual properties of quantum physics. Their quantum computer, which performs complex calculations thousands of times faster than existing supercomputers, is expected to be in active use in the third quarter of this year. (New York Times)

Scottish women over 40 to get IVF on the NHS

Bioethics Pundit — Fri, 17 May 2013 15:48:21 +0000

Women aged up to 42 will now get a free cycle, rather than the previous maximum age limit of 40, after undergoing a test to see how many eggs they have left. This is known as their ovarian reserve. (The Telegraph)

IVF could be revolutionised by new technique, says clinic

Bioethics Pundit — Fri, 17 May 2013 15:46:42 +0000

Fertility specialists have developed a radical technique that can boost the chances of IVF couples having a healthy baby. Doctors in Nottingham who devised the procedure say it could raise live birthrates at their clinic to 78%, around three times the national average for IVF treatment in the UK. (The Guardian)

Public funding spurs couples to seek fertility treatment

Bioethics Pundit — Fri, 17 May 2013 15:44:10 +0000

Public funding of assisted reproductive technology, including in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments, broadens the range of couples who seek treatment for infertility by attracting a more diverse population, according to new research from Canada. (Medical Xpress)

Nanotechnoloyg could help fight diabetes: Injectable nanogel can monitor blood-sugar levels, secrete insulin when needed

Bioethics Pundit — Fri, 17 May 2013 15:42:12 +0000

Injectable nanoparticles developed at MIT may someday eliminate the need for patients with Type 1 diabetes to constantly monitor their blood-sugar levels and inject themselves with insulin. (Phys.org)

Human stem cells created by cloning

Bioethics Pundit — Thu, 16 May 2013 15:38:10 +0000

It was hailed some 15 years ago as the great hope for a biomedical revolution: the use of cloning techniques to create perfectly matched tissues that would someday cure ailments ranging from diabetes to Parkinson’s disease. Since then, the approach has been enveloped in ethical debate, tainted by fraud and, in recent years, overshadowed by a competing technology. Most groups gave up long ago on the finicky core method — production of patient-specific embryonic stem cells (ESCs) from cloning. A quieter debate followed: do we still need ‘therapeutic’ cloning? (Nature)

Experiment brings human cloning one step closer

Bioethics Pundit — Thu, 16 May 2013 15:36:51 +0000

Scientists have used cloning technology to transform human skin cells into embryonic stem cells, an experiment that may revive the controversy over human cloning. The researchers stopped well short of creating a human clone. But they showed, for the first time, that it is possible to create cloned embryonic stem cells that are genetically identical to the person from whom they are derived. (The Wall Street Journal)

Scans could spare parents the grief of infant autopsies

Bioethics Pundit — Thu, 16 May 2013 15:35:11 +0000

Bereaved parents agonising over whether to subject their dead child or stillborn baby to a full post-mortem now have an alternative that is potentially far less traumatic. For fetuses and infants under the age of one, MRI scans combined with minimally invasive procedures including blood tests are as effective as an autopsy at revealing the cause of death. (New scientist)

U.S. hospital ICU admissions up 50 percent since 2002

Bioethics Pundit — Thu, 16 May 2013 15:33:32 +0000

Admissions to U.S. hospital intensive care units jumped 50 percent from 2002 to 2009, but researchers are not sure why. (UPI)

Those with cancer more likely to file for bankruptcy

Bioethics Pundit — Thu, 16 May 2013 15:31:58 +0000

The study, published in the journal Health Affairs, found U.S. cancer patients were 2.65 times more likely to file for bankruptcy than people without cancer. (UPI)