January 31, 2006
Primary Care About to Collapse, Physicians Warn Primary care — the basic medical care that people get when they visit their doctors for routine physicals and minor problems — could fall apart in the United States without immediate reforms, the … Read More
January 30, 2006
Report: 8M With Birth Defects Each Year About 8 million children worldwide are born every year with serious birth defects, many of them dying before age 5 in a toll largely hidden from view, the March of Dimes says.(AP) Laws … Read More
January 27, 2006
Fake Research Puts Medical Journals Under Microscope The recent spate of high-profile scientific shams has left many wondering whether what appears in the world’s most prestigious medical journals can be believed. But despite the considerable embarrassment these deceptions have caused, … Read More
January 26, 2006
U.S. Scientist Entangled in Stem Cell Scam Five months ago, a smiling Dr. Gerald Schatten appeared before reporters alongside South Korean stem cell researcher Dr. Hwang Woo-suk to present a scientific feat – the first cloned dog.(AP) Dextrous Mini-Robots to … Read More
January 25, 2006
Bush Considering Tax Breaks for Health Care President Bush is weighing proposals for new tax breaks for health care costs, which will be a major topic of next week’s State of the Union address, a top economic adviser to the … Read More
January 24, 2006
Hospital Rejected Kidneys Despite Waiting List The University of California, Irvine Medical Center, which was forced to close its liver transplant program, turned down a high number of donated kidneys despite a long patient waiting list, the Los Angeles Times … Read More
January 23, 2006
New at E.R.’s: More Sense of Urgency It had all the markings of a typical emergency department waiting room: magazines scattered on end tables; a wall-mounted television; more than two dozen institutional chairs lining the walls.(New York Times) Medical Journal … Read More
January 19, 2006
In The News — January 19 Cancer Study Was Made Up, Journal Says A large study concluding that anti-inflammatory drugs reduce the risk of oral cancer was based on fabricated data, according to The Lancet, the prominent British medical journal … Read More
January 18, 2006
But almost 3,000 people in the UK were hastened to their death by their doctor. There were 936 voluntary euthanasia deaths (i.e., patients requested euthanasia), 1,930 “non-voluntary” euthanasia deaths and 0 assisted suicides. The balance of the deaths was attributed … Read More
January 18, 2006
Face Transplant Doctor Reveals Tissue Rejection French surgeons are declaring the world’s first face transplant a success even as they revealed that the patient battled a serious tissue-rejection episode less than a month after her groundbreaking operation.(AP) Gene Protects Against … Read More
January 17, 2006
The Church of Scotland has announced its opposition to the destruction of embryos in research and medicine. This includes embryonic stem cell research, preimplantation sex-selection, and preimplantation genetic diagnosis. For some, the use of and subsequent destruction of embryos to … Read More
January 17, 2006
US Judges Back Assisted Suicide The US Supreme Court has upheld a law allowing doctors in the state of Oregon to help terminally ill patients die.(BBC) Study Finds Cloned Stem Cells Safe Stem cells taken from cloned embryos are likely … Read More
January 17, 2006
Wesley J. Smith writing at National Review Online Where’s the Media Mea Culpa? But enough about Hwang. The other story here is the media’s attempt to shore up public perception of embryonic-stem-cell research and therapeutic cloning even in the midst … Read More
January 13, 2006
Kathryn Jean Lopez of National Review says that the fact that Hwang didn’t actually accomplish anything gives us “a second chance to preserve the dignity of human life.” This is actually good news. Cloning — even under frequently used euphemisms: … Read More
January 13, 2006
Journal Retracts Disgraced Stem Cell Papers The journal Science on Thursday officially closed the book on two stem cell research papers that were hailed as breakthroughs when they were published but are now discredited as frauds.(MSNBC) South Korean Stem Cell … Read More
January 11, 2006
Don’t know what fMRI is? You’re going to be hearing a lot more about it and related technologies. Slate.com has a first-person introduction.
January 11, 2006
The Wall Street Journal has an interview with Leon Kass, member and former chair of the President’s council on Bioethics, posted on their (free!) OpinionJournal site. Dr. Kass is adept at looking past the minutiae of specific debates to the … Read More
January 11, 2006
Report: Face Transplant Patient Goes Out The woman who received a new nose, chin and mouth in a groundbreaking transplant operation in November has taken strolls in public without drawing stares, her surgeon said in an interview published Wednesday.(AP) Study … Read More
January 10, 2006
Probe finds stem cell scientist faked research An academic panel investigating the work of South Korean researcher Woo Suk Hwang said Tuesday that he faked his landmark claim that he cloned human embryos and extracted stem cells from them — … Read More
January 9, 2006
No doubt about it, stem cell research is on the minds of state lawmakers as they head back to their capitols this month. The National Conference of State Legislatures has ranked stem cell research #9 on its list of top … Read More
January 9, 2006
Stem Cell Therapy Sparks Hope in Ailing Hearts Esteban Bonilla feels no trepidation as he is wheeled into the operating room of a Bangkok hospital, despite the fact he is only minutes away from starting an experimental stem cell procedure … Read More
January 6, 2006
Here’s an interesting proposal for extending health insurance to those Americans who lack it: Wal-Mart. It’s a fair bet that there’s a pretty big overlap between people lacking health insurance and Wal-Mart’s customer base. Clearly, low-income consumers of preventive health … Read More
January 5, 2006
Stem Cell May Drive Breast Cancer Recurring breast cancer could be caused by newly discovered rare stem cells transformed into a “tumour factory” by genetic errors, scientists have said.(BBC) Missing Gene Linked to Spread of Cancer Scientists said on Wednesday … Read More
January 4, 2006
Op-ed: The End of Stem Cell Research? Hardly So now the truth is out — South Korean veterinarian Hwang Woo-suk is a liar. The researcher who told the world in print, at lectures delivered all over the world and at … Read More
January 3, 2006
Superfluous Medical Studies Questioned In medical research, nobody is convinced by a single experiment. A finding has to be reproducible to be believable. Only if different scientists in different places do the same study and get the same outcomes can … Read More
