Bioethics & Health News
January 30

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 Would Allow Health Workers’ Choice

More than a dozen states are considering new laws to protect health workers who do not want to provide care that conflicts with their personal beliefs, a surge of legislation that reflects the intensifying tension between asserting individual religious values and defending patients’ rights.
(Washington Post)

Religious Groups Get Chunk of AIDS Money

New groups are springing up to win a piece of President Bush’s $15 billion AIDS program, with traditional players and religious groups joining forces to improve their chances in a competition that already has targeted nearly a quarter of its grants for faith-based organizations.
(AP)

Gender, Ethnicity Sway Choices for End-of-Life Care

When it comes to end-of-life care, researchers have known for some time that ethnic groups have different perspectives on how they’d wish to be treated. Now, a small study suggests there’s a gender gap even among people of the same ethnicity.
(HealthDay)

Scientific Brain Linked to Autism

Highly analytical couples, such as scientists, may be more likely to produce children with autism, an expert has argued.
(BBC)

Frist: Gov’t Unwanted in End-Of-Life Cases

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who took a leading role in the Terry Schiavo case, said Sunday it taught him that Americans do not want the government involved in such end-of-life decisions.
(AP)