Bioethics & Health News
December 6

December 6, 2005

Labs Unsure Whether to Join Stem Cell Bank

The Bush administration’s plan for a bank of federally approved stem cells unveiled here two months ago is being met with apathy, confusion and derision.
(AP)

Ethical Concerns on Face Transplant Grow

In urgent telephone calls and agonized e-mail messages, American scientists are expressing increasing concerns that the world’s first partial face transplant, performed in northern France on Nov. 27, may have been undertaken without adequate medical and ethical preparation.
(New York Times)

Organ Donors Organize to Share

A small but growing national network says it’s only fair that registered organ donors be considered for organ transplants before nondonors.
(East Valley Tribune)

Printing Organs on Demand

Need a skin graft? A new trachea? A heart patch? Turn on your printer, and let it spit one out.
(Wired)

Transplant Doc Denies Woman Tried Suicide

The French doctor behind the world’s first partial face transplant insisted Monday that his patient did not try to kill herself before being mauled by her dog – even as a British newspaper quoted her as saying she had.
(AP)

I Survived An Abortion Attempt’

Gianna Jessen’s mother was seven-and-a-half months pregnant when it was decided to abort the foetus she was carrying.
(BBC)