February 13, 2025
(MIT Technology Review) – Rodriguez and his wife, Maria Fernandez, who live in Miami, thought they would never hear his voice again. Then they re-created it using AI. After feeding old recordings of Rodriguez’s voice into a tool trained on … Read More
January 24, 2025
(New York Times) – A large study found that men lost seven years of life expectancy and women lost nine years, compared with counterparts without the disorder. The study, which was published Thursday in The British Journal of Psychiatry, is … Read More
January 20, 2025
Hastings Center Report (vol. 54, Issue S2, 2024) is available online by subscription only. Articles include:
January 7, 2025
(The Atlantic) – When my father turned on his iPad again about a year after his seizure, he couldn’t find the Photoshop app because the logo had changed. Instagram, which now had Reels and a shopping tab, was unnavigable. Some … Read More
January 6, 2025
(KFF Health News) – “Insurance covers a knee replacement if it’s covered with skin, but if it’s covered with plastic, it’s not going to cover it,” said Jeffrey Cain, a family physician and former chair of the board of the … Read More
January 6, 2025
(STAT News) – Advocates worry about cuts to long-term care as well as home- and community-based services The changes would dramatically alter states’ budgets and could curtail or end care for millions of people with disabilities. Two expensive programs in … Read More
December 24, 2024
(NPR) – Young caregivers have always been there, doing all the same things that adults do — helping people get dressed, charting symptoms and medicines, dealing with doctors and bills. About one-quarter of all family caregivers are between 18 and … Read More
December 19, 2024
(Science) – A brace of new studies probes benefits and risks for an understudied group Profound feelings of unity, transcendence, ineffability, and awe—as well as improved mental health. Those were among the testimonials in a recent survey of 233 people … Read More
December 19, 2024
(The Atlantic) – For people with developmental disabilities like Michael, however, using chatbots brings particular and profound risks. His parents and I were acutely afraid that he would lose track of what was fact and what was fiction. In the … Read More
December 16, 2024
The Journal of Medicine & Philosophy (vol. 49, no. 6, 2024) is available online by subscription only. Articles include:
December 12, 2024
(The New Yorker) – A new kind of prosthetic limb depends on carbon fibre and computer chips—and the reëngineering of muscles, tendons, and bone. Surgeons traditionally sew down residual muscles when they amputate a limb. There are good reasons for … Read More
December 11, 2024
(Aftermath) – Embodied, maker of the AI robot called Moxie, is shuttering. With their closing, parents have to explain to their kids that Moxie is dead. AI company Embodied announced this week that they would be shutting down following financial … Read More
December 6, 2024
(Wall Street Journal) – Patients who leave Medicare plans run by private insurance companies in favor of traditional Medicare end up costing the government much more than typical patients, according to a new analysis by health-policy nonprofit KFF, raising the … Read More
November 25, 2024
(Wall Street Journal) – Actress Liz Carr warns that no society can permit assisted suicide without endangering the disabled. When an able-bodied person says something like that about himself, it’s a tragedy, and society seeks to prevent suicide. Plaques offering … Read More
November 21, 2024
(NPR) – Nearly 15 years ago, the U.S. Department of Justice sued Georgia for unnecessarily segregating people with developmental disabilities and mental illness. The state settled the case and agreed to a massive overhaul of the services it offers to … Read More
November 20, 2024
(New York Times) – Her fight for disability rights included founding a group called Not Dead Yet, which protested the work of Dr. Jack Kevorkian and others. Diane Coleman, a fierce advocate for disability rights who took on Dr. Jack … Read More
November 19, 2024
(National Academies) – The U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) asked the National Academies to convene a committee of experts to evaluate how contemporary conceptions of sex and gender in medicine and current clinical guidelines impact disability determinations. The resulting report … Read More
November 15, 2024
(Aeon) – As a hearing parent of a deaf baby, I’m confronted with an agonising decision: should I give her an implant to help her hear? In a recent interview with the news site Truthout, the Deaf philosopher Teresa Blankmeyer … Read More
November 12, 2024
(Nature) – Through brain implants, neural interfaces and skin grafts, researchers are starting to restore sensation for paralysed or amputated limbs. Back in 1985, a car crash shattered three of Imbrie’s vertebrae and severed 70% of his spinal cord, leaving … Read More
October 28, 2024
(Associated Press) – Some Apple AirPods wireless headphones can be used as hearing aids with a new software update available Monday. It’s a high-profile move that experts applaud, even if they only reach a small portion of the millions of … Read More
October 21, 2024
(9 News) – An 86-year-old with terminal lung and heart problems has applied to end his own life because of blown-out wait times for federal government assistance. Cyril Tooze is one of 70,000 elderly Australians left waiting to receive at-home … Read More
October 15, 2024
The New England Journal of Medicine (vol. 391, no. 12, 2024) is available online by subscription only. Articles include:
October 3, 2024
(The Times Weekly) – Since our health care system does not treat everyone equally, the practice of physician – assisted suicide raises the risk for those who often do not get the same access and treatment as others. This includes … Read More
September 27, 2024
(Associated Press) – For Pearson, that means something a little different than most. Since he was a young boy, Pearson has had neurofibromatosis, a condition that covers much of his face with benign skin tumors. But far from allowing that … Read More
September 25, 2024
(Washington Post via MSN) – Bannister cried out for help, and before long, a stranger approached and called 911. They were told a search and rescue team would arrive in five hours. “It wasn’t very encouraging,” Bannister said. “I asked … Read More
