April 21, 2015
(Washington Post) – It was 1964, and Irwin Schatz, a young Detroit doctor with a penchant for flipping through medical journals, had come across a headline that stunned him. He reread it several times, convinced that he could not be interpreting … Read More
April 2, 2015
(NIH) – Douglas Lowy, M.D., today was officially named the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) Acting Director. NCI is one of the 27 Institutes and Centers that comprise the National Institutes of Health. Lowy has served as NCI’s deputy director since … Read More
March 27, 2015
(Time) – It was an unusual murder trial, given that the victim’s wife and relatives were the killer’s staunchest defenders. But the support of Thomas Youk’s family was not enough to keep Jack Kevorkian out of prison. On this day, … Read More
March 24, 2015
(New York Times) – TWO years ago I wrote about my choice to have a preventive double mastectomy. A simple blood test had revealed that I carried a mutation in the BRCA1 gene. It gave me an estimated 87 percent … Read More
March 23, 2015
(Washington Post) – A Christian author and blogger with terminal cancer who tried to persuade Brittany Maynard to reconsider her November decision to die through doctor-assisted suicide, has died. Maynard, 29, made headlines because she chose to die on Nov. … Read More
March 19, 2015
(The Cavalier Daily) – John D. Arras, University Porterfield professor of biomedical ethics and of philosophy and public health sciences, died of a stroke Mar. 16 in Galveston, Texas while on a spring break vacation. Arras authored numerous articles on … Read More
March 16, 2015
(NPR) – After his diagnosis, Pratchett became an inspiration to dementia patients and an advocate for physician-assisted suicide for those suffering terminal illnesses. In 2011, he told NPR, “I believe everyone should have a good death. … The ideal death, … Read More
March 12, 2015
(New York Times) – John D. Arras, a plain-spoken philosopher who preached that doctors should consider fairness and morality, as well as medical issues, in making life-or-death decisions about patient care, died on Monday in Galveston, Tex. He was 69. … Read More
March 12, 2015
(People) – A Pennsylvania judge is set to make a final decision Wednesday on whether Sherri Shepherd is the legal mother of a 7-month-old baby born via surrogate last August. “We believe it’s in this child’s best interest to have … Read More
March 9, 2015
(Medical Xpress) – Author and surgeon Atul Gawande, MD, MPH, described how witnessing the untimely and inevitable passing of patients, friends and his father revealed to him the shortcomings of the American medical system’s and society’s approach to dying. “I … Read More
March 5, 2015
(NIH) – Harold Varmus, M.D., who has led the National Cancer Institute (NCI) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for nearly five years, announced today that he will step down from his post, effective March 31, 2015. “It has … Read More
February 25, 2015
(Quartz) – The very first place we’ve gone is to non-technology innovations. Such as, what are the 19 critical things that have to happen when the patient comes in an operating room and goes under anesthesia? When the incision is … Read More
February 24, 2015
(New York Times) – Dr. John Willke, an obstetrician who helped shape the modern anti-abortion movement with ideas including a belief that a woman can resist conception from a sexual assault, has died, his daughter said Saturday. He was 89. … Read More
February 16, 2015
(The Telegraph) – Mary Portas has disclosed how her own brother helped her become a mother for the third time, after becoming a donor for an IVF procedure. Portas, nicknamed the “Queen of Shops”, has told how her wife Melanie … Read More
February 11, 2015
(The Wall Street Journal) – J. Craig Venter is in the life business. The co-founder and chief executive of Human Longevity Inc. has had his hand in any number of projects related to the nuts and bolts of existence—from sequencing … Read More
February 10, 2015
(The Guardian) – Pincus, Rock, and two remarkable women – the birth control pioneers Margaret Sanger and Katharine McCormick – are at the heart of this brilliant book by American journalist Jonathan Eig. It opens with a meeting in New … Read More
February 5, 2015
(New York Times) – Dr. Margaret Hamburg, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, who led the agency for nearly six years through a period of rapid change in medical science, announced Thursday that she is stepping down.
February 3, 2015
(Time) – The father of the birth control pill — who died Jan. 30 — was part of the extensive history of people trying to prevent pregnancy. Writing in the New York Review of Books last year, Carl Djerassi declared … Read More
January 27, 2015
(Slate) – Answer by Kiel Majewski, executive director, CANDLES Holocaust Museum and Education Center, the only organization dedicated to the memory of the twin victims and survivors of medical experimentation at Auschwitz: In my analysis of Josef Mengele, which I and … Read More
January 22, 2015
(Vice Sports) – After the three-month break, Engelbrecht went in for another checkup. He can rattle off the date without thinking: November 13, 2013, the day doctors told him they doubted he’d ever play soccer again; continuing to do so … Read More
January 7, 2015
(The Washington Post) – Lost in the extensive media coverage of Mario Cuomo’s recent death was mention of one of the former governor’s most enduring achievements: the New York state biomedical Task Force on Life and the Law. During his … Read More
December 3, 2014
(U.S. News and World Report) – The first major U.S. polio epidemic occurred in 1894 in Vermont, with 132 cases. New York City experienced its first large-scale outbreak in 1916, with more than 27,000 cases and 6,000 deaths. By the … Read More
December 3, 2014
(BBC) – Prof Stephen Hawking, one of Britain’s pre-eminent scientists, has said that efforts to create thinking machines pose a threat to our very existence. He told the BBC:”The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the … Read More
December 2, 2014
(Chicago Tribune) – John F. Kilner, Professor of Bioethics and Contemporary Culture and director of bioethics degree programs at Trinity International University, was recently awarded the 2015 Paul Ramsey Award for Excellence in Bioethics by The Center for Bioethics and … Read More
October 28, 2014
(Scientific American) – The first vaccine against polio, developed by Jonas Salk in 1954 while he was at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, registered a success rate of only 60 to 90 percent. Yet the incidence of polio … Read More
