January 24, 2025
(Science) – On 2 January, Japan’s regulatory agency issued a news release that startled some scientists: It had approved the antiviral drug tecovirimat, also known as TPOXX, for the treatment of mpox and two cousins, smallpox and cowpox. No treatments … Read More
January 24, 2025
(Optimist Daily) – In a nation known for its relentless work ethic, Tokyo is making waves by introducing a four-day workweek for government employees starting this April. It’s a move aimed at tackling Japan’s record-low fertility rates while promoting better … Read More
January 23, 2025
(MIT Technology Review) – WHO funds are spent on a range of global health projects—programs to eradicate polio, rapidly respond to health emergencies, improve access to vaccines and medicines, develop pandemic prevention strategies, and more. The loss of US funding … Read More
January 23, 2025
(DNYUZ) – ExThera, which has about 50 employees, makes a single product: a filter that it says can be used to remove the tumor cells that circulate in patients’ blood and enable cancer to metastasize. Early last year, the company … Read More
January 23, 2025
(BBC) – When Zhang Junjie was 17 he decided to protest outside his university about rules made by China’s government. Within days he had been admitted to a psychiatric hospital and treated for schizophrenia. Junjie is one of dozens of … Read More
January 21, 2025
(Rest of World) – The country has a dire shortage of nurses, so to fill the manpower gap, it’s using AI for preventive care. Studies show that AI companions like Dexie can be just as effective in reducing loneliness as … Read More
January 17, 2025
(Politico) – Risch said in a statement that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has disclosed that funds from the $5 billion program that helps developing countries combat HIV and AIDS were used to pay health workers who performed … Read More
January 16, 2025
(Nature) – Epidemiological studies have linked dirty air to dementia and other brain disorders. Now researchers are trying to determine how pollutants do their damage, and how much harm they cause. Now, this area of research is getting more notice … Read More
January 16, 2025
(Undark) – The Netherlands allows medically assisted euthanasia for extreme mental suffering. Some doctors question the guardrails. In recent years, Dutch psychiatrists have seen a steep upswing in requests for medical assistance in dying, or MAID, on psychiatric grounds, rising … Read More
January 14, 2025
(MIT Technology Review) – While these embryos persist in suspended animation, patients, clinicians, embryologists, and legislators must grapple with the essential question of what we should do with them. What do these embryos mean to us? Who should be responsible … Read More
January 13, 2025
(Apricitas Economics) – This Thanksgiving, many Americans ended up with more leftovers than usual—the use of recently discovered GLP-1 drugs is rapidly increasing as millions of people turn to them for help in battling obesity and cardiovascular diseases. These drugs … Read More
January 13, 2025
Journal of Bioethical Inquiry (vol. 21, no. 3, 2024) is available online by subscription only. Articles include:
January 9, 2025
(New York Times) – The results of a new federal analysis were drawn from studies conducted in other countries, where drinking water contains more fluoride than in the United States. Observational studies cannot prove a cause-and-effect relationship. Yet in countries … Read More
January 9, 2025
(Wall Street Journal) – Biotech firm sees a growing market, if it can navigate the risks of intellectual-property theft, as well as political pushback in the U.S. While many Western companies are picking up stakes in China, U.S.-based drugmakers are … Read More
January 8, 2025
(New York Times) – Rescuers rushed to distribute blankets and tents to those displaced by the magnitude-7.1 quake that struck Tibetan villages near Nepal, toppling over 3,000 homes. Rescuers working in subzero conditions and bracing winds searched the rubble on … Read More
January 8, 2025
(New York Times) – Reports of a surge in cases of a respiratory virus in China have evoked dark echoes of the start of the Covid-19 pandemic almost exactly five years ago. But despite the surface similarities, this situation is … Read More
January 8, 2025
(New York Times) – Variant Bio, a small biotech company based in Seattle, is using genetic information from Indigenous people to develop drugs for obesity and diabetes. When Stephane Castel first met with a group of M?ori people and other … Read More
January 8, 2025
(NPR) – “We woke up from bombs being dropped on the military base two blocks away [from our home],” says Ali, adding that his medical school and many hospitals were also bombed. “I had to flee my home.” For over … Read More
January 7, 2025
(New York Times) – Venomous snakes bite millions of people worldwide each year, killing at least 120,000. Many of them are poor people in rural areas of Africa without easy access to treatment. In Kenya, India, Brazil and dozens of … Read More
December 31, 2024
(NPR) – On December 27, WHO announced the results from 430 samples: The outbreak was caused by a familiar enemy — or, more accurately, multiple familiar enemies. Patients had acute respiratory infections — think COVID, flu or rhinoviruses — complicated … Read More
December 31, 2024
(Washington Post) – The head of the World Health Organization called for the immediate release of Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, who was detained as Israeli forces raided the facility last week. Other … Read More
December 31, 2024
(ABC News) – A 33-year-old flight attendant, one of just two survivors of the Jeju Air plane crash in South Korea that killed 179 people, is awake and talking to medical staff, according to a hospital official. The survivor, who … Read More
December 30, 2024
(New York Times) – In his decades as a former president, he and his wife, Rosalynn Carter, helped bring lifesaving treatments and sanitation to poor people around the world. Jimmy Carter’s five decades of leadership in global health brought a … Read More
December 30, 2024
(CNN) – Since taking power in 2012, Xi has launched a sweeping campaign against graft and disloyalty, taking down corrupt officials as well as political rivals at an unprecedented speed and scale as he consolidated control over the party and … Read More
December 26, 2024
(Wall Street Journal) – “The Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the National Intelligence Council’s work on Covid-19 origins complied with all of the Intelligence Community’s analytic standards, including objectivity,” the spokeswoman said. But an investigation by The … Read More
