December 15, 2006
If you’re promised an organ for a transplant in New York, that doesn’t mean you own it. Citing 17th-century British common law on grave robbing, the state’s highest court unanimously ruled Thursday that a Florida man did not own a … Read More
December 15, 2006
The world’s first cloned cat just became a mother — and she even did it without test tubes. Copy Cat, who was cloned by Texas A&M University researchers in 2001, had three kittens in September. Mother and kittens are doing … Read More
December 15, 2006
Hospitals and nursing homes aren’t doing enough to protect patients from serial killers on staff, according to a new report that calls for major changes in the way medical centers operate. (USA Today)
December 14, 2006
The news reports about Jack Kevorkian’s “career” as an assisted suicide faclitator, what he would call an “obitiatrist,” are so sanitized or inaccurate that I had to respond. Here it is, at the Daily Standard. The media reports, beyond being … Read More
December 14, 2006
Regarding the AP’s erroneous reporting of Jack Kevorkian assisting the “terminally ill,” in yesterday’s report about K’s pending parole. Stephen Drake of Not Dead Yet was on the case and seems to have gotten the AP to change the story. … Read More
December 14, 2006
Now found in hair follicles. Positive early tests in mice for the potential treatment of spinal cord injury. Amazing.
December 14, 2006
Healthcare clusters, containing both public and private hospitals, medical centres and research facilities, will be developed in the next few years. These clusters, and a S$1.5 billion investment in clinical research, are two ways the Health Ministry hopes to support … Read More
December 14, 2006
Regulators are issuing fewer citations to drug companies for false and misleading advertisements and are taking longer to do it, a congressional report says. With annual spending on direct-to-consumer drug advertisements at $4.2 billion and growing, the government has limited … Read More
December 14, 2006
When public and private institutions work hand in hand with government regulators, modern biotechnology can effectively address concerns regarding health, agriculture and the environment in a socially acceptable fashion. But with a caveat. The biotech train is not out of … Read More
December 14, 2006
In a packed hearing room at the Food and Drug Administration last week, a panel of cardiac experts met to consider what was obviously an important question: Has one of the most popular treatments for heart disease in fact been … Read More
December 14, 2006
Tell your doctor to take his time during your next colonoscopy. Those who spent less than the recommended six minutes on the crucial part of the exam found one-fourth as many precancerous growths than those who lingered longer with the … Read More
December 14, 2006
British couples desperate for a baby are travelling abroad for fertility treatment because of a shortage of egg donors in the UK. (BBC)
December 14, 2006
For years, patients and many doctors assumed that a colonoscopy was a colonoscopy. Patients who had one seldom questioned how well it was done. The expectation was that the doctor conducting the exam would find and cut out any polyps, … Read More
December 14, 2006
Americans’ support for stem cell research has declined slightly, reversing a three-year trend, but an overwhelming majority paradoxically supports the use of such cells in pursuit of treatment for themselves or family members, according to the sixth annual Virginia Commonwealth … Read More
December 14, 2006
Scientists who are trying to develop molecular machines have spent a lot of time reinventing the wheel — literally making wheels and gears from just a few atoms. The eventual goal is to use such components in nanoscale devices that … Read More
December 14, 2006
JACK KEVORKIAN will soon be out of jail on parole: Let the media races begin. (TWS)
December 14, 2006
Now found in hair follicles. Positive early tests in mice for the potential treatment of spinal cord injury. Amazing.
December 13, 2006
I just received an email announcing the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities (ASBH) National Undergraduate Bioethics Conference (NUBC) International Bioethics: New Frontiers and Emerging Issues March 23-25, 2007 Michigan State University Keynote Speaker: Daniel Callahan, PhD, Director, The Hastings … Read More
December 13, 2006
The murderer Jack Kevorkian is going to be paroled in June. He promises not to assist any more suicides. But that doesn’t mean he won’t be lionized in the press. The media love outlaws of a certain kind. I am … Read More
December 13, 2006
The Italian Supreme Court is going to hear a case about whether a patient should have the right to refuse unwanted life-sustaining medical treatment (a matter already settled in the United States). This isn’t euthanasia, as currently understood, which involves … Read More
December 13, 2006
The newest edition of my podcast Brave New Bioethics is now up. Using my earlier First Thing blog entry as my script, I compare the love of a father whose son has Down syndrome with the infanticide permissiveness of bioethicist … Read More
December 13, 2006
New research offers this warning to consumers shopping for top-notch hospitals: Many that are highly rated by government regulators only have marginally lower patient death rates. (MSNBC)
December 13, 2006
A dozen years after Congress rejected a Clinton administration plan for universal health care, an Oregon Democrat is readying a proposal to provide health care coverage to all Americans through a pool of private insurance plans. (AP)
December 13, 2006
The high-profile case of a terminally ill man whose request to die is now before a Rome judge has sparked a heated debate in Italy over euthanasia and life-sustaining medical therapy. (ANSA.it)
December 13, 2006
Allowing research into the medical uses of adult stem cells, but not embryonic stem cells, is the equivalent of sending astronauts to work on the international space station with a single tool, according to the man in charge of overseeing … Read More
