January 4, 2007
Welby, you may recall, was the terminally ill Italian poet who pleaded eloquently with Italy’s president and petitioned the courts to let doctors remove him from a respirator so he could die. Physician-assisted suicide — which is what a lot … Read More
January 3, 2007
So, the discussion about eugenics, which we got into here yesterday, has continued at The Corner today, and I got into the mix. For those interested, and to avoid a lot of scrolling, here is how it generally went: Derbyshire: … Read More
January 3, 2007
The media and politicians continue to pretend that ESCR will generally be restricted to frozen leftover embryos that are “going to be discarded anyway.” As I have been arguing for several years, this “limited” permissibility is, at most, just a … Read More
January 3, 2007
The CBC asked me make some predictions for 2007 in the fields of bioethics and biotechnology. Here it is for those who may be interested.
January 3, 2007
The cover of January’s Wired is all about the science of human enhancement, and they’ve posted it all on the web. Evolution, alas, hasn’t made us perfect.Good thing our bodies and minds can now be hacked, modded, and enhanced in … Read More
January 3, 2007
Dolly was born ten years ago (last July). Many think she was the first cloned mammal. Not true. She was the first mammal cloned with an adult cell. But that is neither here nor there. The point is that Dolly’s … Read More
January 3, 2007
The policy is part of Henan’s efforts to “keep gender balance among newborns” according to the China Daily newspaper. (BBC)
January 3, 2007
In the United Kingdom, the government has committed to spending $1.3 billion on stem cell research in the next 10 years. Some of the money will support the construction of five manufacturing facilities to produce millions of pure stem cells … Read More
January 3, 2007
In his New Year’s message on Sunday, the outgoing Archbishop stressed that legislation should be enacted to regulate assisted procreation and to protect the rights of the newly conceived. Mgr Mercieca said such a law should leave no room for … Read More
January 3, 2007
The larger threat posed by American medicine is that more and more of us are being drawn into the system not because of an epidemic of disease, but because of an epidemic of diagnoses. Americans live longer than ever, yet … Read More
January 3, 2007
NPR’s “All Things Considered” on Wednesday included three reports on the use of preimplantation genetic diagnosis to screen embryos. (Medical News Today)
January 3, 2007
At what age is a child most ‘adoption-ready’? For British homemaker Wendy Duncan, it was before the first cell of life started multiplying. She adopted an embryo from India. (Hindustan Times)
January 3, 2007
Neuroscience’s ability to observe the brain’s activity brings with it great promise. However, it simultaneously raises intriguing issues that reach well beyond the research laboratory and into the everyday lives of people. It would appear that early into the 21st … Read More
January 3, 2007
In campaign commercials in 2006, Democrats and some Republicans boasted of their support for embryonic stem cell research as a way to find treatments for a wide range of diseases. Advocates of such research say that, despite gains in the … Read More
January 2, 2007
John Derbyshire’s style of arguing is often to breezily skip past concrete issues rather than actually grappling with them intellectually. He does it again in the ongoing discussion at The Corner over eugenics, where he dismisses worries that eugenics thinking … Read More
January 2, 2007
Over at The Corner, there is some back and forth going on about the James Watson Esquire interview that I posted earlier today. John Derbyshire sniffs that the worry about eugenics is overblown, so long as it isn’t state imposed: … Read More
January 2, 2007
If race is the haunted house of American history, Harriet Washington opens the door on the torture room in Medical Apartheid, her blood-spattered history of black America’s long and frequently nonconsensual relationship with experimental medicine. (San Francisco Chronicle)
January 2, 2007
Researchers who have found a way to bypass the legal patent on an expensive drug say others should follow suit. (BBC)
January 2, 2007
Reluctant to get a second opinion? Consider this: Over half of breast cancer patients had their initial treatment changed when they sought a review at a specialty center. But the question remains whether everybody with cancer really needs to go … Read More
January 2, 2007
Research on embryonic stem cells has been a controversial topic across the nation, and it’s likely to again come up in the 2007 session of the Nebraska Legislature. (Sioux City Journal)
January 2, 2007
The year 2006 will go down as a landmark year for Indian biotechnology. Ernst & Young ranked India third in the region based on the number of biotech companies after Japan and Korea. (The Financial Express)
January 2, 2007
Scientists said yesterday that they have used genetic engineering techniques to produce the first cattle that may be biologically incapable of getting mad cow disease. (Washington Post)
January 2, 2007
It began as a renegade movement: spend $3 billion of California taxpayer money to support stem cell research. The idea was to sidestep federal funding restrictions on human embryonic stem cell research imposed by President Bush because the process requires … Read More
January 2, 2007
Scientists have unveiled a new form of IVF which they claim is “better than nature” at getting some women pregnant and does not need high doses of potentially harmful hormones. (Guardian Unlimited)
January 2, 2007
In hemophilia, a mutated gene prevents the production of a critical blood-clotting protein. Treatments for hemophilia and other such genetic diseases, when they exist, may consist of risky blood transfusions or expensive enzyme replacement therapy. But what if the body … Read More
