June 25, 2007
The value of life is one of the most difficult things to quantify under law. In a wrongful life case, the claim essentially is that the person would never have been born if it were not for someone’s negligence. What … Read More
June 25, 2007
State DNA labs will inform Metro Detroit police departments by next week that they have linked 72 cold cases — including murders, rapes and lesser crimes — to known criminals in the state’s justice system. (Detroit News)
June 25, 2007
DuPont and Environmental Defense, one of the nation’s largest environmental groups, plan to release jointly developed guidelines today for evaluating the safety and environmental risks of nanotechnology products. (New York Times)
June 25, 2007
Behind scare stories of building synthetic life lies the issue of who owns the biological parts. (Nature)
June 25, 2007
A moth which has a computer chip implanted in it while in the cocoon will enable soldiers to spy on insurgents, the US military hopes. (Times Online)
June 25, 2007
A debate is raging, pitting patient’s rights against medical research: Should a doctor be able to perform a medical experiment on you without your knowledge? (MyFox)
June 25, 2007
Surgeons in the UK are planning to use stem cells from patients’ own bone marrow to repair the damage caused by heart attacks, in a trial that is the first of its kind in the world. (CORDIS)
June 25, 2007
An innocuous gene-bearing virus injected into the midbrains of a dozen patients suffering from Parkinson’s disease improved the subjects’ motor function while causing no adverse effects, says a new study. (Scientific American)
June 25, 2007
The field of nanotechnology is broad and has the potential to be used in a wide range of industries and fields, but the question is whether it is a good investment. Will it solve fundamental social problems that assure a … Read More
June 24, 2007
The federal government has gingerly stepped back into rating the care delivered by the nation’s hospitals, releasing for the first time in nearly two decades a list of hospitals where heart patients are most likely to die. Officials at the … Read More
June 24, 2007
Columnist Jeff Jacoby has written a very good column in the Boston Globe about the hue and cry among pro ESCR advocates in the wake of President Bush’s veto of expanded federal funding criteria. Jacobi, who inhabits the right of … Read More
June 23, 2007
Get ready for the “manimals.” In Sunday’s Washington Post, Will Saletan describes how some scientists have cut themselves loose from the tether of self restraint and are busily planning the creation of human/animal chimeras with increasingly human attributes. From his … Read More
June 23, 2007
Michael Moore’s controversial documentary, SiCKO will be officially released on June 29, 2007. The film, according to IDMB is “A documentary comparing the highly profitable American health care industry to other nations, and HMO horror stories.” The film looks to … Read More
June 23, 2007
Researchers at a US company trying to push the margins of stem cell research say they have grown human embryonic stem cells using a non-controversial method that does not harm the embryos. They said they grew several lines, or batches, … Read More
June 23, 2007
Vaccine will save patients from worst symptoms of illness. A revolutionary drug that stops Alzheimer’s disease in its tracks could be available within a few years. It could prevent people from reaching the devastating final stages of the illness, in … Read More
June 22, 2007
In the first trial of its kind in the world, 60 patients who have recently suffered a major heart attack will be injected with selected stem cells from their own bone marrow during routine coronary bypass surgery. The Bristol trial … Read More
June 22, 2007
Issue 8(3), July 2007 of Nursing Philosophy is now available by subscription only. TOC: Editorial “Enhancing our central moral understandings of nurses and nursing” by Patricia Rodney, 149–150. Original Papers “‘Faced’ with responsibility: Levinasian ethics and the challenges of responsibility … Read More
June 22, 2007
Forget the TV remote: a new technology in Japan could let you control electronic devices without lifting a finger simply by reading brain activity. The “brain-machine interface” developed by Hitachi Inc. analyzes slight changes in the brain’s blood flow and … Read More
June 22, 2007
I have decided to highlight stories like this because I have concluded that the bitter ethical controversies over ESCR and human cloning have distorted the true picture of what is happening in the exciting field of biotechnology. So much of … Read More
June 22, 2007
I was on a radio program today, and the host played for my comment a shameless clip from an AP report depicting a Parkinson’s patient’s fury at President Bush for vetoing expanded federal funding for ESCR because he believes–because that … Read More
June 21, 2007
This report confirms past research demonstrating that many people diagnosed as unconscious–aren’t, or at least, many who are unconscious eventually wake up. Around a quarter of patients in an acute vegetative state when they are first admitted to hospital have … Read More
June 21, 2007
Issue 10(2) of Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy is now available by subscription only. The entire March 2007 issue is available free online. TOC: Editorials “Technology and the self” by Bert Gordijn and Wim Dekkers, 113-114. “Psychopharmacology and the Self: … Read More
June 21, 2007
Although most patients don’t know it, 21 U.S. states follow some form of an 1880 ruling that says the standard of care physicians must meet by law depends on where the doctor practices, even if, in some cases, it is … Read More
June 21, 2007
The next meeting of the President’s Council on Bioethics is June 28-29, 2007. On the agenda are the following topics: Session 1: The Professions in Contemporary America: Promise and Peril Session 2: The Healing Professions Session 3: Health Care—Who Is … Read More
June 21, 2007
Taxpayers would fund the destruction of human life. The Oregon state House will vote on legislation Wednesday that would allow tax dollars to go to researchers who want to clone human embryos, then kill them for their stem cells. The … Read More
