August 2, 2007
Donating motherhood for money
Twenty-six-year-old Sushma is a mother of two but she has donated motherhood to six others – as an egg donor. And it has become a means of livelihood for her. (Hindustan Times)
Monthly Archives: August 2007
August 2, 2007
More-Accurate Cancer Treatment
Two patients with the same type of cancer may have very different reactions to identical chemotherapy treatments because their cancers have different genetic causes. Doctors currently can’t predict which patients will have a good long-term response to a drug and … Read More
August 2, 2007
The power to ‘play God’?
Therapeutic privilege means that, at times, your doctor doesn’t always have to be completely honest about what might be the matter with you, writes JUDY GILMOUR. (Business Day)
August 2, 2007
Report on death of Irish IVF patient published
A report on the circumstances surrounding the 2003 death of Irish IVF patient Jacqueline Rushton has been published. The report was commissioned by the Republic of Ireland’s Health Service Executive (HSE), and written by Alison Murdoch of the Newcastle Fertility … Read More
August 2, 2007
House Passes Children’s Health Plan 225-204
Over angry Republican objections, the House on Wednesday passed a sweeping expansion of the Children’s Health Insurance Program, financed with increases in tobacco taxes and cuts in subsidies to private Medicare insurance plans for older Americans. (New York Times)
August 2, 2007
Ovarian Tissue Successfully Transplanted in Sisters
For the first time, a woman whose ovaries were damaged by drug and radiation treatments has undergone a successful transplant of ovaries from her genetically non-identical sister, Belgian researchers report. (HealthDay)
August 2, 2007
Brain-Injured Man Speaks After 6 Years
A brain-damaged man who could communicate only with slight eye or thumb movements for six years can speak again, after stimulating electrodes were placed in his brain, researchers report. (AP)
August 2, 2007
New nanotech gene therapy system created
U.S. scientists have developed a technology that might one day deliver gene therapy by using magnetically directed nanoparticles. (ScienceDaily)
August 2, 2007
Op-Ed: Parents and Parliament: The duty of beneficence as a key to regulating PGD
On 16 July, Progress Educational Trust (PET) held a highly successful debate in London, deliberating the role of parents and parliament in the decision-making process for the use of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). Describing the procedure as a ‘disruptive technology’, … Read More
August 1, 2007
What We Don’t Know About the Injured Brain Can Kill Us
This story demonstrates, yet again, that people who are diagnosed as profoundly cognitively impaired may merely be unable to communicate. A man described as being in a minimally conscious state has regained the ability to talk and eat after his … Read More
August 1, 2007
Or Animal Research and Adult Stem Cells
Experiments on zebra fish have produced a promising adult stem cell technique that could restore vision to the sightless. From the story: British researchers said on Wednesday they had successfully grown in the laboratory a type of adult stem cell … Read More
August 1, 2007
Clueless Bioethicists at JAMA
Sometimes I think that to some bioethicists, it’s all a mind game. The latest example is an article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are on a hunger strike, and the authors are … Read More
August 1, 2007
A Global View: Emerging Technologies and Climate Change
The central theme of this blog has been the need for us to make future-minded choices – and to see the future as an arena for responsibility, as if it were another geographical area of our planet. That is of … Read More
August 1, 2007
Transplant Case Could Affect Donations
Allegations that a transplant surgeon tried to speed a patient’s death to recover his organs could dissuade potential donors at a time when the national waiting list for critical organs keeps growing, some experts say. (AP)
August 1, 2007
Giuliani Seeks to Transform U.S. Health Care Coverage
Rudolph W. Giuliani on Tuesday called for transforming the way health care coverage is provided in the United States, advocating a voluntary move from the current employer-based system to one that would grant substantial tax benefits to people who buy … Read More
August 1, 2007
Investigators Release Report on CCP Organ Harvesting
The World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG) published a new investigation report on July 25, 2007 on organ harvesting from live Falun Gong practitioners. (Epoch Times)
August 1, 2007
Op-Ed: Who’s your daddy? Well, it doesn’ t really matter now
It’s a wise child, they say, that knows his own father, but by the time the Human Tissue and Embryos Bill comes into force, his chances will be that bit poorer. This Bill, which will be going through Parliament in … Read More
August 1, 2007
Is It Time For a Flex Plan?
Some day soon — maybe today — we’re going to have to admit it. We have a new norm in sports. Athletes routinely are enhanced. Many of their achievements are as dependent on technology as they are on talent, dedication … Read More
August 1, 2007
Leave UK hybrid embryo decisions to experts: panel
Experts, not government ministers, should decide what kind of hybrid animal-human embryo experiments to allow in Britain, a parliamentary panel said in a report issued on Wednesday. (Scientific American)
August 1, 2007
Op-Ed: Our Transhumanist Future
The great subject of transhumanism appears to be death, and how to imagine conquering it, in the absence of God. The enemy of the transhuman self becomes the body, which may be why sex figures so little on the agenda. … Read More
August 1, 2007
Op-Ed: Strengthening Ethics At FDA
Prescription drugs bearing the federal Food and Drug Administration’s seal of approval ought to be safe and effective. Yet deaths linked to two approved painkillers, Vioxx and Bextra, show that seal isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. (Hartford Courant)
August 1, 2007
Stem cell dissent roils states
Nine months ago, Missouri voters became the first in the nation to pass a constitutional amendment protecting embryonic stem cell research. Ever since, opponents have been working feverishly to overturn it. (Los Angeles Times)
