November 28, 2007
Medicine has long been a mysterious art. Some people are more susceptible to disease than others, and the pills and potions that may help one person leave others uncured. But the past few days have seen steps forward in personalized … Read More
November 28, 2007
A Japanese scientist who helped produce stem cells from skin says controversial research on human embryos must continue for now, as it will take time to put the new breakthrough into practical use. (AFP)
November 28, 2007
Over at The Corner, Ramesh Ponnuru exposes some hypocricy from a Newsweek science reporter named Sharon Begley. When Bush limited funding, it was taking the last hope away from sick and dying patients. Now that iPSCs have been discovered, stem … Read More
November 27, 2007
If stem cell researchers were oil prospectors, it could be said that they struck a gusher last week. But to realize the potential boundless riches they now must figure out how to build refineries, pipelines and gas stations. (New York … Read More
November 27, 2007
In a bid to progress beyond the shotgun approach to fighting cancer—blasting malignant cells with toxic chemicals or radiation, which kills surrounding healthy cells in the process—researchers at the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST) are using nanotechnology … Read More
November 27, 2007
Hundreds of hospice providers across the country are facing the catastrophic financial consequence of what would otherwise seem a positive development: their patients are living longer than expected. (New York Times)
November 27, 2007
Rhode Island Hospital has been fined $50,000 and reprimanded by the state Department of Health after its third instance this year of a doctor performing brain surgery in the wrong side of a patient’s head. (AP)
November 27, 2007
Each growing season, like many other sugar beet farmers bedeviled by weeds, Robert Green repeatedly and painstakingly applies herbicides in a process he compares to treating cancer with chemotherapy. (New York Times)
November 27, 2007
A woman with an artificial arm has been given the sense of touch following a pioneering operation to reroute some of her nerves. Claudia Mitchell, 27, lost her left arm in a motorcycle accident three years ago, but can now … Read More
November 27, 2007
IN his laboratory here at the University of Connecticut Health Center, Dr. David W. Rowe looked at two X-rays that appeared too good to be true. The first showed a mouse that had part of a tibia removed to simulate … Read More
November 27, 2007
If anyone thought that the pro human cloners would fold up their tents and steal away after the news was released that patient-specific, pluripotent stem cells had been derived from normal skin cells, they just didn’t understand how fervently some … Read More
November 27, 2007
With three swabs from as many cheeks, he places his check alongside, and pays the postal clerk the required amount to transport the small packets from California to Sorenson Genomics. According to their slogan, that’s what one does “For questions … Read More
November 26, 2007
Ethics committees overseeing clinical trials in poor countries need reforming to protect participants, argue J. Karbwang and F. Crawley. (SciDev)
November 26, 2007
The Food and Drug Administration has given a Seattle company permission to resume its human tests of an experimental, gene-based arthritis treatment whose safety came into question this summer after a 36-year-old study participant died. (Washington Post)
November 26, 2007
A constable in a sweat-stained undershirt and checkered blue sarong lays a ragged cloth over a patch of mud. He jerks open the back door of a decrepit Indian-made Tata Sumo SUV — what passes for an evidence locker at … Read More
November 26, 2007
Illegal Latino immigrants do not cause a drag on the U.S. health care system as some critics have contended and in fact get less care than Latinos in the country legally, researchers said on Monday. (Reuters)
November 26, 2007
To bring about universal coverage in California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says people must start thinking about health insurance the way they do auto insurance – as a responsibility everyone must shoulder. (AP)
November 26, 2007
I feel like the hoodlum Alex in Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange: My head is held steady by a chin strap, while two technicians grease my scalp with conductive gel and slip on a cap bristling with electrodes. (Wired)
November 26, 2007
Patients with common immune disorders such as multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis could one day be treated with bone marrow transplants, scientists claimed yesterday. (Guardian)
November 26, 2007
The United States leads the world in medical technology, but you’d never know it by stepping into a doctor’s waiting room or hospital admissions office. Paper files. Handwritten prescription slips and patient charts. It’s obvious that the medical establishment has … Read More
November 26, 2007
(SignOnSanDiego.com) Compiled by staff writer John Marelius ISSUE: HEALTH CARE REPUBLICANS Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani: Proposes tax deduction of $7,500 for people who don’t have employer-based health insurance. Opposes government-run program, but favors giving health care vouchers to … Read More
November 25, 2007
Kathryn Tucker, the lawyer for Compassion and Choices (formerly Hemlock Society) and I debate assisted suicide (which she insists on calling “aid in dying”) Tuesday night at the Holocaust Museum of Houston. Our presentations are part of a much larger … Read More
November 25, 2007
60 Minutes and Anderson Cooper did a good job tonight on the hope that now clearly exists for at least some patients in a minimally conscious state. The show focused on the Ambien awakenings, which we have discussed here many … Read More
November 25, 2007
The New York Times has a humongous but very disappointing editorial in today’s paper about the various issues we will have to address as a nation to keep health care costs down. Unfortunately, the editorialist ignores the big issues and … Read More
November 23, 2007
California is once again sinking into the quicksand of red ink. Latest estimates show that the state must cut its budget by $10 billion! This will come out of the hides of university students, poor people needing health care, and … Read More
