March 10, 2008
Essay from: Science (March 7, 2008): 1336a-1337a Excerpt: “Being originally from an Eastern European country, I’ve noticed two possible practices in establishing international research collaboration between richer and poorer countries. In the more desirable scenario, investigators from wealthy countries spend … Read More
March 10, 2008
A vast array of pharmaceuticals — including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones — have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows. Officials in Philadelphia say testing there … Read More
March 10, 2008
A thoughtful piece in today’s New York Times has usefully brought the “enhancement” question into general discussion. It is a curious thing how little attention this clutch of questions has received, and how when attention has been evident it has … Read More
March 10, 2008
Catholic Labour MPs opposed to the Government’s controversial embryo Bill will be able to break with convention and withdraw their backing for the legislation, The Daily Telegraph can disclose. In a highly unusual step, Geoff Hoon, the Chief Whip, will … Read More
March 10, 2008
By Leon Kass & Eric Cohen Like the Mitchell Report, most discussions of biotechnical enhancement are preoccupied with the novel biotechnologies themselves. Commonplace in such discussions are quasi-Talmudic (and inconclusive) arguments about whether and how, for example, steroid use differs … Read More
March 10, 2008
MPs are planning a change in the law to allow babies to be conceived from artificial sperm, a move described by opponents as playing God with human DNA. A furious debate is building over how far to leave the door … Read More
March 10, 2008
From embryo selection to abortion, fertility treatment to stem cell research, medical advances have created a furious ethical debate. Now MPs must decide how far science should be allowed to go. Like any other three-year-old child, Molly has brought joy … Read More
March 10, 2008
Yonatan Gher and his partner, who are Israeli, plan eventually to tell their child about being made in India, in the womb of a stranger, with the egg of a Mumbai housewife they picked from an Internet lineup. Women like … Read More
March 9, 2008
We have discussed the issue of a deaf couple wanting to use embryo selection to choose a deaf child before, and now the issue is again being discussed in connection with the UK’s hopeless mess of a bill that seeks … Read More
March 9, 2008
So far no one is demanding that asterisks be attached to Nobels, Pulitzers or Lasker awards. Government agents have not been raiding anthropology departments, riffling book bags, testing professors’ urine. And if there are illicit trainers on campuses, shady tutors … Read More
March 9, 2008
A number of international experts will share their perspectives on the applications of nanotechnology and its potential implications on the well being of society at a public symposium on applied nanomedicine. The symposium, aimed at providing a platform for nanotechnology … Read More
March 8, 2008
More than 100 leading academics have lined up with senior Labour figures in calling on Gordon Brown to grant a free vote in the Commons on embryo research. In a letter to The Times today the 108 university professors – … Read More
March 7, 2008
This week Oregon state will begin conducting a lottery with the prize being free health care, reports the Associated Press. Over 80,000 people have signed up to participate since January, although only 3,000 will make the cut and receive coverage … Read More
March 7, 2008
A key patent on human embryonic stem cells (ESCs) is back from the dead – in a form that seems less likely to stifle research. James Thomson of the University of Wisconsin-Madison isolated the first human ESCs in 1998. This … Read More
March 7, 2008
Blood stem cells, which later differentiate into all types of blood cells, originate and are nurtured in the placenta, a U.S. study finds. This finding may help researchers replicate the specific embryonic microenvironment necessary to grow blood stem cells in … Read More
March 7, 2008
A Californian biotech company claims that it has used carbon nanotubes to ‘reprogramme’ adult human cells to an embryonic-like state — a breakthrough that removes the elevated risk of cancer that blights other techniques. But uncertainties about the cells, which … Read More
March 7, 2008
Brazil’s Supreme Court was set to decide if scientists in Latin America’s largest country should be allowed to conduct embryonic stem cell research, which some scientists believe could lead to cures for diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. The court’s … Read More
March 6, 2008
Government health officials have conceded that childhood vaccines worsened a rare, underlying disorder that ultimately led to autism-like symptoms in a Georgia girl, and that she should be paid from a federal vaccine-injury fund. Thousands of families are seeking compensation … Read More
March 6, 2008
Scientists can accurately predict which of a thousand pictures a person is looking at by analyzing brain activity using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The approach should shed light on how the brain processes visual information, and it might one … Read More
March 5, 2008
The media like to portray opponents of assisted suicide as almost all conservative, religious, and pro life on abortion. That has never been true. Medical professional organizations–which are secular and support abortion rights–have always opposed legalization. Disability rights activists are, … Read More
March 5, 2008
I have written about Haleigh Poutre nationally and several times here at SHS (here, here, here as examples), but this bears repetition until it finally sinks in. Scenario: Child badly beaten. Within a week or so Haleigh’s doctors write her … Read More
March 4, 2008
If anyone thought that the international death with dignity crowd would allow Washington voters to decide for themselves whether to legalize assisted suicide, they were living in a fantasy world. The campaign was barely born last November and the Oregon … Read More
March 4, 2008
Oregon has been trying to insure the uninsured in the state who do not qualify for its (rationed) Medicaid program. So many people want to sign up for subsidized insurance that the state his holding a lottery. From the story: … Read More
March 4, 2008
Here are some more important points in the newly released study, which I discussed more extensively here, that I think deserve special note. It turns out doctors have written lethal prescriptions for patients who weren’t yet suffering serious symptoms of … Read More
March 4, 2008
Assisted suicide advocates, when they are not striving to word engineer through use of the gooey euphemism “physician assisted death (PAD)”–which, alas, has been picked up by some professional journal authors–use scare tactics about unrelievable pain to sell the agenda. … Read More
