February 22, 2010
Our 4th HEC Swap Shop (HOSPITAL ETHICS COMMITTEE) Rochester, NY April 16, 2010 A gathering of Hospital Ethics Committee members and Clinical ethics consultants to share interesting, surprising and vexing cases. The Registration Form can be obtained by calling Ann … Read More
February 22, 2010
Bioethics (Volume 24, Issue 3, March 2010) is now available by subscription only. Articles include: “End-of-Life Care in the 21st Century: Advance Directives in Universal Rights Discourse” by Violeta Besirevic, 105-112. “A Korean Perspective on Developing a Global Policy for … Read More
February 22, 2010
The Senate State Affairs Committee has voted 6-3 to pass SB 1353, the “conscience†bill, and send it to the full Senate with a recommendation that it “do pass.†“This legislation prohibits nothing, it does allow professionals to opt out … Read More
February 22, 2010
To true believers, including Prince Charles, homeopathy is an age-old form of treatment for a wide range of ills. To most scientists, it is nothing more than water. Today the sniping between the devotees and the denialists became a head-on … Read More
February 22, 2010
Amid court battles and ethical questions, many people have warmed up to the idea of cryopreservation. (The Gazette)
February 22, 2010
A Belgian man who stunned the world last year by apparently communicating after 23 years in a coma cannot in fact do so, researchers say. (BBC News)
February 22, 2010
Medications are rarely tested for safety in pregnant women, but proposed federal guidelines could discourage studies that might offer better information and help ease the worries of expectant mothers, some researchers and ethicists say. (CBC News)
February 21, 2010
Announcing The Healthcare Ethics and Law Institute (HEaL) of Samford University’s McWhorter School of Pharmacy 2010 Annual Conference Are Codes of Ethics Enough? Friday April 9, 2010 8:25 a.m. – 3:45 p.m. Samford University Birmingham, Alabama Conference Special: ASBH members … Read More
February 21, 2010
JAMA (Vol. 303; No. 6; Feb. 20, 2010) is now available by subscription only. Articles include: “Surgical Treatment of Obesity in Adolescents” by Edward H. Livingston, 559-560.
February 19, 2010
In 2008 prescription medications accounted for $291 billion in sales in the United States. In 2000, the drug industry employed more than 625 lobbyists (1) (there are only 535 members of Congress). Big business. Big money. Big power. Power versus … Read More
February 19, 2010
When it comes to the placebo effect, it really may be mind over matter, a new analysis suggests. In a review of recent research, international experts say there is increasing evidence that fake treatments, or placebos, have an actual biological … Read More
February 19, 2010
Intersex Initiative and I join other intersex activists, bioethicists, scholars, and Advocates for Informed Choice a national legal organization that advocates for children born with intersex conditions (or disorders of sex development) in challenging the apparent large-scale “research” involving hundreds … Read More
February 18, 2010
Korean scientists are moving closer to cloning embryonic stem cells, the unprecedented breakthrough that their compatriot and disgraced scientist Hwang Woo-suk claimed to have achieved in 2004, only to have this disproved later. Currently, a team at the Cha Medical … Read More
February 18, 2010
As the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games gets underway, the first athletes have already tested positive for relatively well-known doping substances. Many of them didn’t even make it to Vancouver, having been screened and excluded in advance of the Games. … Read More
February 18, 2010
A UCSF team, led by bioethicist Bernard Lo, MD, recommends that the National Institutes of Health ethics guidelines for embryonic stem cell research be modified to better protect the rights of individuals donating egg or sperm to patients undergoing in … Read More
February 18, 2010
In a surprise result that can help in the understanding of both aging and cancer, researchers working with an engineered type of stem cell said they reversed the aging process in a rare genetic disease. (Reuters)
February 17, 2010
Dr. Andrew Wakefield, the investigator whose research sparked fears of a link between autism and the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, was rebuked on ethical grounds in a British medical regulator’s report released in late January. The General Medical Council … Read More
February 17, 2010
As an emergency department volunteer in the late 1970s, I often performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation on patients in cardiac arrest. With my newly minted Basic Cardiac Life Support certification, I eagerly augmented the output of a teenager’s failing pump. I can … Read More
February 17, 2010
When the US Food and Drug Administration agreed to approve the world’s first trial of a therapy based on human embryonic stem cells just over a year ago, the timing of its announcement was intriguing. The Bush Administration had been … Read More
February 17, 2010
A new study has raised doubts about the creation of “ethical” all-purpose stem cells for use in research and treatments. Embryonic stem cells have the power to develop into any of the 220 cell types that make up the different … Read More
February 16, 2010
Offering suicide assistance to everyone over 70 is like cutting a big gap in the dense hedge separating life and death. The Netherlands should stick with the careful euthanasia policy it now has, says Margo Trappenburg. (nrc.nl)
February 16, 2010
A spokesman for the Catholic Church has accused Margo MacDonald MSP of seeking a cheaper alternative to medical care in an attack on her plan to legalise assisted suicide. Ms MacDonald last night branded as “wicked†the comments by the … Read More
February 16, 2010
“There is no one China,†a colleague concluded during a discussion of the current state of regenerative medicine in the country. And it is hard to disagree. The streets of Beijing illustrate the stark dichotomy of a state struggling to … Read More
February 16, 2010
It’s been more than a decade since Congress first officially acknowledged that this country has a problem with race and health. In 1999 the government asked the Institute of Medicine—an independent nonprofit whose reports are the gold standard for health-care … Read More
February 16, 2010
Confusion reigned late last year after the United States Preventive Services Task Force changed its recommendations on mammography, suggesting that most women start routine scans at age 50 rather than 40 and reduce the frequency to every two years, from … Read More
