March 8, 2010
In the first nine months of Washington’s Death with Dignity Act, 63 terminally ill patients received lethal medication to end their lives. Thirty-six — or more than half — died from ingesting it. Complications while taking the medication occurred in … Read More
March 8, 2010
Not much in the free market is actually free. Should body organs cost money as well? Bioethicists, physicians, and, most importantly, patients and relatives of patients whose lives hang in the balance, are no doubt asking these very questions. When … Read More
March 8, 2010
In the times of social networking, the Internet, and personal information everywhere being made public, there is no question that we are experiencing a loss of privacy left and right. One might say that last bastion of privacy – our … Read More
March 5, 2010
Facebook and other social networking websites are posing new ethical issues for doctor-patient relationships, according to researchers from Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital. Do patients’ “friending”—the act of initiating an online relationship on asocial networking site—doctors violate doctor-patient confidentiality? Should physicians include … Read More
March 5, 2010
In the 1950s, when Dr. Andy Moore’s father was the first plastic surgeon in town, many residents didn’t have health insurance. But Dr. Andrew Moore Sr. believed that medicine was about service. (CNN)
March 5, 2010
AFTER five years of investigation, the Justice Department has released its findings regarding the government lawyers who authorized waterboarding and other forms of torture during the interrogation of suspected terrorists at Guantánamo Bay and elsewhere. The report’s conclusion, that the … Read More
March 5, 2010
Bioethics increasingly has implications for many areas of people’s lives and it is important to identify common ground around which controversial discussions can take place, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told hundreds of students today in New York. (UN Center … Read More
March 5, 2010
Stem cell research offers an ever-shifting battlefield, with vested interests and biologists squabbling over the political, ethical, and scientific merits of different types of cells. Now two recent papers have dragged the new kid on the block, induced pluripotent stem … Read More
March 5, 2010
Is it possible to build supercomputers that can replicate the human brain, or to develop nanotechnology that can lead to an implantable chip for interfacing with neurons and other types of cellular networks? (Newswise)
March 5, 2010
Cramped fingers got you down? Well texters and smartphone users may soon find some relief with emerging technology that essentially uses a skin-based interface to turn the human body into a touchscreen. (TMCNET)
March 4, 2010
Hospitals would be rewarded for reducing spending under the federal health reform plan, but experts say this could distort patients’ treatment and may not account sufficiently for differences between states. Under the plan, the government would give public hospitals 60 … Read More
March 4, 2010
I’ll admit that it may seem odd, or perhaps even unnecessary, to begin a post on a neuroethics blog to query the meaning of neuroethics. Although barely into its 8th year as an academicized field of study, the area of … Read More
March 4, 2010
Americans, always fascinated by celebrity suicides, have a number of recent excuses for sympathetic voyeurism. Andrew Koenig, 41-year-old son of actor Walter Koenig, hanged himself in a Vancouver park after leaving a despondent note. Days later, Michael Blosil, the 18-year-old … Read More
March 4, 2010
March 4, 2010
A bioethics expert is suggesting that women rethink possible plans to donate their eggs to fertility clinics for research or use in pregnancy. Jennifer Lahl of the Center for Bioethics and Culture Network says egg donation is potentially harmful for … Read More
March 4, 2010
A Florida woman tweeting her abortion is trying to take the shame out of the procedure. It’s a high-tech twist on an evolving mission, one that’s had limited success. ( Newsweek)
March 4, 2010
New evidence of brain activity in patients judged to be in a persistent vegetative state should make physicians and neurologists more cautious in arriving at such judgments in the future, according to a Catholic ethicist. (The Catholic Spirit)
March 4, 2010
On wards and in intensive care units, when doctors, nurses, patients and families find themselves at odds with one another, they inevitably turn to the experts of last resort: the bioethicists. (New York Times)
March 3, 2010
Mind-reading is powerful stuff, but what about hand-reading? Intricate, three-dimensional hand motions have been “read” from the brain using nothing but scalp electrodes. The achievement brings closer the prospect of thought-controlled prosthetics that do not require brain surgery. (New Scientist)
March 3, 2010
The Canadian Fertility and Andrology Society (CFAS) supports fully the provision of publicly funded in-vitro fertilization (IVF) and intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) treatment across Canada. Infertility has been defined by the World Health Organization as a disease of the reproductive … Read More
March 3, 2010
Back when I was a medical reporter for The Times, Laurie Strongin and her husband, Allen Goldberg — and most of all their son Henry — became the faces I saw whenever I wrote about medical milestones. I met them … Read More
March 3, 2010
Last week, the American Psychological Association (APA) finally revised its ethics code so that it no longer contained the so-called “Nuremberg Defense,” allowing dispensing with professional ethics when they conflicted with “law, regulations, other governing legal authority.” This clause was … Read More
March 2, 2010
A small study published yesterday in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine reports that more than one in eight parents surveyed considered hastening the death of a child with terminal cancer, with the child’s suffering increasing the likelihood of … Read More
March 2, 2010
The home ministry has revealed the existence of organ trafficking activities involving Malaysian victims abroad. Secretary-general Datuk Abdul Rahim Mohd Radzi said most of the victims were reported to be women and children. (BERNAMA)
March 2, 2010
Dying patients who are sedated too much can be deprived of the chance to make their farewells to loved ones. In Leo Tolstoy’s famous novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich , the title character is a noted magistrate in Russia … Read More
