July 14, 2010
Most people who are dying around the world have inadequate or no access to painkillers, hospice and palliative care, according to a report by the Economist Intelligence Unit on Wednesday. (Reuters)
July 14, 2010
Federal scientists disagreed sharply Tuesday about whether the diabetes drug Avandia is unsafe and should be removed from the market. The conflicting analyses were presented during the opening day of a two-day meeting of scientific advisers that the Food and … Read More
July 14, 2010
The present paper attempts to forge a compromise between those who maintain that stem cell research is out-and-out murder of young helpless human beings and those who favor this practice. The compromise is predicated upon the libertarian theory of private … Read More
July 14, 2010
South Korean doctors will be allowed to remove life support from terminally ill patients after confirming their wish to die, under new medical guidelines on mercy killing. (MSN)
July 13, 2010
TWO years ago, the supply system at Seattle Children’s Hospital was so unreliable that Susanne Matthews, a nurse in the intensive care unit, would stockpile stuff — catheters in the closet, surgical dressings in patients’ dresser drawers and clamps in … Read More
July 13, 2010
As recent medical breakthroughs propel the discovery of HIV vaccines into the realm of near future possibilities, AIDS statistics identify high-risk groups. Yet, will those engaging in risky behavior opt to receive an HIV vaccine? And what about ethics? (Associated … Read More
July 13, 2010
I had vowed to myself not to think about or write about “the internet makes you smarter, the internet makes you dumber†argument. Even when some of my favorite authors (Steven B. Johnson, Clay Shirky, Nicholas Carr, and Jonah Lehrer) … Read More
July 13, 2010
As the saying goes, no good deed goes unpunished. Yet one practitioner’s perceived good deed for a dying patient could be another’s definition of homicide. In No Good Deed: A Story of Medicine, Murder, Accusations, and the Debate over How … Read More
July 13, 2010
Physicians, nurses, and other clinicians readily acknowledge being troubled by encounters with patients who trigger moral judgments. For decades social scientists have noted that moral judgment of patients is pervasive, occurring not only in egregious and criminal cases but also … Read More
July 13, 2010
Nature Medicine (Volume 16, Issue 7, July 2010) is now available by subscription only. Articles Include: “Legalese Creates Consent ‘Conundrum’ in Clinical Trials” by Elie Dolgin “FDA Strengthens its Stance Against Unethical Researchers” by Roxanne Palmer “Gene Test Kit Oversight … Read More
July 13, 2010
Nature Biotechnology (Volume 28, Issue 7, July 2010) is now available by subscription only. Articles Include: “Genetic Testing Clamp Down” by Malorye Allison “Industrial Biotech to Boom?” by Daniel Grushkin “Sequencing Firms vie for Diagnostics Market, Tiptoe Round Patents” by … Read More
July 12, 2010
The impetus for the meeting was a May report in Science in which researchers from the J. Craig Venter Institute synthesized the genome of a bacterium, added it to another bacterial cell, and got the cell to replicate using the … Read More
July 12, 2010
Wallach is a pioneer in the nascent field of robot ethics and has captured the imaginations of futurists with his theories on artificial moral agents and computational ethics. In fact, he designed the world’s first course on the subject at … Read More
July 12, 2010
A study on the genetics of centenarians that was published last week in Science, a leading scientific journal, has come under criticism from geneticists who say it has obvious weaknesses, is probably incorrect and should not have been published in … Read More
July 12, 2010
A report from the European Science Foundation (ESF) released last month examines key issues in human stem cell research and regenerative medicine, which it hails as having the promise to be ‘one of the most fascinating and controversial scientific developments … Read More
July 12, 2010
The NHS in England is to undergo a major restructuring in one of the biggest shake-ups in its history, the government has announced. Hospitals are to be moved out of the NHS to create a “vibrant” industry of social enterprises … Read More
July 9, 2010
THE Welsh Assembly Government will attempt to change the law on organ donation within the next year, the Western Mail has learned. It is understood a legislative competence order will be put forward in the next few months to transfer … Read More
July 9, 2010
Mei Leng Yew’s father has spent most of his adult life in Britain, but he still believes that blood doning is a high risk activity. (Guardian)
July 9, 2010
When Rep. Earl Blumenauer pitched the idea of reimbursing doctors for end-of-life counseling last year to Congress, it met its demise after Sarah Palin claimed it would amount to setting up “death panels” that decided whether someone was worthy of … Read More
July 9, 2010
At UCLA Medical Center, which prides itself on caring for critically ill patients, a recent study showed room for improvement in the way doctors manage dying patients — and the findings likely apply to other hospitals as well, the researchers … Read More
July 9, 2010
The European Parliament asked on Wednesday for a ban on the sale of foods from cloned animals and their offspring, the latest sign of deepening concern in the European Union about the safety and ethics of new food technologies. (New … Read More
July 8, 2010
Stanford’s Drew Endy is an engineer’s biologist. He doesn’t like to wonder at the messy world of evolved systems; he likes to create new tools for building organisms that do stuff for humans. (The Atlantic)
July 8, 2010
Can it be ethical to give girl fetuses a drug to prevent ambiguous genitalia when the drug may also influence their sexual preferences in later life? The US researchers involved reject the idea of using the drug to “treat” homosexuality. … Read More
July 8, 2010
The most comprehensive health study in the UK has reached its goal of enrolling 500,000 adults. UK Biobank volunteers have undergone medical checks, answered health and lifestyle questions and given genetic samples, to be stored for decades. (BBC News)
July 8, 2010
As medical technologies extend the lives of the sickest, medical schools across the country have struggled to find a way to help doctors better navigate new moral quandaries around death and dying. The recent performance of scenes from Greek plays … Read More
