November 11, 2010
South Africa’s largest private hospital group has admitted receiving 3.8 million rand ($550,000) from an illegal organ trafficking syndicate in a scam that included the removal of kidneys from five children. (Sunday Morning Herald)
November 11, 2010
Surrogacy arrangements are set to gain legal standing in New South Wales after legislation passed the Lower House. (ABC News)
November 11, 2010
Customers of Direct to Consumer (DTC) genetic testing companies are generally satisfied with their experience. At least that’s the headline finding of a new study conducted by David Kaufman and colleagues from the Genetics and Public Policy Center at Johns … Read More
November 11, 2010
Living bacteria with artificial DNA, supercomputers designed to function like a real human brain or robots showing human-like emotions. Biology is increasingly engineered in much the same way as technology, while technology is becoming more and more life-like. These two … Read More
November 11, 2010
“Desktop medicine,†a model defined by Jason Karlawish, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine and Medical Ethics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, involves clinicians continuously gathering risk factor information – from a patient’s medical history, electronic medical records … Read More
November 11, 2010
Direct conversion of cell types could offer safer, simpler treatments than stem cells. (Nature News)
November 10, 2010
Nature (Volume 467, Issue 7319, October 28, 2010) is now available by subscription only. Articles include: “Synthetic Biology: Bacterial Cyborg Transmits Electrons,” 1008.
November 10, 2010
Dr. Robert J. White performed his first neurosurgery at age 15 on a frog cadaver in high school biology class. Over the next 50 years, he operated on more than 10,000 brains, one of which accounted for the most ambitious … Read More
November 10, 2010
Synthetic biology is a science that lies at the intersection of biology and engineering – and is therefore quite an intriguing subject for a microbiologist to venture into. The microbiologist is used to seeing cells as complex and exciting organisms … Read More
November 10, 2010
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which dictate what treatments the massive federal health-insurance program for the elderly will cover, is running a “national coverage analysis” of Provenge, the first vaccine approved for treating any cancer. The treatment costs … Read More
November 10, 2010
The Cabinet Office plans to survey victims of major earthquakes and other disasters, including those who lost family members or suffered disabilities, to help draft measures to better care for their emotional needs. (The Japan Times)
November 10, 2010
The UK Government has pledged to reduce prison numbers by diverting mentally ill individuals away from the criminal justice system and into the health-care system. (The Lancet)
November 10, 2010
A man who was injured in a car crash and later misidentified as a cancer patient due for surgery alleged that he was roughed up and illegally detained when he tried to leave the Maryland hospital where he was being … Read More
November 10, 2010
While the UK’s fertility watchdog, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority is in danger of tossed onto the bonfire of the quangos, across the Channel in France, opposition is mounting to creating a government agency with similar powers. (BioEdge)
November 10, 2010
A new survey from the Genetics and Public Policy Centre at Johns Hopkins University has found that customers of direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing companies are generally satisfied. (PHG Foundation)
November 10, 2010
US scientists have been working on instilling ethics in to machines. The research will help robots make complicated moral decisions without interfering with the task at hand. (Mumbai Mirror)
November 10, 2010
Twenty years ago, bioethics and law teamed up to defeat a common enemy — paternalistic medicine that ignored the preferences of patients and their families. In the landmark case, Cruzan vs. Director, Missouri Department of Health, an agonizing case involving … Read More
November 9, 2010
CALL FOR PAPERS AND POSTERS The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity 18th Annual Summer Conference July 14-16, 2011 Trinity International University, Deerfield, IL The Scandal of Bioethics Reclaiming Christian Influence in Technology, Science, & Medicine Forty years after the … Read More
November 9, 2010
The New England Journal of Medicine (Volume 363, Issue 18, October 28, 2010) is now available on-line and by subscription only. Articles include: “Health Care in the 2010 Congressional Election” by R.J. Blendon and J.M. Benson, available on-line. “Writing New … Read More
November 8, 2010
Journal of Medical Ethics (Volume 36, Issue 11, November 2010) is now available by subscription only. Articles include: “A Case Study from the Perspective of Medical Ethics: Refusal of Treatment in an Ambulance” by Hasan Erbay, Sultan Alan, and Selim … Read More
November 5, 2010
A new study from the University of Oxford found that applying electrical currents to certain parts of the brain improved a person’s mathematical performance for up to six months. (ABC News)
November 5, 2010
The Erasmus Observatory on Health law The Netherlands December 9-10, 2010 Conversation topics for the conference include: Who is responsible for rationing (the market, governments, bureaucrats, physicians or others)?; How does it function (explicit or implicit)?; What are relevant and … Read More
November 5, 2010
In a paper just released today, Cohen Kadosh and colleagues (Cohen Kadosh et al., Modulating Neuronal Activity Produces Specific and Long-Lasting Changes in Numerical Competence, Current Biology (2010), doi:10.1016/j.cub.2010.10.007) described how they increased the numerical ability of normal people by … Read More
November 5, 2010
When the Justice Department declared in a court filing late Friday that genes should not be eligible for patents because they are products of nature, Harold C. Wegner, an influential patent lawyer in Washington, did not mince words. (New York … Read More
November 5, 2010
The U.S. military has been on the forefront of medical research for decades. Earlier conflicts spurred discoveries to prevent malaria and typhoid, a sweeping overhaul of triage care and the introduction of skin grafts and morphine. (Wired)
