March 11, 2011
David Goodstein has a unique perspective on scientific fraud, having pursued a successful career in research physics before becoming the provost of Caltech, one of the world’s premier research institutions. As an administrator, he helped formulate Caltech’s first policy for … Read More
March 11, 2011
Britain is considering whether to approve a fertility treatment designed to prevent some incurable inherited diseases under which babies would be conceived from three biological parents. (Reuters)
March 11, 2011
Experts have urged the US Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues not only to help foster uniform domestic and international protections for human trial participants but also to ensure that they are implemented in a measurable way. Although … Read More
March 11, 2011
Nicholas Agar’s new book explores the ethical implications of the use of present and future technologies to enhance human minds, bodies, and experiences. Agar raises enormous and never-finally-answerable questions about the end—or perhaps, better, ends—of human beings. (Science Progress)
March 11, 2011
Hear, hear! Riddle me this, Batpersons: how come no one ever challenged the constitutionality of EMTALA? Is it some kind of truism in American politics that Ronald Reagan could do no wrong? I suppose it would be pretty difficult politically … Read More
March 11, 2011
With every case being so different, economics should not dominate intervention policy for premature babies’ survival. (Guardian)
March 11, 2011
A review of research carried out over 20 years suggests that UK doctors appear to consistently oppose euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide (PAS). The findings — which appear in the latest issue of the journal Palliative Medicine, published by SAGE — … Read More
March 11, 2011
Almost nine years after India’s Supreme Court gave the legal nod to commercial surrogacy, the issue has finally surfaced in Nepal after a disgruntled wife went to court to prevent her husband from bequeathing his property to his daughter by … Read More
March 11, 2011
The European Court of Justice today issued a preliminary opinion that procedures involving established human embryonic stem (hES) cell lines are not patentable. The opinion has wrong-footed stem-cell researchers, who had been expecting a less conservative judgement. (Nature News)
March 11, 2011
Fischbach, R-Paynesville, and Rep. Bob Dettmer, R-Forest Lake, have introduced matching bills to ban human applications of the procedure known as somatic cell nuclear transfer. (St Cloud Times)
March 11, 2011
The drug targets the specific types of seizures that people with epilepsy suffer. Recent data has placed a new burden on these patients already suffering with a significant problem (seizures or migraine headaches). Now, any one of these patients who … Read More
March 10, 2011
Doctors should supervise the ordering and interpreting of tests that are directly marketed to patients, the panelists agree. (Los Angeles Times)
March 10, 2011
In the contentious political environment surrounding health care reform, calls for increased price transparency in health care are among the few areas of general agreement. In each of the past 2 years, leading congressional Democrats and Republicans have introduced legislation … Read More
March 10, 2011
First, do no harm? For some doctors that may not be the case, at least when money is involved. A new study of thousands of doctors found that just 8 of 10 strongly agreed that they should put patient welfare … Read More
March 10, 2011
More than three decades after smallpox was eradicated, an international struggle has reemerged with new intensity about whether to destroy the only known specimens of the virus that causes one of humanity’s worst scourges. (Washington Post)
March 10, 2011
The Food and Drug Administration approved the first new drug for lupus in more than 50 years, a milestone in the effort to mine data from the human genome to discover and develop new medicines. (WSJ)
March 10, 2011
Independent experts who examined the World Health Organisation’s handling of the H1N1 pandemic said on Thursday they had found no evidence of drug industry influence on the U.N. agency’s decision-making in the crisis. (Reuters)
March 10, 2011
Studies are published regularly touting a promising new drug that could bring relief to thousands or millions of disease sufferers. However, published meta-analyses show that only around 5 percent of drugs that show potential in animal studies ever get licensed … Read More
March 10, 2011
The governor of Illinois abolished the death penalty on Wednesday, more than a decade after the state imposed a moratorium on executions out of concern that innocent people could be put to death by a justice system that had wrongly … Read More
March 10, 2011
Aruna Shanbaug, the brain-damaged woman who has lived in a Mumbai hospital for 38 years, should continue to live, the Supreme Court of India has ruled. Since the hospital staff are effectively her “next of kinâ€, a request for euthanasia … Read More
March 10, 2011
Researchers at the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center and colleagues reported today on a new advance in tissue engineering. The team is the first in the world to use patients’ own cells to build … Read More
March 9, 2011
A child with chest pain or tics, a toddler who is limping, a 12-year-old girl with abdominal pain or headaches, an infant whose fever does not respond to antibiotics — these are age-old challenges that pediatricians face. I have been … Read More
March 9, 2011
A Supreme Court of Canada decision that struck down key provisions of the Assisted Human Reproduction Act could increase medical tourism and risk to patients, experts in health policy fear. (Canadian Medical Association Journal)
March 9, 2011
The author, inventor, and futurist says accelerating technology will soon bring us immortality—and all the energy the earth requires. (BusinessWeek)
March 9, 2011
Japanese health officials have suspended the use of two pediatric vaccines as a precaution following the deaths of four young children, according to multiple media reports. (MedPage Today)
