January 21, 2013
Premiering today at the Sundance Film Festival as part of the U.S. documentary competition, “After Tiller†is an intimate and heartfelt look at the four doctors performing third-trimester abortions in the United States, doing so even after the 2009 assassination … Read More
January 21, 2013
The 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, which was handed down on Jan 22, 1973, comes as states have added more and more restrictions — 43 state laws passed last year and 92 passed in 2011, according to the Guttmacher … Read More
January 21, 2013
FDA and its partners in Sub-Saharan Africa have made great strides in improving the oversight of the clinical trials of medical products in development—an important advance in protecting public health in both the U.S. and Africa. (FDA.gov)
January 18, 2013
In 2012 the US patent office published some 4000 patents under its class ‘977 – nanotechnology’. This was a record, up from 3439 the previous year, 2770 in 2010 and 1449 in 2009. (Royal Society of Chemistry)
January 18, 2013
Harvard AIDS researchers gathered at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) last Thursday to mark 10 years of work under a key federal anti-AIDS program that has been instrumental in stemming the tide of a disease that once threatened … Read More
January 18, 2013
When 45-year-old Belgium twins euthanized themselves last month after learning they were going blind, it renewed a debate about the legalization of physician-assisted suicide. (Discovery News)
January 18, 2013
Supreme Court declines case to clarify law on human embryos. (Washington Times)
January 18, 2013
In a first-of-its-kind step towards regulating the practice of surrogacy in India, the Union home ministry has issued stringent guidelines for visas being issued to foreigners seeking to rent a womb in India. The diktat indicates that gay couples and … Read More
January 18, 2013
In the Eastern Mediterranean Region, as in other regions, women and newborn children are among the most vulnerable population groups. Ten countries are still at risk of not achieving Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5 by 2015, and health indicators … Read More
January 18, 2013
A 13-person commission is taking a year to analyze the ethical issues of whether children can participate in research to determine safe dosage levels of an anthrax vaccine. (Miami Herald) Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/01/17/3187334/bioethics-commission-meets-at.html#storylink=cpy
January 18, 2013
Researchers at the University of Edinburgh have found that bacteria are able to change the make-up of supporting cells within the nerve system, called Schwann cells, so that they take on the properties of stem cells. (Phys.org)
January 17, 2013
As Roe v. Wade turns 40, most Americans under 30 can’t correctly identify the nature of the landmark ruling. (Salon)
January 17, 2013
The poll by the Pew Research Center found that 63 percent of Americans believe that Roe v. Wade should not be completely overturned, compared to 29 percent who believe it should be. These opinions have changed little from surveys conducted … Read More
January 17, 2013
Safety fears about carbon nanotubes, due to their structural similarity to asbestos, have been alleviated following research showing that reducing their length removes their toxic properties. (Nanotechnology Now)
January 17, 2013
The thorny issue of assisted suicide doesn’t seem to be fertile, or even appropriate, ground for a television comedy. Not so, says Bob Kushell, a writer for The Simpsons and Anger Management. (BBC)
January 17, 2013
A retired firefighter was sentenced Wednesday to two days in jail and three years of probation after pleading guilty to aiding his wife’s suicide at a state park in San Luis Obispo County last month. (San Francisco Chronicle)
January 17, 2013
For the first time in Japan, an egg bank to be run by the private sector has been established and started to collect ovum donations for the purpose of assisted reproduction. (Japan Daily Press)
January 17, 2013
The keyword for this study, one that doesn’t appear in most news stories about it, is copy number variation, or CNV. The study authors, hailing from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, investigated rare CNVs occurring with high frequency in families that … Read More
January 17, 2013
In essence, doctors using dexamethasone for miscarriage prevention are working from a physiological hunch. The hunch is that some women who seek out IVF have immune problems that cause their bodies to reject pregnancies. If dexamethasone suppresses a woman’s immune … Read More
January 17, 2013
New research from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden found women who became pregnant through IVF are at increased risk for pulmonary embolisms – a blockage of a major artery in the lung – and venous thromboembolism (blood clots) during the … Read More
January 17, 2013
India’s medical tourism industry, pegged at around $2 billion and growing at 20% a year , is set to take a significant hit if tension with Pakistan persists. Hospitals and industry experts fear that visa hurdles may restrict the movement … Read More
January 16, 2013
A provincial panel of legal experts studying medically assisted end-of-life procedures released its recommendations Tuesday, suggesting Quebec could bypass the Canadian Criminal Code — which prohibits assisted suicide — and allow doctors to help some people who wish to die … Read More
January 16, 2013
Drug-induced deaths now exceed all other causes of injury death nationally, including deaths from car accidents and firearms, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. (Huffington Post)
January 16, 2013
The US Supreme Court’s decision last week to throw out a lawsuit that would have blocked federal funding of all research on human embryonic stem cells cleared the gloom that has hung over the field for more than three years. … Read More
January 15, 2013
Tom Beauchamp, Ph.D., an invited speaker at the 12th meeting of the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, has been a Senior Research Scholar at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics and a Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University … Read More
