October 6, 2017
(BBC) – A father has lost a damages claim against a London IVF clinic after his ex-partner forged his signature to use frozen embryos. The High Court found IVF Hammersmith was not negligent. The couple broke up in 2010 but … Read More
October 6, 2017
(Fox News) – Posting videos from the operating room may be a creative way for plastic surgeons to market their skills, but critics say some surgeons seem to place entertainment value ahead of medical ethics. A new paper published in … Read More
October 6, 2017
(MedPage Today) – Left ventricular assist devices (LVADs) are used increasingly as destination therapy instead of as a temporary bridge until a donor heart becomes available for transplantation. Now patients, their families, and their caregivers are forced to confront the … Read More
October 6, 2017
(The Conversation) – There have been numerous surveys and opinion polls on public attitudes towards assisted dying in recent years. The British Social Attitudes (BSA) Survey, which has asked this question sequentially since the 1980s, has shown slowly increasing public … Read More
October 6, 2017
(STAT News) – Decades after the U.S. Congress repeatedly reaffirmed its support for publicly funded fetal tissue research, investigators find themselves facing efforts by this same body to prevent this kind of research. At issue is whether fetal tissue research … Read More
October 6, 2017
(The Guardian) – The credibility of stem cell research is at risk because of charlatans and dodgy clinics peddling unproven cures for diseases, according to a group of eminent scientists in the field. Stem cell research, or regenerative medicine, has … Read More
October 6, 2017
(GEN) – cientists have developed a gold nanoparticle technology for delivering the CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing system to cells that, when tested in the mdx mouse model of Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), repaired the faulty DMD gene, leading to improved strength and … Read More
October 5, 2017
(STAT News) – Adults in the United States who are providing long-term care for aging relatives and friends have little training for their stressful roles, but plenty of commitment, according to a poll. The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs … Read More
October 5, 2017
(STAT News) – Only about half of the cancer drugs approved by the European Medicines Agency in the last few years were later shown to help patients live longer or improved their lives, a new study says. Scientists in Britain … Read More
October 5, 2017
(Scientific American) – The RNAi delivery systems remain highly complex—and the most effective technologies are still protected by patents that make it difficult for startups to get into the field. Safety concerns persist with other RNAi drugs in development: Last … Read More
October 5, 2017
(ABC News) – The fledgling field of gene therapy has scored another win: An experimental treatment seemed to help boys with the inherited nerve disease featured in the movie “Lorenzo’s Oil.” Fifteen of the 17 boys treated in a study … Read More
October 5, 2017
(Undark) – We now know that the Holmes opinion was both cruel and false — and is contradicted by a historic marker in Charlottesville, Virginia that has nothing to do with the Civil War, or the soldier-on-horseback monuments that have … Read More
October 5, 2017
(Reuters) – A seasonal flu vaccine that would be the first in the world to fight all types of the virus is to be tested in a two-year clinical trial involving more than 2,000 patients by researchers in Oxford. The … Read More
October 5, 2017
(NPR) – ALD is a genetic brain disorder depicted in the 1992 movie Lorenzo’s Oil, which portrayed a couple whose son became debilitated by the disease. The most serious form of the illness typically strikes boys between the ages of … Read More
October 4, 2017
(CNN) – An unusually widespread outbreak of the plague is menacing Madagascar. At least 24 people have died and more than 130 have been infected with plague across the country, according to the World Health Organization. Plague is endemic to … Read More
October 4, 2017
(Nature) – All drugs pose some risk to everyone who takes them. But women face more danger than men and have a lower likelihood that a therapy will work. Between 2004 and 2013, for instance, women in the United States … Read More
October 4, 2017
(Nature) – Yet between 1990 and 2015, the maternal mortality rate in the United States climbed by 56%, rising from 16.9 deaths per 100,000 births to 26.4, according to a recent study that was published in The Lancet (see ‘Maternal … Read More
October 4, 2017
(New Scientist) – YOUR DNA determines many aspects of who you are, and an increasing number of companies are claiming they can decode it for you. But they may be getting more out of it than you do. Some tests … Read More
October 4, 2017
(Quartz) – Brain-surgery training can be very different from the real experience in an operating room. Cadavers are expensive and so neurosurgeons-in-training typically watch videos of the surgeries, then practice on fruits and vegetables. Doctors at Boston Children’s Hospital wanted … Read More
October 4, 2017
(New York Times) – Medicare paid at least $1.5 billion over a decade to replace seven types of defective heart devices, a government watchdog says. The devices apparently failed for thousands of patients. A report released on Monday by the … Read More
October 4, 2017
(New Scientist) – The big challenge is delivering the CRISPR machinery to tissues inside the body. Editing genes with CRISPR requires at least two components: a protein that cuts DNA and a piece of RNA that guides it to the … Read More
October 3, 2017
The Consortium at UC Hastings seeks a Managing Editor to manage and conduct legal research and analysis for the Source on Healthcare Price and Competition. The Source is an independent, nonprofit initiative of the UCSF/UC Hastings Consortium on Law, Science … Read More
October 3, 2017
The University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law invites applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Law to direct and teach its Medical-Legal Partnership (MLP) Clinic starting in the 2018-19 academic year. In accordance with the Law School’s … Read More
October 3, 2017
(New York Times) – Experts say many people are using a growing stream of genetic data to help them make better health decisions. But they also warn that some consumers may be led astray by genetic findings that are overblown … Read More
October 3, 2017
(Nature) – Common themes among these efforts include rethinking what counts as ‘public’ data, the ethical use of social media and the need to consider a study’s potential harm to wider society, as well as to individuals. Many countries have … Read More
