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Bioethics news.

CRISPR’s unwanted anniversary
There are key moments in the history of every disruptive technology that can make or break its public perception and acceptance. For CRISPR-based genome editing, such a moment occurred 1 year ago—an unsettling push into an era that will test how society decides to use this revolutionary technology.
Science Mag , 11/15/2019
Patient Care Is Wrenching: A Psychiatrist, a Nurse and a Doctor Bare All
Three books – written by a doctor, psychiatrist, and nurse – shine light on the emotional toll of providing care for critically ill patients.
The New York Times, 11/14/2019
Google to Store and Analyze Millions of Health Records
The tech company’s deal with Ascension is part of a push to use artificial intelligence to aid health services.
The New York Times, 11/13/2019
Science chief at NIH drug abuse institute resigned after sexual misconduct probe
In August, Antonello Bonci, scientific director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), resigned, and the agency’s director told employees in an email that Bonci would be running an addiction institute in Florida. Science has learned that Bonci’s departure followed an investigation spurred by an internal complaint, which alleged that he sexually targeted a trainee and later directed...
Science Mag , 11/12/2019
‘There’s no such thing as anonymity’: With consumer DNA tests, sperm banks reconsider long-held promises to donors
The rise of consumer genetic tests — which allow people to connect with relatives they never knew they had, including some who never intended to be found in the first place — is forcing sperm donation clinics to confront the fact that it is now virtually impossible to guarantee anonymity to their clients. Instead, sites like 23andMe and Ancestry.com...
Stat News, 11/11/2019
Precision screening for familial hypercholesterolaemia: a machine learning study applied to electronic health encounter data
Cardiovascular outcomes for people with familial hypercholesterolaemia can be improved with diagnosis and medical management. However, 90% of individuals with familial hypercholesterolaemia remain undiagnosed in the USA. We aimed to accelerate early diagnosis and timely intervention for more than 1·3 million undiagnosed individuals with familial hypercholesterolaemia at high risk for early heart attacks and strokes by applying machine learning...
Science Direct, 11/10/2019
How do researchers acquire and develop notions of research integrity? A qualitative study among biomedical researchers in Switzerland
Structured training in research integrity, research ethics and responsible conduct of research is one strategy to reduce research misconduct and strengthen reliability of and trust in scientific evidence. However, how researchers develop their sense of integrity is not fully understood. We examined the factors and circumstances that shape researchers’ understanding of research integrity.
BMC Medical Ethics, 11/09/2019
In China, Kids Of Unwed Mothers May Be Barred From Public Health Care, Education
Unwed pregnant women in China face a legal gray zone where they are unable to access public services for themselves and their children.
National Public Radio, 11/08/2019
Whose Rights Come First: Doctors’ or Patients’?
Conscientious objection—everybody seems to be talking about it these days. What are the rights of physicians, pharmacists, nurses, or other healthcare workers to say that something may be legal but they refuse to do it?
Medscape, 11/07/2019
New York Law Bans First Responders from Selling Patient Data
After reports some first responders were selling protected health information for fundraising and marketing purposes, New York’s Governor signed into a law a bill banning the sale of patient data.
Health It Security , 11/06/2019
How to Integrate Lived Experience Into Quality-of-Life Assessment in Patients Considering Facial Transplantation
Facial transplantation has gained increasing acceptance as a treatment option to improve quality of life (QoL) for persons suffering from severe facial disfigurement. Despite its growth, the field has yet to establish a consistent approach to assessing QoL in face transplant candidates and recipients that includes integration of meaningful patient-reported outcomes.
AMA Journal of Ethics , 11/05/2019
California’s Preemptive Blackouts Put A Strain On People With Home Medical Needs
The PG&E outages that have affected some 1.8 million Californians in the past few weeks, amid nerve-wracking warnings of wind and fire, have put a strain on people with home medical needs.  
National Public Radio, 11/04/2019
A Gender Divide on Microaggressions in Medicine
In new research, women at medical schools reported that microaggressions were common in their workplaces. Their male colleagues did not.
The New York Times, 11/03/2019
Facebook vows strict privacy safeguards as it rolls out preventive-health tool
Facebook on Monday took a step into preventive medicine, rolling out a new tool to encourage users to get flu shots as well as appropriate cancer screenings and heart health tests. But the success of the new product may depend on whether the social media giant can regain consumers’ trust.
STAT, 11/02/2019
New blockchain ledger will let you sell personal healthcare data
IBM and a start-up have launched a blockchain-based app that lets patients eventually sell anonymized data to pharmaceutical companies, researchers and others while retaining greater control over privacy.
Computerworld, 11/01/2019
Ancestry Branches Out Into Genetic Health Screening
AncestryHealth offers a test for hereditary conditions such as breast cancer or heart disease, building on the company’s tools for tracking family history.
WIRED, 10/31/2019
Fast DNA Sequencing Can Offer Diagnostic Clues When Newborns Need Intensive Care
When Nathaly Sweeney launched her career as a pediatric heart specialist a few years ago, she says, it was a struggle to anticipate which babies would need emergency surgery or when.”We just didn’t know whose heart was going to fail first,” she says. “There was no rhyme or reason who was coming to the intensive care unit over and...
National Public Radio, 10/30/2019
AI is used to mine health data to find undiagnosed patients, offering a model for other diseases
Medical datasets marketed by data aggregators contain detailed information about the health conditions of millions of Americans. With the help of artificial intelligence, they could also be a boon in efforts by both providers and drug makers to identify people who don’t yet realize they have a serious disease.
STAT, 10/29/2019
Millions of black people affected by racial bias in health-care algorithms
Study reveals rampant racism in decision-making software used by US hospitals — and highlights ways to correct it.
Nature, 10/28/2019
Should Family Members See Patients Die in the I.C.U.?
Studies suggest that relatives don’t distract the medical team or interfere with decision-making when a patient is in cardiac arrest.
The New York Times, 10/27/2019
Facial-Recognition Software Was Able to Identify Patients From MRI Scans
Facial-recognition software correctly matched photos of research volunteers to unidentified medical scans of their heads, in a new study of images that are commonly used in brain research.
The Wall Street Journal, 10/26/2019
Prime editing: DNA tool could correct 89% of genetic defects
A new way of editing the code of life could correct 89% of the errors in DNA that cause disease, say US scientists. The technology, called prime editing, has been described as a “genetic word processor” able to accurately re-write the genetic code.
BBC, 10/25/2019
Estimating the success of re-identifications in incomplete datasets using generative models
While rich medical, behavioral, and socio-demographic data are key to modern data-driven research, their collection and use raise legitimate privacy concerns. Anonymizing datasets through de-identification and sampling before sharing them has been the main tool used to address those concerns. Here researchers propose a generative copula-based method that can accurately estimate the likelihood of a specific person to be correctly...
Nature, 10/24/2019
See A Controversial Swarm Of Genetically Modified Mosquitoes In A Lab In Italy
An international team of scientists is conducting a controversial experiment in Italy. The experiment is designed to test genetically modified mosquitoes that researchers hope could provide a powerful new weapon to fight malaria, which remains one of the world’s greatest scourges.
National Public Radio, 10/23/2019
California will be first state to train doctors in how their counsel can prevent gun deaths
The state of California will pay $3.85 million to researchers at the University of California, Davis, to develop the nation’s first program to train health care professionals to help their patients reduce firearm-related injury and death, university officials announced Tuesday.
The Sacramento Bee, 10/22/2019
Russian ‘CRISPR-baby’ scientist has started editing genes in human eggs with goal of altering deaf gene
Russian biologist Denis Rebrikov has started gene editing in eggs donated by women who can hear to learn how to allow some deaf couples to give birth to children without the genetic mutation that impairs hearing.
Nature, 10/21/2019
DNA Tests For Psychiatric Drugs Are Controversial But Some Insurers Are Covering Them
Companies that make genetic tests for psychiatric drugs claim to save patients and doctors from prolonged searching for the right medication and save insurance companies from paying for ineffective drugs. But many researchers say the tests don’t have enough evidence backing them up.
National Public Radio, 10/20/2019
The surgeon general is shirking his job
Like any top-level White House appointee, Surgeon General Jerome Adams serves at the pleasure of President Donald Trump and owes him some measure of political and institutional loyalty. But one thing makes Adams different from the yes men and women orbiting the Oval Office. He is a doctor, bound by strict ethical standards and codes of professional conduct.
CNN, 10/19/2019
An Oncologist Asks When It’s Time to Say ‘Enough’
Throughout my career as a neurosurgeon, I have worked closely with oncologists. Many of my patients have cancer of the brain — one of the deadliest of the near-infinite number of cancers. I have always viewed my oncological colleagues with complicated, contradictory feelings. On the one hand, I’m in awe of their work, which can be so emotionally demanding....
The New York Times, 10/18/2019
Faced With a Drug Shortfall, Doctors Scramble to Treat Children With Cancer
A critical chemotherapy medication is in short supply, and physicians say there is no appropriate substitute.
The New York Times, 10/17/2019