Bioethics News.
10/25/2013
EU Parliament says other countries spy, but not as much as the UK or US
EU Parliament report says four out of five EU states surveyed carry out wide-scale surveillance.
10/25/2013
Firefox Plug-In Shows Who Is Tracking You
In light of government surveillance programs and other privacy concerns, the average American at least has some level of interest in their online privacy. However, even if people are concerned about their data being taken and their browsing habits being recorded, it is not easy to find out who is keeping tabs on you.
10/25/2013
Radiation can pose bigger cancer risk for children – UN study
Infants and children can be more at risk than adults of developing some cancers when exposed to radiation, for example from nuclear accidents, a U.N. scientific report said on Friday.
10/25/2013
Paying Kidney Donors Can Save $$, Help Patients
Paying living donors for their kidneys would reduce the number of end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients on dialysis and transplant wait lists, and save the healthcare system money, researchers in Canada concluded.
10/24/2013
Dolphin Slaughter Fueled by Illegal Shark Trade
Dolphins in Peru are having their lives cut short as fishermen take to the seas, illegally harpooning and killing the animals in order to harvest their skin for shark bait.
10/24/2013
Arctic Temperatures Highest in at Least 44,000 Years
Plenty of studies have shown that the Arctic is warming and that the ice caps are melting, but how does it compare to the past, and how serious is it?
10/22/2013
Is your doctor spying on your tweets? Social media raises medical privacy questions
Right now there are no rules or even suggestions to guide doctor-patient relationships over the Internet.
10/21/2013
The parental consent dilemma: Saving extremely premature babies by signing forms
Smart people disagree about whether the SUPPORT study was ethical or safe. It turns out that a few more babies in the low-oxygen group died, and a few more babies in the high-oxygen group developed short-term eye disease.
10/18/2013
When Cancer Treatment and Medical Ethics Clashed on the Bowery
It was the 1950s, and Dr. Hudson was trying to prove that prostate cancer could be caught early and cured. But he did not warn the men he was recruiting that the biopsies to search for cancer could cause impotence and rectal tears.
10/18/2013
NIH Scrambles to Catch Up After U.S. Shutdown
Researchers at the National Institutes of Health say the U.S. government shutdown greatly slowed their momentum, and it could take months to get experiments going again.
10/18/2013
Salt guidelines raised to 2,000mg per day as Canadian experts cite existing targets as ‘not feasible’
A group that advises doctors on how to best help patients prevent high blood pressure is shaking up its advice on the amount of sodium Canadians should get in their diets.
10/18/2013
Improving genome understanding
The cost and accuracy of genome sequencing have improved dramatically.George Church asks why so few people are opting to inspect their genome.
10/17/2013
50 million U.S. whites obese; Asian-Americans most fit
The newly reopened federal government offered some hefty news Thursday: the U.S. obesity rate remains substantial, with more than a third of the nation’s adults officially in big-person clothes.
10/17/2013
Improving the quality of clinical ethics consultants
Clinical ethicists play a vital role in hospitals and other health care systems by helping to resolve ethical conflicts that arise between patients, families, and clinicians about end-of-life care and other important medical decisions.
10/16/2013
Medical Ethics And The Blurred Boundaries Of ‘Do No Harm’
A young woman, dying of a cancer, makes choices that test the bounds of autonomous choice and test her physician’s own moral code.
10/15/2013
Hospital CEO Pay Not Tied to Quality
The compensation of nonprofit hospital executives wasn’t linked to processes of care, patient outcomes, or the charity care the facility provided, a retrospective observational study found.
10/15/2013
For Med Students, Love From the Drug Rep
Even though medical students and trainees were interacting with industry less than before, roughly half of all medical students and residents had received some kind of gift from industry.
10/14/2013
Mitochondrial replacement ‘incompatible with human dignity’, say European MPs
A group of European parliamentarians has criticised UK proposals to legislate for mitochondrial replacement therapy (reported in BioNews 711), calling it ‘a eugenic practice’.
10/14/2013
The ethics of animal tests: inside the lab where marmosets are given Parkinson’s
As a national debate is launched on animal research, Robin McKie meets the London scientists whose work goes to the heart of an ethical controversy.
10/10/2013
Doctors: Washington U’s continued use of live cats in pediatric training is cruel, not needed
Washington University’s continued use of sedated cats and ferrets to train medical students how to insert breathing tubes down babies’ throats is cruel, ineffective and unnecessary, according to a medical ethics group pressuring the school to abandon the practice.
10/10/2013
Archaeologists want you to solve this 1,200-year-old Pictish puzzle
A screenshot shows how the Pictish Puzzle program allows users to manipulate 3-D representations of fragments from a 1,200-year-old monument.
10/09/2013
Depressed moms, depressed offspring: An unbroken chain?
The offspring of women who struggle with depression before a pregnancy or after giving birth are more likely to become depressed themselves by the age of 18, says a new study. A father’s postnatal depression also matters, the study found.
10/07/2013
Ethical issues as scientists peek into baby genes
Little Amelia Sloan is a pioneer: Shortly after her birth, scientists took drops of the healthy baby’s blood to map her genetic code.
10/07/2013
Thomas Südhof wins Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
Neuroscientist Thomas Südhof, MD, professor of molecular and cellular physiology at the Stanford School of Medicine, won the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
10/03/2013
23andMe’s designer baby patent is ‘a serious mistake,’ critics charge
A U.S. patent awarded to 23andMe covers a system for using DNA analysis to boost the odds of having a child with particular traits, such as blue eyes or athletic ability.
10/03/2013
Brain problems can linger months after ICU stay
Critically-ill people who end up spending days in an intensive care unit (ICU) often develop thinking and memory problems, according to a new study.
10/02/2013
143-year-old law has Washington treading gingerly during shutdown
Administration officials now live in fear of a 19th-century law that could get them fired, penalized or even imprisoned if they make the wrong choices while the government is shut down.
10/02/2013
Health Exchanges Open for Business—With Glitches
After Scramble to Fix Technical Wrinkles, Online Marketplaces to Offer First Clear Look at Pricing.
10/02/2013
Exercise ‘as effective as drugs’ for common diseases
Scientists claim that exercise may be just as effective as drugs for treating common conditions, such as coronary heart disease and stroke.
10/01/2013
Why Calling Obamacare ‘Socialism’ Makes No Sense
For Obamacare, the bitterly contested issue of the so-called individual mandate that every individual carry some form of health insurance is the hot topic at hand.