Bioethics News.
08/15/2016
Health Buzz: Most Children Lack Ideal Heart Health
US News
The cardiovascular health of U.S. children is strikingly dismal, so says a new statement from the American Heart Association. Specifically, less than 1 percent of American children meet the organization’s definition of ideal cardiovascular health, according to statement author Dr. Julia Steinberger, a professor in pediatrics and director of pediatric cardiology at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.
08/12/2016
What Congress is saying about the DEA’s refusal to change course on pot
Washington Post
The Drug Enforcement Administration on Thursday rejected a petition to loosen federal restrictions on the use of marijuana. In making the move, however, the DEA did allow for more facilities to grow marijuana for use in medical research.
08/11/2016
Finding Good Pain Treatment Is Hard. If You’re Not White, It’s Even Harder.
Times
Roslyn Lewis was at work at a dollar store here, pushing a heavy cart of dog food, when something popped in her back: an explosion of pain. At the emergency room the next day, doctors gave her Motrin and sent her home.
08/10/2016
Hypertension is now more common in poor and middle-income countries than rich ones
Washington Post
Middle- and lower-income countries now have a higher rate of hypertension than high-income countries. Worldwide, the prevalence of hypertension is at a record high, according to a new study in the journal Circulation.
08/09/2016
Beyond CRISPR: A guide to the many other ways to edit a genome
Nature
The CRISPR–Cas9 tool enables scientists to alter genomes practically at will. Hailed as dramatically easier, cheaper and more versatile than previous technologies, it has blazed through labs around the world, finding new applications in medicine and basic research.
08/08/2016
NIH Plans To Lift Ban On Research Funds For Part-Human, Part-Animal Embryos
NPR
The federal government announced plans Thursday to lift a moratorium on funding of certain controversial experiments that use human stem cells to create animal embryos that are partly human.
08/05/2016
Medical Studies Involving Children Often Go Unpublished
NPR
Many medical studies involving children never end up being put to use because scientists frequently don’t publish the results of their work, according to an analysis published online Thursday.
08/04/2016
Tapping crowd-sourced data unearths a trove of depression genes
NIH
Scientists have discovered 15 genome sites — the first ever — linked to depression in people of European ancestry. Many of these regions of depression-linked genetic variation turn out to be involved in regulating gene expression and the birth of new neurons in the developing brain.
08/03/2016
Young blood antiaging trial raises questions
Science
It was one of the most mind-bending scientific reports in 2014: Injecting old mice with the plasma portion of blood from young mice seemed to improve the elderly rodents’ memory and ability to learn. Inspired by such findings, a startup company has now launched the first clinical trial in the United States to test the antiaging benefits of young blood in relatively healthy people. But there’s a big caveat: It’s a pay-to-participate trial, a type that has raised ethical concerns before, most recently in the stem cell field.
08/02/2016
New Clues to Depression Spotted in the Genome
Time
Investigators identify the bad lines of genetic code that may lead to the disease
08/01/2016
Transgender identity is considered a mental illness by WHO. But that may soon change.
Chicago Tribune
According to the World Health Organization, being transgender is a mental illness. But that could soon change, as WHO prepares a new edition of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD), its global codebook that influences national disease diagnostic manuals worldwide. The current version, ICD-10, has been around since 1990 and ICD-11 is expected to be approved in 2018.
07/29/2016
Dolly the Sheep’s Fellow Clones, Enjoying Their Golden Years
New York Times
Dolly the Sheep started her life in a test tube in 1996 and died just six years later. When she was only a year old, there was evidence that she might have been physically older. At five, she was diagnosed with osteoarthritis. And at six, a CT scan revealed tumors growing in her lungs, likely the result of an incurable infectious disease. Rather than let Dolly suffer, the vets put her to rest.
07/28/2016
Europe overhauls rules for ‘first-in-human’ trials in wake of French disaster
Science
The European Union is beefing up protections for volunteers in phase I clinical trials in the wake of a disastrous clinical study in Rennes, France, that resulted in the death of one volunteer and the hospitalization of five others. On 21 July, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in London announced in a “concept paper” that it wants to improve strategies to identify and reduce risks in “first-in-human” (FIH) studies on healthy volunteers. EMA is asking for input from stakeholders.
07/27/2016
Building a Better Human With Science? The Public Says, No Thanks
New York Times
Americans aren’t very enthusiastic about using science to enhance the human species. Instead, many find it rather creepy
07/26/2016
A New Depression Treatment Shows Promise
Time
A new method known as behavioral activation (BA) is effective and can be cheaper than cognitive behavioral therapy.
07/25/2016
The HIV Trap: A Woman’s Lack Of Control
NPR
When you’re pregnant, going to the doctors can be exciting. You get to find out if you’re having a boy or a girl. Maybe hear the baby’s heart beat. But in southern Africa, many women find out something else.
07/22/2016
Mind over gray matter: new map lays out brain’s cerebral cortex
Reuters
Neuroscientists acting as cartographers of the human mind have devised the most comprehensive map ever made of the cerebral cortex, the part of the brain responsible for higher cognitive functions such as abstract thought, language and memory.
07/21/2016
I.V.F. Does Not Raise Breast Cancer Risk, Study Shows
New York Tmes
Women undergoing in vitro fertilization have long worried that the procedure could raise their risk for breast cancer.
07/20/2016
Florida is checking possible local case of Zika
Washington Post
The Florida health department said late Tuesday that it is investigating what could be the first case of locally spread Zika virus in the continental United States.
07/19/2016
Medicine is failing obese people
Vox
Watching a person die from cardiac arrest in an intensive care unit is devastating. It’s especially so when the person is a woman in her 40s who has been smothered to death by her own weight — and we doctors can do nothing to save her.
07/18/2016
Zika Data From the Lab, and Right to the Web
New York Times
Of the hundreds of monkeys in the University of Wisconsin’s primate center, a few — including rhesus macaque 827577 — are now famous, at least among scientists tracking the Zika virus. Since February, a team led by David H. O’Connor, the chairman of the center’s global infectious diseases department, has been conducting a unique experiment in scientific transparency. The tactic may presage the evolution of new ways to respond to fast-moving epidemics.
07/15/2016
Opioid Bill Reframes Addiction As A Health Problem, Not A Crime
NPR
The Senate is set to approve a bill intended to change the way police and health care workers treat people struggling with opioid addictions.
07/14/2016
CDC needs to break silence on gun violence, say African American health officials
CNN
As an African-American man, Dr. Georges Benjamin says he feels like “an endangered species,” due to gun violence claiming the lives of men his color disproportionately to their numbers.
07/13/2016
Red Tape Leaves Some Low-Income Toddlers Without Health Insurance
NPR
Many babies born to mothers who are covered by Medicaid are automatically eligible for that health insurance coverage during their first year of life. In a handful of states, the same is true for babies born to women covered by the Children’s Health Insurance Program.
07/12/2016
Women Doctors Are Paid $20,000 Less Than Male Doctors
Time
In academic medicine, female full professors earn the same amount as male associate professors.
07/11/2016
Juno Halts Cancer Trial Using Gene-Altered Cells After 3 Deaths
New York Times
Three patients in a study testing the use of genetically engineered cells as a treatment for cancer have died from swelling in the brain, dealing a setback to one of the most exciting pursuits in oncology.
07/08/2016
President Obama’s 1-million-person health study kicks off with five recruitment centers
Science
President Barack Obama’s ambitious 1-million-person personalized medicine study began to take shape this week with the announcement of four medical centers that will recruit volunteers starting this fall. A fifth center aims to sign up 350,000 participants by blasting the general public with ads coming soon to your web browser or mobile phone.
07/07/2016
Seniors with access to medical marijuana use fewer prescription drugs
Reuters
Physicians wrote significantly fewer prescriptions for painkillers and other medications for elderly and disabled patients who had legal access to medical marijuana, a new study finds.
07/06/2016
Few Young Doctors Are Training To Care For U.S. Elderly
NPR
At Edgewood Summit retirement community in Charleston, W.Va., 93-year-old Mary Mullens is waxing eloquent about her geriatrician, Dr. Todd Goldberg. “He’s sure got a lot to do,” she says, “and does it so well.” West Virginia has the third oldest population in the nation, right behind Maine and Florida. But Goldberg is one of only 36 geriatricians in the state.
07/05/2016
Sex May Spread Zika Virus More Often Than Researchers Suspected
New York Times
An outbreak of the Zika virus in the continental United States could begin any day now. But while there is plenty of discussion about mosquito bites, some researchers are beginning to worry more about the other known transmission route: sex.