Tag: human

Blog Posts (1)

March 6, 2013

Book Project: writing the future together

Open publication - Free publishing - More ebook Dear Colleagues, In collaboration with the Graduate Campus of the University of Zurich and the OMICS-Ethics Research group of the University of Montreal: You are invited to collaborate for the writing of...

Published Articles (2)

American Journal of Bioethics: Volume 9 Issue 5 - May 2009

Review of Michael S. Gazzaniga Human: The Science Behind What Makes Us Unique Tony Miksanek

American Journal of Bioethics: Volume 3 Issue 3 - Aug 2003

Remember Saddam's Human Guinea Pigs Jonathan D. Moreno

News (9)

September 13, 2012 1:34 pm

Campaign urges older people to become organ donors (USA Today)

The demand for organs is great. As of Wednesday morning, 115,337 people were waiting to become organ recipients, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing, the private, nonprofit organization that manages the nation’s organ transplant system.  “If anybody wants to help save a life, they should go ahead and join the registry,” Jones said. “It takes about five minutes” online or you can do it when you renew or update your driver’s license.

August 26, 2012 5:49 pm

Kidney for Ohio patient's transplant put in trash (USA Today)

TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) – A nurse accidentally disposed of a kidney from a living donor this month at an Ohio hospital, and doctors tried unsuccessfully for at least two hours to resuscitate the organ in what medical experts describe as a rare accident, health officials said.  “Human error rendered the kidney unusable,” University of Toledo Medical Center spokesman Toby Klinger said Saturday, but he declined to give more details, citing the hospital’s investigation into what happened and its respect for the privacy of the patients involved.

July 10, 2012 4:23 pm

Doctor accused of ending patients' lives prematurely (ABC Online)

There are calls for a Queensland doctor to be stripped of his right to practice medicine and investigated over allegations he prematurely ended the lives of patients under his care.  Former Queensland Medical Board investigator Jo Barber says the doctor’s actions are so dangerous he could have been charged with manslaughter or murder.  Ms Barber says there are a number of deaths linked to the doctor, who, after fronting the state’s medical board, was allowed to continue practising as long as he was not working in intensive care.

July 10, 2012 12:30 pm

Bioethicist complains that the rich are getting breakthrough cancer treatments first (Reason by Ronald Bailey)

Ethicists ask whether those with money and connections should have options far out of reach for most patients before such treatments become a normal part of medicine. And will people of more limited means be tempted to bankrupt their families in pursuit of a cure at the far edges?

July 3, 2012 4:55 pm

Confronting the Organ Transplant Gap -- A Surgeon's Perspective (The Huffington Post)

Patients and their families are often outraged that they must wait months or even years for life-saving transplants. I too live in a state of outrage. And here’s why: Every single day in one of the richest countries on Earth, an average of 18 people die because there aren’t enough hearts or lungs or livers to go around.  It’s a problem of simple math. More than 100,000 patients are on the waiting list for solid organ transplants, but in 2011 there were just 28,465 transplants completed.

July 2, 2012 3:42 pm

No clear answers for end-of-life, but conversations can help (pennlive.com)

It’s important for physicians to take care in what kinds of treatment options are offered at the end of life, said Theodore Kaczmar, a neurosurgeon who is on the bioethics committee at Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital.  “We need to ethically distinguish between treatment that has a low chance of success or no chance,” he said. “Certain care options we don’t present to families because it would be futile. It is much harder to withdraw treatment than not to start it.”

July 2, 2012 3:32 pm

The IOC's superwoman complex: how flawed sex-testing discriminates (The Guardian)

This is not science. It is a gender witchhunt, and it is foul play. This is why experts in sports, gender, and bioethics – and those battling discrimination against female and LGBT athletes – have been mobilizing against this policy ever since its basic shape was announced last year.  What’s really driving these policies is suspicion of women perceived as gender “deviant”. We see this all too often in women’s sports when women athletes monitor and denigrate their peers who “play like men” or look too masculine.

July 2, 2012 3:16 pm

Peter Singer: Menace or moral Hero? (The Jerusalem Post)

Welcome to the contradictory world that surrounds Peter Singer, the Australia-born moral philosopher who has been a professor of bioethics at Princeton University in New Jersey since 1999. Loved and loathed, one thing cannot be refuted: Singer, 65, has provoked debate about controversial issues such as infanticide, euthanasia, eugenics and animal rights.

March 13, 2012 4:30 pm

How Engineering the Human Body Could Combat Climate Change (The Atlantic)

The threat of global climate change has prompted us to redesign many of our technologies to be more energy-efficient. From lightweight hybrid cars to long-lasting LED’s, engineers have made well-known products smaller and less wasteful. But tinkering with our tools will only get us so far, because however smart our technologies become, the human body has its own ecological footprint, and there are more of them than ever before. So, some scholars are asking, what if we could engineer human beings to be more energy efficient? A new paper to be published in Ethics, Policy & Environment proposes a series of biomedical modifications that could help humans, themselves, consume less.