Bio-Ethics
The death of Charlie Gard leaves a legacy of thorny questions
August 9th, 2017 Charlie Gard, the incurably ill British infant who died recently, could not hear, see or even cry. But, reports The New York Times, his case captured the attention of the pope and the US president, and raised difficult ethical issues that...Facebook censors page on abortion pills
Facebook has refused to publish the page of an organisation that helps women obtain abortion pills, citing its policy against the ‘promotion or encouragement of drug use’, The Guardian reports. Women on Web, which is based in Amsterdam, helps...
Courts, politicians and doctors failed dying psychiatric patients
February 8th, 2017 The SA courts have not emerged unscathed from the saga of the deaths of 94 psychiatric patients at the hands of uncaring, incompetent Gauteng Health officials. Rapport points out that lobby group Section 27 tried more than once to interdict the...
Clinical trial with 'young blood' to slow ageing is labelled a 'scam'
January 18th, 2017 A pay-to-participate private clinical trial on the potential of 'young' blood plasma from teenagers and young adults can reverse certain of the hallmarks of ageing, has been labelled a 'scam'. Just off a winding highway along the Pacific coast...WikiLeaks releases sensitive personal medical data
The whistleblowing site WikiLeaks has published the sensitive personal data of hundreds of ordinary people, including sick children, rape victims and people with mental health problems, The Guardian reports an investigation has revealed. In the...Social media adept patients raising thorny ethical questions
As more and more sick patients are going online and using social media to search for answers about their health and lobby for specific treatments, it’s raising thorny ethical questions for doctors, reports Reuters Health. Hospitals and other...
Dutch sex abuse victim allowed euthanasia
July 13th, 2016 A sex abuse victim in the Netherlands has been been allowed to undergo euthanasia via lethal injection. The Independent reports that, according to papers released by the Dutch Euthanasia Commission, the unnamed woman in her 20s had suffered...
US medical school scandal over donated cadavers
June 15th, 2016 Donating one’s body to medical research is arguably the ultimate act of generosity, Medical schools, including in South Africa, ceremonially honour the donors, while students are taught to respect the mortal remains that underpin their education....
Pfizer shuts off death penalty drugs
May 18th, 2016 Pfizer Inc has taken steps to ensure that none of its products are used in lethal injections, shutting off the last remaining open market source of drugs ued in executions....First in vitro embryo development beyond implantation stage
A new technique that allows human embryos to develop in vitro beyond the implantation stage has been developed at the University of Cambridge allowing them to analyse for the first time development up to 13 days after fertilisation. Meanwhile,...
Alternative diagnostic methods endanger patients' health
April 27th, 2016 Alternative practitioners also use a range of diagnostic tools which would bewilder every conventional physician, writes University of Exeter Professor Emeritus Edzard Ernst in The Spectator. 'Given that the evidence for alternative diagnostic...
Concerns over chocolate milk and concussion study
April 6th, 2016 Recent claims that a kind of chocolate milk could aid in concussion recovery have come under scrutiny by the University of Maryland where the work was carried out. Stat News reports that a university committee found a 'concerning lack of...
Families not told that loved ones are about to die - RCP audit
April 5th, 2016 Hospitals are still not informing family members that loved ones are about to die and instead 'deal in euphemisms' rather than admitting the truth, The Daily Telegraph reports that an audit by the UK's Royal College of Physicians has found. ...
After an 'ethical Chernobyl', Nobel institute fires surgeon
March 30th, 2016 Dr Paolo Macchiarini a once-renowned Italian surgeon who compared himself to Frankenstein and now stands accused of using patients as guinea pigs, has been fired by Sweden's prestigious Karolinska Institute. The Swedish medical...
NIH reviews use of non-human primates in research
March 2nd, 2016 The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) is to take a closer look at the use of non-human primates in all federally funded US research labs. Science Insider reports that in response to a congressional mandate, the agency will convene a workshop...