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Ethics
Organ harvesting syndicates exploit Kenyan youth
Poverty is driving young men to sell their kidneys to organ harvesting syndicates in Kenya, with one man saying he earned nearly US$1 000...
Wrong family pulls plug on patient after hospital mix-up
In a terrible case of mistaken identity, a hospital in Vancouver, Canada, allowed a family to end life support on a man they thought...
Leading SA medical experts back euthanasia court challenge
Respected South African medical experts, including professors, oncologists, ethicists and anaesthesiologists, have thrown their weight behind a pending court challenge to legalise assisted suicide,...
How Big Tobacco is slithering into wellness industry
Experts say tobacco companies are turning to the booming wellness industry as a way of normalising more harmful products, with some brands obscuring or...
Canada to legalise assisted suicide for mental illness
A new law due to take effect in March has divided citizens of Canada, which already has one of the most liberal assisted death...
Scientists want to double 14-day limit for embryo experiments
While there appears to be some public support for calls by leading British scientists to double the current 14-day limit on embryo research to...
New draft ethics guidelines create confusion
A long overdue and much needed revised draft version of South Africa’s Ethics Guidelines – last updated in 2015 – has been released to...
Time to move past medicalised approach for assisted suicide
Despite growing legal and medical support for assisted dying, many healthcare professionals do not want to be directly involved, but a de-medicalised approach could...
Moral issues not considered in xenograft kidney procedure
An American medical specialist and law expert has raised questions over the recently published case in which doctors at NYU Langone transplanted a genetically-altered pig...
Profit drives over-treatment of peripheral artery disease
A recent report on widespread overuse and overtreatment of peripheral artery disease (PAD) has drawn strongly divided reaction.
The article in The New York Times...
Opening the genetics Pandora box
With the inclusion of genetic screening possibly becoming a routine test in infants in the future, experts warn that the results might not always...
Ethico-legal challenges of tissue engineering
Potential ethical dilemmas could stymie the growth of the engineered tissue industry in South Africa, with moral question marks hovering over aspects like the...
Slippery slope when gene editing advances outpace the law
Scientific development in human genome editing is progressing at a rapid rate, sparking hope and fear in equal measure, and raising the question: is...
UK to begin genome testing on 100 000 UK infants
Despite protests and some mutterings that it’s unethical, a British programme, similar to one launched in New York last year, will begin genome sequencing...
Scientists find successful technique for choosing babies’ sex – NY study
Although the issue of sex selection raises serious ethical concerns, and selection of embryos on the basis of sex, without mitigating reasons such as...
Excessive knee jabs linked to industry's marketing payouts
Researchers in the US found that physicians accepting payments from drug and device companies administered significantly more hyaluronic acid (HA) injections – three times...
Call for guidelines and ethical boundaries in genetic editing therapies
While progress in the field of genetics is being lauded as heralding endless possibilities for the future, reservations have been expressed by some experts...
World’s first gene-edited babies’ creator relaunches career after prison release
The world’s first genetically edited children are living happily with their parents, according to He Jiankui, the controversial scientist who created three gene-edited babies...
Red flags after volunteer’s death in US gene editing study
A lone volunteer, who had Duchenne muscular dystrophy and was involved in a unique study of a gene-editing technique, has died, and those behind...
Biotech company plans to create embryos for organ harvesting
In a quest for novel forms of longevity medicine, an Israeli biotech company intends creating embryo-stage versions of humans to harvest tissues for use...
Euthanasia activist says SA doctors support legalising assisted dying
The former New Zealand professor and South African-born right-to-die activist Sean Davison said 10 doctors from this country had emailed him while he was...
Since COVID, doctors ‘less likely’ to resuscitate critical patients – UK study
COVID-19 may have changed doctors’ decision-making regarding end of life, making them more willing not to resuscitate very sick or frail patients and raising...
Euthanasia activist Sean Davison calls for law change after house arrest ends
Right-to-die activist Professor Sean Davison marked the end of his three-year house arrest sentence on Monday by calling for a law change by politicians...
Renowned medical journal rejects papers excluding African researchers
“Helicopter research” occurs when researchers from high-income settings, or who are otherwise privileged, conduct studies in lower-income settings or with groups who are historically...