Medicine in India #1 – limb surgery
Limb surgery is becoming an increasingly common procedure among middle-class Indians. Limb surgery is becoming an increasingly common procedure among middle-class Indians looking to improve...
Does fear change behaviour?
Bioethicists claim that fear-based public health campaigns are effective and not necessarily stigmatising In 2010 the New York City Department of Health launched a grisly...
Pfizer to stop supplying drugs for executions
But will it continue to supply them for euthanasia? Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has declared that it will not provide drugs to correctional institutions for executions....
Paris conference investigates CRISPR potential
All the highlights CRISPR and other gene-editing technologies hold great promise for treating disease. However, they also provoke significant ethical concerns, especially about germline modification...
One of America’s finest novelists tackles life extension
As Don De Lillo approaches 80, he meditates upon death“We are born without choosing to be. Should we have to die in the same manner?...
Fund-raising drive begins
BioEdge was launched in 2001, in the week that President George W. Bush announced his adminstration's policy on human embryonic stem cell research. That fuelled...
Calls to extend 14-day embryo rule
Policy analysts in the US and UK are calling for an augmentation of the decades-old 14-day embryo experimentation rule. Policy analysts in the US and...
Dutch euthanasia cases up by 4%
Steep rise in end-stage psychiatric disorders and dementia. The number of euthanasia cases in the Netherlands continues to rise steadily. According to the latest statistics...
Overdose deaths are boosting organ donation rates
Public health executives see a big positive in the US opioid tragedies – increased organ donation. The number of deaths from opioid overdoses has skyrocketed...
Existential risk #2: gene editing a potential WMD?
Here’s what a few bioethicists have to say. In February this year, the US Director of Intelligence James R. Clapper named gene-editing technology as...
Existential risk #1: Mass extinction events
Human beings are more likely to die in a mass extinction event than a car crash, according to a new report on existential risk. Eve...
Australian govt report backs ban on domestic commercial surrogacy
... but supports altruistic surrogacy A government report has backed calls for an international treaty on surrogacy and for uniform legislation within Australia banning commercial...