German IVF mum to give birth to quadruplets
A 65-year-old German woman has fallen pregnant via IVF to quadruplets. A 65-year-old German woman has fallen pregnant via IVF to quadruplets, to the surprise...
The complexities of brain death
An international consensus on brain death will be very difficult, say US neurologists. A forthcoming article in the journal Neurology provides insight into the complexities...
Old generalizations never die
The best-known words of America's World War II hero, General Douglas MacArthur, could be usefully paraphrased for bioethics: old generalizations never die; they just promise...
Feverish vaccine debate spreads to Australia
"No jab, no welfare", says government. Last Sunday the Australian government announced a controversial new immunisation policy that makes welfare support for families conditional on...
Unreported clinical trial data “unethical”
WHO has called for the disclosure of all results from clinical trials for medical products. The World Health Organization (WHO) has called for the disclosure...
Bad ideas never die; they just plea bargain
American women may be trading sterilisation for reduced jail sentences. A series of cases in Tennessee suggests that women may be trading sterilization for reduced...
Gene of the Week 2: voting preferences
“Our choices at the polling booth may not be as free or rational as we would like to believe” According to researchers at TwinsUK, a...
Gene of the Week 1: sex offending
“Sex offending is written in DNA of some men” in the headlines after publication of a Swedish study. The father of modern criminology, the Italian...
Should medicine leave the gold standard of randomized trials?
Is it an example of "medical monotheism"? When you google “randomized controlled trials”, you find an abundance of news stories and government agency websites which...
Canadian bioethicist attacks conscientious objection
No doctor should have the right to conscientious objection, says Udo Schuklenk. The Canadian Medical Association is digging in its heels to protect doctors’ right...
Even for Ebola, unproven treatments are dicey, say bioethicists
Focus on other methods of stemming the spread of the disease. In a target article in the latest edition of the American Journal of Bioethics,...
Two anniversaries
Hi there, We are back after the Easter break. I’m afraid that I failed to alert subscribers to the gap in continuity. Apologies. The coincidence...