Lancet denounces doctors’ complicity in Abu Ghraib abuse
Military doctors and medics in Iraq should "protest loudly and refuse cooperation with authorities" if they are aware of "torture and inhumane and degrading practices...
Cures from therapeutic cloning “distant at best”, says Nature
The feverish excitement surrounding therapies from stem cells from cloned human embryos needs "a dose of reality", says a Nature news feature. The recent announcement...
New study doubles number of US deaths caused by hospital error
As many as 195,000 people a year die in hospital because of easily prevented mistakes, says a US health research company, HealthGrades Inc. A 1999...
Big pharma eager to begin clinical trials in India
International drug companies will begin conducting drug R&D in India next year. Up until now, Big Pharma had shied away from doing drug design and...
Chicago IVF clinic claims that PGD does not harm embryo
A leading centre for pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, the Reproductive Institute of Chicago, has concluded that extracting a cell from an eight-cell embryo to test it...
Fears of animal liberation radicals growing in US
The new president of the world's largest animal rights group has vowed to take his group into a new era of animal protection advocacy, while...
Curb potential conflicts of interest, US science boss told
The US Office of Government Ethics (OGE) wants the National Institutes of Health to revise its revised ethical standards so that its scientists will not...
Australian call for a more liberal uniform abortion law
A prominent Melbourne obstetrician and an Oxford bioethicist have called for a uniform Australian abortion law to allow termination at any stage in a pregnancy...
ODD SPOT: letting off steam
Bioethical controversies often generate heated language -- often more heated than enlightened. This extract from a press release issued by the Libertarian Alliance, which describes...
UK scientists given green light to clone embryos
Scientists at the University of Newcastle have been given permission by the UK's fertility regulator to clone human embryos for medical research. The university's stem...
Kerry using promise of stem cell cures to unseat Bush
Touting a particular cure for dread diseases seems an odd way to campaign for president of the United States. But Democratic candidate John Kerry thinks...
Terminal sedation becoming the way to go in the Netherlands
About 10 per cent of all deaths in the Netherlands in 2001 were due to terminal sedation -- drugging patients and stopping all food and...