Bioethics
sporte | October 18, 2006Reposted from the original Digitalbio.
About a decade ago, I took a fascinating summer course at the UW on bioethics. We read about the Nuremburg trials and the Geneva conventions. We learned about horizon problems and eugenics. And we discussed lots of challenging scenarios with genetic testing, autonomy, family relationships, and the problems faced by people seeking to have children, trying to get insurance, or looking for a job.
So naturally, when I started a biotechnology course for non-science majors (Biotechnology and Society) at our community college, I used many of those examples…
j7uy5 | October 13, 2006I ran across a press release (
href="http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-10/uoa-ltf100606.php">1
href="http://www.brightsurf.com/news/headlines/26739/LSD_treatment_for_alcoholism_gets_new_look.html">2)
pertaining to a journal article (‘Hitting Highs at
Rock Bottom’: LSD Treatment for Alcoholism,
1950–1970)
on the use of LSD for treatment of alcoholism. When I saw it,
I
thought I'd blog about it. As it happens, several people beat
me
to it.
Anyway, the topic is sufficiently compelling that I am going to post it
anyway, and try to add a little to what has already been said.…
j7uy5 | September 29, 2006These two things might be connected. The Washington
Post reported yesterday on the findings of a CDC report on
emergency room preparedness. The Economic Policy Institute
reported on further erosion in health insurance coverage.
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/27/AR2006092701831.html?referrer=scienceblogs.com">Crowded
ERs Raise Concerns On Readiness
By Christopher Lee
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 28, 2006; Page A11
Emergency rooms at many hospitals are routinely stretched to the
breaking point, raising concerns that they would not…
j7uy5 | September 8, 2006This has been a topic here at ScienceBlogs, and elsewhere. In
this post, I point out some of the blogosphere commentary, and provide
links to some commentary published in journals that might otherwise
escape widespread attention.
href="http://scienceblogs.com/seed/2006/04/psychiatry_experts_linked_to_d.php">
class="linkTitle">Psychiatry Experts Linked to Drug Makers--
And?
The New York Times reported yesterday that many of the authors of the
DSM-IV, the sine qua non diagnostic manual (I'm 300.00, thanks for
asking) for mental health professionals had ties, either before or
after…
j7uy5 | September 2, 2006The August 31 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine has an
interesting article with policy implications. Unfortunately,
they did not make this one freely accessible.
The authors argue that the increased medical costs that we faced
between the years of 1960 to 2000 have been a good investment.
They point out that the life expectancy in that time frame
increased by 6.97 years. The increase in medical costs per
person, divided by the increased expenditures per person, yields a
cost-per-year-of-life-gained of $19,900.
The Value of Medical Spending in the United
States, 1960–2000
D.…
oracknows | August 30, 2006While I am on vacation, I'm reprinting a number of "Classic Insolence" posts to keep the blog active while I'm gone. (It also has the salutory effect of allowing me to move some of my favorite posts from the old blog over to the new blog, and I'm guessing that quite a few of my readers have probably never seen many of these old posts.) These will appear at least twice a day while I'm gone (and that will probably leave some leftover for Christmas vacation, even). Enjoy, and please feel free to comment. I will be checking in from time to time when I have Internet access to see if the reaction…
j7uy5 | August 28, 2006The
href="http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060821/UPDATE/608210400">Michigan
Civil Rights Commission ruled recently that small insurance
companies that cover prescription drugs must also cover the cost of
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_contraceptives"
rel="tag">oral contraceptives.
Firms with more than 15 employees are already under the jurisdiction of
federal law, so the ruling affects only small companies. But
the ruling will have a wide impact: 60% of firms in Michigan are
affected.
This ruling is consistent with recommendations from major medical…
oracknows | August 23, 2006Note: One year ago today, an autistic boy, Abubakar Tariq Nadama, died of a cardiac arrest while undergoing chelation therapy to try to "cure" his autism. Today, as I am on vacation, I have scheduled several of my old posts on the topic to appear.The investigation into his death is ongoing regarding whether to file criminal charges against the doctor, although it irritates the hell out of me that they are arguing over whether Tariq was given the "right" agent when in fact there is no "right" agent for chelation therapy for autism. The boy should never have been getting chelation to "cure"…
j7uy5 | July 29, 2006This is another upsetting bit of news about our government.
The
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/29/AR2006072900592_pf.html">Washington
Post is reporting laboratory being built in Ft.
Detrick, Maryland. Known as the National Biodefense Analysis
and Countermeasures Center (NBACC), the new facility will conduct
title="Wikipedia link"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_warfare" rel="tag">biological
warfare research "within what many arms-control experts say
is a legal gray zone,
skirting the edges of an international treaty outlawing the…
oracknows | July 17, 2006Via Kevin, MD, here's a Washington Post article describing how the religious beliefs of health care practitioners result in the denial of care. Here are some examples:
Cynthia Copeland also had a run-in with a pharmacist in 2004. He wrongly assumed she was planning an abortion because she had a prescription for a drug that can be used for that purpose. In fact, Copeland had already had undergone a procedure to remove a fetus that had no pulse, and she needed the drug to complete the process.
"I was sitting there in the drugstore waiting and heard the pharmacist say really loudly, 'I refuse to…
j7uy5 | July 9, 2006I wonder how long it will be, before Blue Cross starts requiring people
to fly to the other side of the planet for liver transplants.
href="http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/004054B8-F475-4C40-872D-5E0D91D25B12.htm">Indian
medical care goes globalBy Jagpreet Luthra in DelhiSunday 18 June 2006, 21:22 Makka Time, 18:22
GMT
With hospitals in India's cities boasting first world medical care at
third world prices, the country is poised for a major share in the
multibillion dollar global healthcare market.
Until recently, holistic and Ayurvedic cures that combine herbal
medicines with…
sporte | June 28, 2006Some of us walk by the bus stop and nervously glance at the scruffy-looking man carrying the ragged sign. I try not to breathe through my nose while I read the sign, carefully pretending all the while that I'm not really interested. Ah, it says "Repent! The world will end tomorrow!"
I smile since I always love a testable hypothesis. Tomorrow morning, I will wake up and I will know the scruffy street preacher got it all wrong.
It is "An Inconvenient Truth" that global warming presents us with another testable hypothesis.
But this one doesn't make me smile.
Al Gore has described some…
oracknows | June 28, 2006Damn you, Kathleen.
Every time I think that I can give the whole mercury/autism thing a rest for a while and move on to less infuriating pastures, you keep finding things that keep dragging me back to the pit of pseudoscience inhabited by Dr. Mark Geier and his son David. The first time around, Kathleen found the Geiers misrepresenting David Geier's credentials on published journal articles to make it appear that David Geier had done the work reported in the articles at George Washington University when in fact he had not. I found David Geier's appropriation of the name of George Washington…
oracknows | June 21, 2006It's been a very interesting week for those of us who try to keep an eye on antivaccination warriors who scare mothers with claims based on either no science or bad science of dire consequences that will come from vaccinating their children.
A very interesting week indeed, kind of like that old curse, "May you live in interesting times."
Last week, eight years after his study that set off scare whose repercussions continue even now, Andrew Wakefield was finally called to account for professional misconduct for unreported conflicts of interest and highly unethical and unprofessional behavior.…
j7uy5 | June 20, 2006I'm sitting here, wondering why in the world I wrote so much about a
topic that is of no more than passing interest to me. Perhaps
if I keep writing, I will figure it out.
Note: this will not make much sense unless you've already read Janet's
more recent post on the topic of breastfeeding, here:
href="http://scienceblogs.com/ethicsandscience/2006/06/what_are_the_real_benefits_of.php">What
are the real benefits of breastfeeding? Statisticians weigh in.
You also have to have read the main article she cites, here:
href="http://www.stats.org/stories/breast_feed_nyt_jun_20_06.htm">What…
sporte | June 20, 2006I recently completed a long trip out-of-town, giving a presentation at a Bio-Link conference in Berkeley, and teaching a couple of bioinformatics classes at the University of Texas, through the National Science Foundation's Chautauqua program.
The Human Subjects Protection Course
Before I left town, I had to take a class on how to treat human subjects. It seems strange, in some ways, to be doing this now, several years after completing graduate school, but my experimental subjects have generally been plants, protozoans, and bacteria; with a few rabbits, rats, and mice thrown in as antibody…
oracknows | June 12, 2006When it rains it pours, eh?
While I happen to be on the topic of vaccines and autism again today, here's a surprising story:
Andrew Wakefield, the doctor behind the scare over a potential link between the MMR jab and autism in children, is to face four charges relating to unprofessional conduct at the General Medical Council, it is reported today.
Mr Wakefield, a surgeon who became a gut specialist, could be struck off the medical register and debarred from practising in the UK if the GMC finds him guilty of serious professional misconduct.
Following the publication of a research paper in the…
oracknows | May 2, 2006In the comments of my post regarding Andrea Clarke, the woman whom a Texas hospital is trying to pull the plug on because its bioethics committee has declared her care "futile" despite the fact that she is not comatose and is able to communicate her wishes comes an update posted yesterday to the Democratic Underground discussion boards:
I don't really know how to begin this post. Everything is so different now, than it was before. It's like everyone moved the pieces on the chessboard, while I was out of the room.
First the good news: Andrea's white blood cell count is down, for the fourth day…
oracknows | May 1, 2006A little more than a year ago, the entire nation was captivated by the case of Terri Schiavo. As you may remember, Ms. Schiavo was an unfortunate woman who lapsed into a persistent vegetative state after suffering anoxic brain damage after a cardiac arrest. Her husband insisted that she had stated that she never wanted to be kept alive in such a state; consequently, he fought to have her feeding tube removed. Her parents fought to have it left in. Eventually, her husband Michael Schiavo prevailed, and Ms. Schiavo died on March 31, 2005. In my mind, this was indeed a matter of personal…
oracknows | March 16, 2006Since I've found myself drawn into blogging about vaccines and the antivaccination movement so much, I was interested to learn of a new project dedicated to discussing the ethical issues involved with vaccination being launched at the University of Pennsylvania:
The Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine announced the beginning of an 18 month project to examine the field of vaccine development and use. Plans call for providing an ethical framework to help guide researchers, pharmaceutical companies, public-health agencies, health-care providers, and…