This Week — CBHD Consultant on Neuroethics Dr. William P. Cheshire, Jr., continues in his Grey Matters series with an essay entitled "In the Twilight of Aging, a Twinkle of Hope."

Podcast available Monday

Quote of the Week —

"This whole issue about doctors being able to make decisions for patients that are the most important decisions in the patient's life … It would be a complete and utter backward step from what a democracy is supposed to be about."

Last Minute Reminder to Register

Are you a Member of CBHD? Would you like to become one?
Annual membership with the Center includes a subscription to Dignitas (the Center's quarterly newsletter) and Ethics & Medicine: An International Journal of Bioethics, as well as discounted registration for all Center conferences. If your membership has recently lapsed or you would like to become a member, please visit our website at: http://www.cbhd.org/membership/.

Summer Internships with NIH
The Office of Biotechnology Activities at the National Institutes of Health is accepting applications for paid summer internships for students interested in gaining hands-on policy experience in a Federal government office in the areas of biosecurity, gene transfer, genetic technologies, and clinical research policy. Applications will be accepted until March 1, 2008.

Emerging Problems in Neurogenomics: Ethical, Legal & Policy Issues at the Intersection of Genomics & Neuroscience
February 29, 2008
Cowles Auditorium, Hubert H. Humphrey Center
University of Minnesota

Medical Professionals Conference: Balancing Faith, Family and Practice
April 10-12, 2008
A Focus on the Family Event
Tel: 800/ 232-6459, or download Conference Brochure

Ethical Challenges in Surgical Innovation
May 8-9, 2008
InterContinental Hotel & Bank of America Conference Center
Cleveland, OH
Tel: 216/ 932-3448

5th International Symposium of the Definition of Death Network
May 20-23, 2008
Plaza America Convention Center
Varadero Beach, Cuba

Emerging Issues in Embryo Donation and Adoption
May 29-31, 2008
Marriot Crystal Gateway
Arlington, Virginia

ASBH 10th Annual Meeting-Future Tense
The ASBH 10th Annual Meeting will take place October 23-26, 2008 at the Cleveland Renaissance Hotel in Cleveland, OH. The Call for Proposals will be open soon on the ASBH Web site and will be open until March 1, 2008. The theme for the meeting is Future Tense. We invite you to think about the many meanings one might extrapolate from this term, for instance looking ahead to the future of bioethics and the medical humanities or what about bioethics and the medical humanities may make the future tense or uncertain or perhaps even looking back over the last 10 years to discuss the major issues and changes, what was resolved and what might the future still bring. If anyone plans to attend the conference please let us know at CBHD (info@cbhd.org), so that we can coordinate an informal gathering time together.

Stem cell hope for bone fractures
UK scientists hope to mend shattered bones and damaged cartilage using a patient’s own stem cells.
They are developing a “bioactive scaffold” to protect the stem cells and encourage them to grow into bone or cartilage when placed in the body.

The Edinburgh University team hope the technique, which uses stem cells from blood and bone marrow, will be tested in patients within two years. Surgeons said it could help repair trauma injuries too severe to heal. (BBC NEWS)

Op-Ed: Defending Life and Dignity
In his State of the Union address President Bush spoke briefly on matters of life and science. He stated his intention to expand funding for new possibilities in medical research, to take full advantage of recent breakthroughs in stem cell research that provide pluripotent stem cells without destroying nascent human life. At the same time, he continued, “we must also ensure that all life is treated with the dignity that it deserves. And so I call on Congress to pass legislation that bans unethical practices such as the buying, selling, patenting, or cloning of human life.”

As in his previous State of the Union addresses, the president’s call for a ban on human cloning was greeted by considerable applause from both sides of the aisle. But Congress has so far failed to pass any anti-cloning legislation, and unless a new approach is adopted, it will almost certainly fail again.

Fortunately, new developments in stem cell research suggest a route to effective and sensible anti-cloning legislation, exactly at a time when novel success in cloning human embryos makes such legislation urgent. Until now, the cloning debate has been hopelessly entangled with the stem cell debate, where the friends and the enemies of embryonic stem cell research have managed to produce a legislative stalemate on cloning. The new scientific findings make it feasible to disentangle these matters and thus to forge a successful legislative strategy. To see how this can work, we need first to review the past attempts and the reasons they failed. . . . (The Weekly Standard)

Monday, February 18, 2008

Lowering Odds of Multiple Births
In the complex, expensive and emotionally charged world of fertility treatment, doctors are sounding a call to arms to reverse the soaring rate of multiple births. (New York Times)

Iraqi Medical System Wrecked by War
Scores of doctors have been slain, cancer patients have to hunt down their own drugs _ even IV fluid is in short supply. On Tuesday, a former deputy health minister and the head of the ministry’s security force will stand trial, a year after they were accused of letting Shiite death squads use ambulances and government hospitals to carry out kidnappings and killings. (Washington Post)

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

French Catholics Seek Legal Status for Embryos
France’s Roman Catholic Church has called for embryos to be given a clear legal status following a court decision that let parents of miscarried fetuses enter them with a name in the official civil registry. (Washington Post)

Stem Cells Repair Stroke Damage in Rats
Human stem cells helped repair stroke-related brain damage in rats, Stanford University researchers report. (HealthDay)

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Stem Cell Therapy Controls Diabetes in Mice
Scientists reported on Wednesday that they were able to control diabetes in mice by harnessing human embryonic stem cells. The work raised the prospect that the embryonic cells might one day be used to provide insulin-producing replacement cells to treat the disease in people. (New York Times)

Luxembourg to become third EU country to allow euthanasia
The bill, which still has to be approved in a second reading to take effect, fuelled passionate debates in Luxembourg, where Catholic values remain firmly entrenched. The medical community was mostly against it. (AFP)

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Ethical principles for the care of terminally ill patients under study
An international congress will consider the topic of care for dying persons. The ‘no’ to euthanasia, and the right to refuse aggressive therapies. (Asia News)

Op-Ed: Where’s The Stem Celebration?
UCLA scientists have reprogrammed human skin cells into cells with the same unlimited properties as embryonic stem cells. The process doesn’t use human eggs or destroy human embryos, so you may not have heard of it. (Investor’s Business Daily)

Friday, February 22, 2008

Each week the top news stories, as determined by the staff at The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity are sent out via email.

[Note: News stories and events do not represent the Center's views. For additional commentary on many of the issues they raise, please see the CBHD web site at www.cbhd.org.]

Please visit http://www.bioethics.com for daily posts on bioethics news and issues.