This Week — Managing Director and Research Scholar of the Center, Michael Sleasman, PhD, offers the conclusion of a three part podcast of a workshop, entitled “Thinking through Technology,” that he led at the 2008 Christian Medical and Dental Associations National Conference. In this final part of the workshop he explores a proposal for technological responsibilism.

Podcast

Quote of the Week —

—Dr. Andy Miah, bioethics researcher at the University of the West of Scotland, who is currently in Beijing conducting research during the Games, in "Could the Beijing Games be the First to Feature Genetically Modified Athletes?" Cleveland Leader, August 5, 2008.

Stem Cells Europe
September 1-3, 2008
Amsterdam

Bioethics of Science and Technologies: Problems and Decisions
October 9-10, 2008
Kyiv, Ukraine
Email: Svitlana Pustovit / Leonid Mazur

UNESCO Ethics Teacher Training Course
November 17-21, 2008
Minsk, Belarus

International Conference on Human Rights and Biomedicine
December 10-12, 2008
Rotterdam, the Netherlands

Stem Cells World Congress
January 20-22, 2009
Palm Springs, USA

Drug Discovery Latin America
February 26-27, 2009
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Nanotechnology for the Healthcare System of the 21st Century
March 4-6, 2009
Berlin, Germany

Bioethics Committees in Hospitals
May 17-20, 2008
Zefat, Israel

Public Needs Better Understanding of Genetics, Expert Says
Genetically modified foods, test-tube babies — the details of genetics can be hard to grasp. The president of the International Genetics Federation told DW-WORLD.DE about genetics’ possibilities and challenges. Alfred Nordheim has chaired of the Department of Molecular Biology at the Interfaculty Institute of Cell Biology at the University of Tuebingen since 1997. He was elected the president of the International Genetics Federation in 2008. (Deutsche-Welle)

UK: How health chiefs plan to put fluoride in half our water supply to halt tooth decay
Nearly half our drinking water could have fluoride added to it under a ’secret’ Government plan. Dental health chiefs want to add the chemical to 40 per cent of England’s water supply to combat high levels of tooth decay. (Daily Mail)

Monday, August 4, 2008

Scientists: Humans and Machines Will Merge in Future
Transhumanists, according to Bostrom, anticipate an era in which biotechnology, molecular nanotechnologies, artificial intelligence and other new types of cognitive tools will be used to amplify our intellectual capacity, improve our physical capabilities and even enhance our emotional well-being. The end result would be a new form of “posthuman” life with beings that possess qualities and skills so exceedingly advanced they no longer can be classified simply as humans. (CNN)

Should baby be risked for sister?
Catherine is a little girl condemned by genetic disease to a gruelling regime of treatment. She could be released from it by a sibling, but the sibling is not yet conceived. (BBC)

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

FDA rolls out new conflict rules
The Food and Drug Administration unveiled new, tougher conflict of interest rules yesterday (Aug 4). Key among the regulations was one that prohibits physicians or researchers who have more than $50,000 worth of financial interests in pharmaceutical or medical device companies from offering expert advice as members of FDA advisory panels. (The Scientist)

The Schiavo Case: Are mass media to be blamed?
The study reviewed American daily newspapers that were most prolific about this story: the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Tampa Tribune and the St. Petersburg Times. A total of 1 141 articles and over 400 letters to the editor were analyzed. Never before had the media coverage of such a clinical case been studied so extensively. The accuracy and the nature of the statements on Terri Schiavo’s neurological condition, her behaviours, her behavioural repertoire, her prognosis and the withdrawal of treatment were examined. (Canadian Business Online)

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Skin cells produce library of diseased stem cells
U.S. stem cell experts have produced a library of the powerful cells using ordinary skin and bone marrow cells from patients, and said on Thursday they would share them freely with other researchers. They used a new method to re-program ordinary cells so they look and act like embryonic stem cells — the master cells of the body with the ability to produce any type of tissue or blood cell. (Reuters)

3 Southern California hospitals accused of using homeless for fraud - Los Angeles Times
Facilities in Los Angeles and Tustin allegedly churned thousands of indigents through their sites and billed Medicare and Medi-Cal for costly and unjustified medical procedures. (Los Angeles Times)

Thursday, August 7, 2008

The ugly business of Chinese organ harvests
Hundreds of wealthy foreigners flock to China as a shortcut to the organ transplant that could save their life, but few know that their “donors” are often unwilling death-sentence convicts. A look behind the scenes of this morbid trade. (France 24)

Immigrants Facing Deportation by U.S. Hospitals
High in the hills of Guatemala, shut inside the one-room house where he spends day and night on a twin bed beneath a seriously outdated calendar, Luis Alberto Jiménez has no idea of the legal battle that swirls around him in the lowlands of Florida. Shooing away flies and beaming at the tiny, toothless elderly mother who is his sole caregiver, Mr. Jiménez, a knit cap pulled tightly on his head, remains cheerily oblivious that he has come to represent the collision of two deeply flawed American systems, immigration and health care. (New York Times)

Friday, August 8, 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, Quote of the Week, 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.

Printer- Friendly Version

Send Page To a Friend

Copyright © 1994 - 2008 by The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity

The contents of this article do not necessarily reflect the opinions of CBHD, its staff, board or supporters. Permission to reprint granted as long as The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity and the web address for this article is referenced.