Quote of the Week —

—Mike Leavitt, Health and Human Services Secretary, in "Protections Set for Antiabortion Health Workers," Washington Post, August 22, 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

To mix or not to mix?
SINGAPOREANS are divided over the idea of allowing scientists to mix the genetic material of animals and humans, according the latest findings of an ongoing public consultation. (Straits Times)

Injured? Horsing Around With Stem Cells May Get You Back in the Saddle
Doctors might soon be able to regrow injured muscles, tendons and bones without invasive surgery, simply by injecting a person’s own stem cells into the site of an injury. Veterinarians are already doing it with injured horses, and research into human applications is well under way. (Wired)

Monday, August 18, 2008

Fighting for the Right to Clone
Stem cell and cloning guru Robert Lanza has battled the Catholic Church, the White House, and violent protesters. (DISCOVER)

Stem cell advance may help transfusion supplies
Scientists say they’ve found an efficient way to make red blood cells from human embryonic stem cells, a possible step toward making transfusion supplies in the laboratory. The promise of a virtually limitless supply is tantalizing because of blood donor shortages and disappointments in creating blood substitutes. (AP)

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

FDA Partnering With Medco To Study Genetics, Rx Treatments
FDA and pharmacy benefit manager Medco Health Solutions are collaborating on a two-year, pharmacogenomics-based study that will examine the relationship of patients’ genetic composition with the medications they are prescribed, the Wall Street Journal reports. (California Healthline)

Op-Ed: Blinded by Science: Diana DeGette’s memoir of confusion
In her new book, Sex, Science and Stem Cells, DeGette seeks to relate the harrowing drama of her defense of abortion rights and advocacy of stem-cell research, and especially to describe, as she sees it, the great Republican assault on science in America. (National Review Online)

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Researchers Question Wide Use of HPV Vaccines
Two vaccines against cervical cancer are being widely used without sufficient evidence about whether they are worth their high cost or even whether they will effectively stop women from getting the disease, two articles in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine conclude. (New York Times)

Body May Reject Transplanted Human Embryonic Stem Cells
Finding suggests that embryonic stem cell therapy could encounter the same problems organ transplants do. (Scientific American)

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Japanese create stem cells from wisdom teeth
Japanese scientists said Friday they had derived stem cells from wisdom teeth, opening another way to study deadly diseases without the ethical controversy of using embryos. (PhysOrg)

Op-Ed: The path to assisted suicide
Contrary to an Aug. 11 Times editorial, AB 2747 is a legally confused solution to non-existent problems that opens the way to doctor-assisted suicide. This legislation is not cut and dry; rather, it raises substantive policy questions relating to bioethics and health law. (Los Angeles Times)

Friday, August 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, 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.

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