Bioethics News

Switzerland plans new controls on assisted suicide

Posted on 2010-10-12 by egle.tuzaite

Swiss assisted suicide organisation Dignitas is under growing pressure, as questions about its finances and urns of ashes found in Lake Zurich coincide with plans for a law that would make it harder for foreigners to end their life in Switzerland. The practice is permitted, the law states, as long as those involved in it are not selfishly motivated and do not make a profit out of it.

Posted in Ethical Issues at the End of Life | Comments Off

German court legalises euthanasia with patient consent

Posted on 2010-10-12 by egle.tuzaite

A top German court has ruled that it is not a criminal offence to cut off the life support of a dying person if that person has given consent. The Federal Court of Justice acquitted a lawyer who had advised the daughter of a comatose woman to cut off her feeding tube. Earlier the patient had expressed her wish not to be kept alive artificially.

Posted in Ethical Issues at the End of Life | Comments Off

Uterus transplantation: ethics and pragmatics

Posted on 2010-10-12 by egle.tuzaite

Swedish media reported on plans of a group of researchers at the Sahlgrenska University Hospital and the University of Gothenburg, to conduct the world’s first ever transplantation of a human uterus.

Posted in Transplantation/donation of organs and tissues | Comments Off

First trial of embryonic stem cells in humans

Posted on 2010-10-12 by egle.tuzaite

US doctors have begun the first official trial of using human embryonic stem cells in patients after getting the green light from regulators.

Posted in Stem cell research | Comments Off

Stem Cells Without Embryo Loss

Posted on 2010-10-12 by egle.tuzaite

A small biotech company says it has found a way to produce human embryonic stem cells without destroying an embryo. That the prospect does not satisfy many religious conservatives who have opposed stem cell research demonstrates once again why the government should avoid making decisions on theological grounds.

Posted in Stem cell research | Comments Off

Many outraged as accused murderer gets liver transplant

Posted on 2010-10-12 by egle.tuzaite

Johnny Concepcion, a 42-year-old man accused of stabbing his wife to death, just received a liver transplant at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center in New York. Now many are wondering how an accused killer could jump to the top of a long list of those needing transplants.

Posted in Transplantation/donation of organs and tissues | Comments Off

Terminally ill patients, caregivers feel lost connection with doctors

Posted on 2010-10-12 by egle.tuzaite

Once a patient becomes terminally ill, relationships between patients, their caregivers and their primary doctors can change. Now a study offers an unusual glimpse of what patients and their doctors are thinking as the end of life approaches — and it shows that patients sometimes feel abandoned.

Posted in Doctor-patient relationship | Comments Off

The Doctor’s Failure to Cut Costs

Posted on 2010-10-12 by egle.tuzaite

In an editorial in The New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Howard Brody, professor of family medicine and director of the Institute for the Medical Humanities at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, writes that the medical profession, unlike other groups, has made little effort to curtail future medical costs. Physicians, Dr. Brody maintains, are not “innocent bystanders” to spiraling health care costs but have been complicit in their failure to take an active role in curtailing them.

Posted in Doctor-patient relationship | Comments Off

Trials for Parents Who Chose Faith Over Medicine

Posted on 2010-10-12 by egle.tuzaite

Kara Neumann, 11, had grown so weak that she could not walk or speak. Her parents, who believe that God alone has the ability to heal the sick, prayed for her recovery but did not take her to a doctor. After an aunt from California called the sheriff’s department here, frantically pleading that the sick child be rescued, an ambulance arrived at the Neumann’s rural home on the outskirts of Wausau and rushed Kara to the hospital.

Posted in Doctor-patient relationship | Comments Off

Cancer victims

Posted on 2010-10-12 by egle.tuzaite

The insurance industry unfairly penalises people with cancer, charity Cancerbackup has claimed.

Posted in Problems of healthcare resource allocation | Comments Off

Papildomos nuorodos

Bioethics News