By David Hunter James Wilson (UCL) and I recently wrote a briefing paper for the Nuffield Council on Bioethics on the ethical issues surrounding hyper-expensive treatments – that is treatments which exceed NICEs usual cut off point of £30000 per quality adjusted life year (qualy). One factor that we kept coming back to was the […]
Category: In the News
Pakistan Introduces New Gender Category
It’s not often that you get good news from Pakistan, especially in respect of sex or gender issues. Rarer still that you hear of Pakistan not only finally doing what the rest of the world has taken as minimally decent for ages, but actually taking something of a lead. On the face of it, this […]
To Breed, or not to Breed?
There’s a very interesting article on the BBC news website at the moment concerning the decision of Jono, a man with Treacher Collins Syndrome, about whether or not to have children of his own. His having the syndrome himself has led to a number of difficulties – but he seems to have got off fairly lightly […]
Assisted Dying for the non-Terminal
I’m a bit behind the curve with this, but I thought it worth noting the story of Nan Maitland, who recently travelled to Dignitas* at the start of March. She was suffering from arthritis – which, though painful, is a long way short of a terminal illness. (Her story is reminiscent of Robert and Jennifer […]
Singer on the Value of Lives
Peter Singer had a piece in The Guardian last week comparing the way that we value lives around the world. He points out that when NATO accidentally kills Afghan civilians, it pays out compensation. This never goes above about £5000 per death. In comparison, NICE’s threshold for funding a treatment on the NHS is £20-30k […]
Medical Neutrality? The Red Cross and MSF
Adam Curtis is one of my favourite film-makers: I don’t think his programmes are always right, but they’re always provocative – and I think they’re more right than wrong. He also has a blog, which – though updated even less frequently than this one at the moment – is excellent. His latest post is about […]
Medical Ethics at Keele to be Axed?
This was supposed to be embargoed, but there’ve been enough leaks to make me think I can go public with it: news has emerged today that the Centre for Professional Ethics at Keele (PEAK) is facing the axe, as is the Keele Philosophy programme. A Senate Paper detailing the proposed cuts is widely available, and people […]
Wow. Nebraska, Iowa and Georgia… just Wow.
I mentioned a few days ago the proposed law in South Dakota that would provide a defence of justifiable homicide for to those accused of killing abortion doctors. That proposal was shelved… but reports keep coming in of proposed laws, each of which is crazier than the last. I’m beginning to wonder if there’s a […]
Wow. South Dakota… just Wow (part 2).
I think that this is worthy of its own entry, rather than just an update of the one ↓down there↓; South Dakota has shelved its lunatic proposed law on justifiable homicide. When even anti-abortion activists were against it, that was probably inevitable. On the other hand, it’s only been shelved. Things can come off the […]
Ethics (without the brain?)
I’ve set my RSS to receive updates from Secondhand Smoke, which is one of the blogs at First Things. It’s written by Wesley Smith, who is affiliated to the Discovery Institute, the creationist thinktank in Seattle: that gives you an indication of the sort of position he occupies – not just on bioethics, but also […]