There’s a provocative piece in a recent New Scientist about what happens to unclaimed bodies after death – about, specifically, the practice of coopting them for research purposes. Gareth Jones, who wrote it, points out that the practice has been going on for centuries – but that a consequence of the way it’s done is that it tends […]
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This will hurt a bit
By David Hunter In a piece titled in a fashion to simultaneously win the internet and cause every male reader to wince, Michelle Meyer asks “Whose Business Is It If You Want a Bee To Sting Your Penis? Should IRBs Be Policing Self-Experimentation?” In this piece she describes the case of a Cornell graduate student […]
Twitter Speaks Truth
I know I should be concentrating on my marking at the moment, but I’ve just seen this at the top of my twitter feed, and… I feel that it vindicates my little break. […]
Oh, and while we’re talking about media hype…
… there’s this, from last week’s Independent: Thousands of unborn foetuses incinerated to heat UK hospitals The bodies of more than 15,000 unborn foetuses have been incinerated in the UK, an investigation has found, with some treated as “clinical waste” and others burned to heat hospitals. The practice was carried out by 27 NHS trusts, […]
Who’s the SilLIer?
It’s funny how things come together sometimes. A few months ago, I mentioned a slightly strange JAMA paper that suggested that non-compliance with treatment regimes should be treated as a treatable condition in its own right. The subtext there was fairly clear: that there’s potential scope for what we might term “psychiatric mission-creep”, whereby behaviour gets […]
Multiplex Parenting: in vitro Gametogenesis and the Generations to Come
Guest Post by César Palacios-González, John Harris and Giuseppe Testa; for the full paper, click here. Recent biotechnology breakthroughs suggest that functional human gametes could soon be created in vitro. While the ethical debate on the uses of in vitro generated gametes (IVG) was originally constrained by the fact that they could be derived only from embryonic […]
Testing, testing…
So, yeah. It’s been a bit quiet here, hasn’t it? There’s been a range of reasons. Mainly, it’s had to do with David and I both having to do (whisper it) real w*rk, and that’s got in the way. And then WordPress went a bit odd, which made it impossible to post anything. (Part of the […]
What should we Think about Belgium’s Child Euthanasia Law?
With any luck, the nuts real-world work schedule of the past few months* will begin to ease in a few days, so I should be able to start blogging more frequently soon; but I thought I’d take a moment out from writing jurisprudence lectures to do some thinking out loud about Belgium’s recent change to […]
The Definition of Mental Disorder: Evolving but Dysfunctional?
Guest post by Rachel Bingham In 1973 the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from the official classification of ‘mental disorders’. This was the result of a successful public campaign and changing political views. Yet, if homosexuality could be (wrongly) diagnosed as a mental disorder – using an official classification – what does this say about […]
Medical Information for Sale?
Reader Keith emailed me a week or so ago to tip me off about the government’s plans to allow private firms to access medical information. It’s a story that has subsequently been picked up by – inter alia – The Guardian. As with the last post I made here, I’m going to have to cry off from saying […]