Just a quick post to note that Peter Singer has been made a Companion of the Order of Australia – which is, apparently, the Aussie equivalent of a KBE. The right-wing press ain’t happy – but irrespective of whether or not you agree with his claims, or his methods, Singer’s contribution to bioethics (and ethics more […]
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Well, Consider my Jaw Dropped.
I know it’s not long since I last posted about the Christian Medical Fellowship’s blog, and I would ordinarily leave it a bit longer… but I’m about to go off on one. Forgive me. I’ve had a hard week marking exam scripts, and I’m tired and stressed and cranky, and this is just… well… Look: […]
Is Julian Savulescu Channelling Bryan Ferry?
Specifically, I have in mind Roxy Music’s “Love is the Drug“. (Annoyingly, I can’t get the video to embed.*) And I don’t just mean Julian – I mean him, and Anders Sandberg, with Brian Earp somewhere in there too. The thought crosses my mind because I’ve been reading this essay in New Scientist, which apparently […]
IVF and Birth Defects: Is there a Moral Problem?
It was reported a couple of weeks ago that researchers had found a link between certain forms of assisted conception and an increased risk of birth defects. The paper, published in the NEJM, suggested that ICSI (intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection) correlated with defets in just about 10% of births. The base rate is about 5.8%, rising […]
You’re Worth more Dead than Alive
Via MedicalTranscription.net, here’s a rather fabulous little infographic about the value – well, the price – of transplant organs. (Update: moved below the fold, because otherwise you have the time to grow a liver in a petri-dish before the page has loaded.) […]
Onwards, to the past! Especially when slavery is involved…
Wow. Steve Fouch has, on the Christian Medical Fellowship’s blog, offered advice on how to vote in the BMA ballot on industrial action. Now, Fouch isn’t the same as the CMF, and I don’t suppose what he writes indicates the CMF’s position any more than what I write here represents the BMJ’s. Even so, what he suggests […]
The benefits of contraception?
By David Hunter The government in New Zealand is proposing to spend $1 million of funding for women on a benefit and their teenage daughters to get long-term reversible contraception – such as an implant. Advice on accessing this treatment and its implications will be provided by case workers in the Social Services. The NZ […]
Book Review: Nie Jingbao, “Medical Ethics in China”
London: Routledge, 2011; 263 + xiii pp Guest Post by Yonghui Ma For those who have a particular interest in cross-cultural bioethics, Nie’s book, Medical Ethics in China, is an absolute feast. Luckily, I am one of them and it more than satisfied my appetite for the subject. It brings us much closer to a fascinating […]
Give the gift of giving – donate someone elses organ or how the current online system for organ donation allows you to sign up others as long as you know a few details about them. Oops.
By David Hunter Hattip to Nathan Emmerich for speculating about this on Facebook and then blogging about it here: Organ Donation: Why isn’t there an App for that? There are a number of ways you can volunteer to donate your organs when you die in the UK, you can sign up when you get a […]
A Very Small Amount of Relevance
Some very strange papers have just appeared in Bioethics regarding homeopathy. Not so long ago, the journal published a paper by Kevin Smith that advanced the claim that homeopathy is not only ineffective, but ethically problematic. The position taken was that homeopathy “ought to be actively rejected by healthcare professionals”, and that it is in fact ethically […]