For those of you not reading my Facebook, or who missed the exchange Sunshine started and Jennifer Bard and I ran with, Jennifer posted her thoughts about the news that DNA tests are better at detecting cervical cancer risks than a pap smear, and the paternalistic attitude of the doctors who refuse to give up the pap because of the well health ( Read more... )

Every so often, you get a really fun opportunity to interact with experts in a field at a casual level. I've had the pleasure of having several of these random moments, and one of my first involved neuroethics, an article by Danniell Dennett, the 2005 National Undergraduate Bioethics Conference, and some professor by the name of Paul Root Wolpe. Of ( Read more... )

Unless you've been hiding under a rock this last week, you're aware of the octuplets born to California single mom Nadya Suleman, and the intense ethical debate surrounding her pregnancy. Even before it was revealed that she has six other children (apparently all from IVF, although details are a bit fuzzy), medical experts were ready to lynch the ( Read more... )

A new study shows that many products containing HFCS contain mercury, and another study suggests that it's the corn itself that's contaminated.
Click here to read the details, watch a Corn Refiners commercial, or leave a comment.

One of the clearest things I remember about my time working at Planned Parenthood was the rejoicing that happened when Clinton repealed Bush, Sr's global gag rule order. Although I was no longer working for Planned Parenthood by the time W. re-enacted his father's gag order, I despaired at the number of women worldwide who were going to have their ( Read more... )

In a not at all surprising move, the so-called Conscience Rule passed at the last possible minute by the Bush Administration, has been legally challenged. Connecticut's attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, filed suit on behalf of his state, as well as California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon and Rhode Island. Separate suits have ( Read more... )

Perhaps, sometimes, at the long end of a night spent counting sheep in a futile effort to get to sleep, your mind wanders from sheep to Dolly to cloning, and you find yourself wondering whatever happened to the people behind Genetic Savings and Clone. Well, thanks to an end of 2008 article by the New York Times, you'll no longer have that ( Read more... )

The Catholic Church released their Dignitatis Personae on Friday, which is an update of the 1987 Donum Vitae. Dignitatis Personae is the most up-to-date view of the Catholic Church on assisted reproductive technologies, and it spells out clearly what and why the Vatican approves (or in this case, largely disapproves) of most modern reproductive ( Read more... )

Could you feed yourself for a dollar a day? That's the question two social justice teachers in California asked themselves in September, and they blogged the month long results ( Read more... )

Gina Kolata has an interesting piece in the NYTimes right now, looking at the gap in evidence between use of scanning technology like MRIs and CAT scans to track down causes of pain, the discovery of a problem, and whether or not fixing the problem found via scan fixes the actual problem ( Read more... )