Practical Ethics

How to Improve on Bolt's Performance

2008-08-21T17:14:37+01:00

You might think after Usain Bolt’s almost superhuman performances in the 100 and 200 m that the war on doping has been won. However winning one battle is not winning the war. As the example of Lyudmila Blonska shows, doping...

Silicon dreams: digital drugs and regulation

2008-08-20T15:09:35+01:00

A new worry has hit parents: digital drugs. The idea is that sounds can affect brain states, so by listening to the right kind of sounds desired brain states can be induced - relaxation, concentration, happiness, PMS relief or why...

When the heart stops: harvesting organs from the newly (nearly) dead

2008-08-14T21:33:50+01:00

In the New England Journal of Medicine yesterday, doctors from Denver reported on three controversial cases of heart transplantation from newborn infants. These cases are striking for several reasons. They were examples of so-called ‘donation after cardiac death’ (DCD), an increasingly frequent source of organs for transplantation, but done very rarely in newborns. They are controversial because the transplanted organs were hearts that were ‘restarted’ in recipients after they had stopped in the donor. Transplant surgeons waited only a relatively short period after the donor’s heart had stopped (75 seconds) before starting the organ retrieval process. These transplants raise serious questions about the diagnosis and definition of death.

Postcode lotteries

2008-08-13T12:52:43+01:00

In its just-published report Taking Exception on the allocation of cancer drugs by UK Primary Care Trusts, the Rarer Cancers Forum (http://www.rarercancers.org.uk) provides further evidence of a ‘postcode lottery’ operating within the UK National Health Service. For example (p. 26),...

Would you rather be invisible or be able to fly? (Or: are you a sneaky superhero?)

2008-08-11T15:20:39+01:00

If, like me, you were one of the kids whose preferred superpower was invisibility, you may soon be in luck. The BBC reports today that US scientists have created a material that could one day be used to make people...

Cold and Calculating NICE

2008-08-07T13:14:03+01:00

Yesterday's Daily Mail online contains an opinion piece bemoaning the decision by NICE - the UK body responsible for rationing healthcare resources - to decline funding for four new treatments for Kidney Cancer. The Mail complains: ...what does NICE offer...

One step closer to human cloning

2008-08-06T19:32:49+01:00

Scientists in Korea have for the first time successfully cloned a dog commercially. Cloning of dogs is notoriously difficult. This brings us closer to human cloning. The film Boys from Brazil , made in the earlier 80s, portrayed accurately and...

The point of death

2008-08-05T14:47:54+01:00

The Guardian yesterday reported the death of the man who had been so tragically shot in Antigua, with his wife, three weeks after their wedding. It began like this: "Ben Mullany, the newlywed who was shot on honeymoon in Antigua...

Slaves to consent?

2008-07-31T22:51:25+01:00

Nature reports that in response to analysis done by bioethicist Robert Streiffer (and published in the Hastings Center Report), Stanford University may withdraw the use for research of several of its publicly funded stem cell lines because of concerns about...

Are falling house prices good or bad?

2008-07-31T15:06:43+01:00

House prices have been falling quickly in both the US and, more recently, the UK. Newspaper reports tend to use negative language to refer to this fall. For example, todays edition of The Independent says: Today's gloomy data, which is...