Bioethics News and Research

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Athletes and ethicists look at fairness in sport

Just in time for baseball’s opening day, a series of articles in the Hastings Center Report asks what constitutes fairness in elite sports and what it takes to stop cheating. New issues, including the prospect of gene doping and questions about which athletes are really “female,” are explored.

1 Apr 2010

Ethical guidelines needed for research on persons with impaired decision making

How do we handle the ethical dilemmas of research on adults who can't give their informed consent? In a recent article in the journal Bioethics, ethicist Stefan Eriksson proposes a new approach to the dilemma of including dementia patients and others with limited decision making capabilities in research.

29 Mar 2010

Bioethical issues and professionalism analyzed through two medical dramas

A medical student and faculty directors from the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics analyzed depictions of bioethical issues and professionalism over a full season of two popular medical dramas-"Grey's Anatomy" and "House, M.D."-and found that the shows were "rife" with ethical dilemmas and actions that often ran afoul of professional codes of conduct.

29 Mar 2010

Child-patient research subjects too often in the dark about their participation: Study

A small study of children with cancer enrolled in therapeutic clinical research trials shows that they don't fully understand what physicians and parents tell them about their participation, nor do they feel they are genuinely involved in the choice to take part.

29 Mar 2010

Radio ad supports legislation to end cash for egg donation

Today, Family Research Council Action and the Oklahoma Family Policy Council released a radio advertisement supporting State Representative Rebecca Hamilton's Oklahoma House Bill 3077, currently being reviewed by the Oklahoma State Senate. H.B. 3077 would put an end to the financial lure that draws young women into donating their eggs to fertility clinics, a dangerous procedure that can cause life-threatening complications including kidney failure and blood clots.

27 Mar 2010

New study: Egg donors may be paid too much

"Women who donate eggs for use with in-vitro techniques aren't supposed to be compensated more than $10,000 .... according to guidelines from the American Society of Reproductive Medicine," The Wall Street Journal reports.

26 Mar 2010

Coalition of international health organizations oppose compensation for bone marrow donors

Voicing concern about the potential impact on patient and donor safety, nine leading international health organizations have formed a coalition to oppose compensating people who provide bone marrow for transplantation.

23 Mar 2010

Broad application of bipolar diagnosis in children may do more harm than good

Troubled children diagnosed with bipolar disorder may fare better with a different diagnosis, according to researchers at The Hastings Center.

18 Mar 2010

Intense experience in Haiti raises many difficult ethical questions, says Johns Hopkins emergency physician

In an essay published in this week's issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, a Johns Hopkins emergency physician outlines how he and other physicians who worked in Haiti after the earthquake had to make emotionally difficult ethical decisions daily in the face of a crushing wave of patients and inadequate medical resources.

18 Mar 2010

Debate on end-of-life care

With skyrocketing Medicare costs contributing to record-setting budget deficits, does the United States need to ration costly end-of-life care? This compelling topic will be the focus of an upcoming debate produced by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia, in partnership with MacNeil/Lehrer Productions and The National Press Club.

16 Mar 2010

BIDMC scientist presented with 2010 Arthur Steindler Award

Christopher Evans, PhD, director of the Center for Advanced Orthopaedic Studies at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Maurice Edmond Mueller Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at Harvard Medical School, was presented with the 2010 Arthur Steindler Award at this week's annual meeting of the Orthopaedic Research Society in New Orleans.

11 Mar 2010

Black and Hispanic Medicare beneficiaries with heart failure less likely to receive hospice care

Black and Hispanic Medicare beneficiaries with heart failure appear less likely to receive hospice care than white patients with the same condition, according to a report in the March 8 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

9 Mar 2010

Loyola medical students and CRJHS students team up to promote healthcare awareness

Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine and Marcella Niehoff School of Nursing students are teaming up with high schoolers from Cristo Rey Jesuit High School (CRJHS) to bring awareness and share ideas about health care now and in the future.

2 Mar 2010

Bioethics expert: Parents should be allowed to use selective reproduction in choosing future child's gender

A bioethics expert has argued that parents should be allowed to use selective reproduction to choose their future child's gender and to screen out serious disease and disability.

27 Feb 2010

UCSF team: NIH ethics guidelines for embryonic stem cell research need to be modified

A UCSF team, led by bioethicist Bernard Lo, MD, recommends that the National Institutes of Health ethics guidelines for embryonic stem cell research be modified to better protect the rights of individuals donating egg or sperm to patients undergoing in vitro fertilization.

19 Feb 2010

University of Missouri to offer health literacy courses for health professionals

The cost of low health literacy - the difference between patients' abilities to understand health information and providers' abilities to effectively communicate complex medical information - is $106 billion to $238 billion annually, according to Pfizer, a leading biopharmaceutical company. To improve the health literacy of professionals and patients, the University of Missouri will offer a health literacy study emphasis beginning this fall.

19 Feb 2010

Plagiocephaly babies need to be screened and monitored early in life for possible cognitive, motor delays

In a new study, infants averaging six months of age who exhibited positional plagiocephaly (flat head syndrome) had lower scores than typical infants in observational tests used to evaluate cognitive and motor development. Positional or deformational plagiocephaly may occur when external forces shape an infant's skull while it is still soft and malleable, such as extended time spent lying on a hard surface or in one position. This is the first controlled study to suggest that babies who have flattened areas on the back of their heads during the first year of life may be at risk for developmental delay.

15 Feb 2010

Symposium exploring future of cancer research to be hosted at GUMC

The Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center hosts a symposium exploring the future of cancer research on Feb. 17th at Georgetown University Medical Center. Sponsored by the Ruesch Center for the Cure of Gastrointestinal Cancers, the two-part symposium, "Fighting a Smarter War Against Cancer: Personalized Medicine & the Cure for Cancer," will offer a focus on personalized medicine by bringing together experts in academia, industry and advocacy.

15 Feb 2010

Mapping of all fragile sites of yeast S.cerevisiae may lead to better understanding of cancer development

The research group of Dr. Fran-ois Robert, a researcher at the Institut de recherches cliniques de Montr-al (IRCM), in collaboration with the team of Dr. Daniel Durocher (Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute and University of Toronto) accomplished a technical breakthrough: they mapped all the fragile sites of a living organism, the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The method used by the researchers can be applied to humans. This study has been published online today in the scientific journal Nature Structural and Molecular Biology.

10 Feb 2010

Bioethicists create easy-to-remember checklist to assess patient's decision-making capacity in emergency

Physicians in training and bioethicists at Johns Hopkins have created an easy-to-remember checklist to help medical students and clinicians quickly assess a patient's decision-making capacity in an emergency.

5 Feb 2010

Bioethics News and Research

Athletes and ethicists look at fairness in sport

Ethical guidelines needed for research on persons with impaired decision making

Bioethical issues and professionalism analyzed through two medical dramas

Child-patient research subjects too often in the dark about their participation: Study

Radio ad supports legislation to end cash for egg donation

New study: Egg donors may be paid too much

Coalition of international health organizations oppose compensation for bone marrow donors

Broad application of bipolar diagnosis in children may do more harm than good

Intense experience in Haiti raises many difficult ethical questions, says Johns Hopkins emergency physician

Debate on end-of-life care

BIDMC scientist presented with 2010 Arthur Steindler Award

Black and Hispanic Medicare beneficiaries with heart failure less likely to receive hospice care

Loyola medical students and CRJHS students team up to promote healthcare awareness

Bioethics expert: Parents should be allowed to use selective reproduction in choosing future child's gender

UCSF team: NIH ethics guidelines for embryonic stem cell research need to be modified

University of Missouri to offer health literacy courses for health professionals

Plagiocephaly babies need to be screened and monitored early in life for possible cognitive, motor delays

Symposium exploring future of cancer research to be hosted at GUMC

Mapping of all fragile sites of yeast S.cerevisiae may lead to better understanding of cancer development

Bioethicists create easy-to-remember checklist to assess patient's decision-making capacity in emergency

Biotechnology eBook

Sensing a Healthier Future

Achieving and maintaining ISO/IEC 27001 and BS 10012 certifications

Expanding research and clinical options for children with cancer

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