By Andrew Rock
The Connecticut Supreme Court recently ruled that 17-year-old Cassandra is not competent to make her own medical decisions and ordered her to continue receiving chemotherapy treatments. She will be required to receive treatment for Hodgkin lymphoma at a hospital in Hartford. Patients who undergo chemotherapy for Hodgkin lymphoma survive nearly 85% of the time; those who refrain nearly always perish.
 
Cassandra does not want to receive treatment because …

By Josephine Adebukola Awosogba
The start up world has given us social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter as well as mobile grocery delivery with Instacart. Tech start ups offer the public innovation and excitement.
In the field of biomedical engineering, they have the ability to launch medicine into the future. The difficult part is deciding what the future will look like. For Austen Heinz, a silicon valley entrepreneur, the future includes …

By Richard Balagtas
Katherine Don writes from a perspective shared by many women today, one concerning the difficulties associated with conception. After Don suffered from her third consecutive miscarriage, Don’s mother offed to help in any way she could, even if it meant taking on the role of a surrogate. Was this even possible given her advanced age? What were her other options?
In 2011, Kristine Casey, at age 61, gave birth to her own granddaughter …

By Kaitlyn Schaeffer
Dr. Mark Donowitz at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine is interested in ridding the world of diarrheal disease-related deaths. Every year, more than 800,000 children succumb to diseases such as cholera, rotavirus, and some strains of the bacteria E. coli.
“We’ve failed so far to find drugs to treat diarrhea using cell culture models and mouse intestine,” Donowitz explained. Mice guts are just not sufficiently similar to the human …

By Caroline Song
A new state law in Illinois that provides funding for undocumented immigrants to receive kidney transplants went into effect this past October. It may be the first law of its kind in the United States. There are currently 686 undocumented immigrants in Illinois enrolled in the state’s kidney dialysis program. Opponents worry that tax dollars spent on undocumented immigrants places an unfair burden on legal citizens and that …

By Kaitlyn Schaeffer
Every year around 6000 people choose to make living donations; most donate kidneys to people they know, such as friends and family, but many make donations to strangers. There have been many calls for more people do donate kidneys while they’re still alive, but this mobilization has encountered some road bumps: the risks surrounding this complex procedure are still somewhat unknown.
Experts worry that current guidelines are inconsistent and …

By Caroline Song
A study conducted by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) looked at over 100,000 deaths that occurred in hospitals from 2008 to 2012. The report found that most organ donations come from patients that are declared brain dead.  The study suggests accepting more donations from cardiovascular failure or death if the patients have no chance of recovery. This practice is permitted in Canada since 2006, but many …

On December 5, 2014 Fordham University Center for Ethics Education bioethicist Dr. Elizabeth Yuko has been appointed to the Advisory Board of the Global Bioethics Initiative (GBI), an independent, non-profit organization dedicated to improving quality of life in vulnerable populations globally, through research, education and policy change recommendations.  Yuko, the program administrator for the Fordham University HIV and Drug Abuse Prevention Research Ethics Training Institute, and the senior editor of …

by Andrew Rock
Dutch medical experts are  influencing policy changes for organ donation after euthanasia. The Netherlands has experienced low donation numbers through euthanasia in recent years.  Physicians anticipate new legislation will significantly increase the number of organs in the donation pool.  In 2013, 273 Dutch citizens donated their organs, while 4800 instances of euthanasia occurred. Dr. Gert van Dijk of Erasmus Medical School explains, “even if a small percentage of euthanasia patients choose to donate their organs after …

A meeting of scholars at Princeton University resulted in the drafting of an open letter addressed to President Barack Obama, Secretary of Health and Human Services Sylvia Mathews Burwell, Attorney General Eric Holder, and leaders of Congress. The letter is independent of any organization. Among the initiating signers are NIr Eyal and Robert Truog of Harvard University, Peter Singer at Princeton University, Michele Goodwin at the University of California Irvine, …