By Julie Killian
Surgeons from Henry Ford Hospital and Medanta Hospital in India have carried out 50 successful kidney transplants between January and October 2013, using a new procedure that detects the cooling of the organ by ice during the operation which will help in robot-assisted organ transplantations.
Robotic surgery is a minimally invasive option, compared to more traditional methods of open surgery. According to Dr. Mani Menon, Chair of Henry Ford’s …

By Caroline Song
In the article “Too Risky to Transplant: Patients denied transplants as donor organs are discarded,” the author writes about a growing concern in the transplant committee about the oversight of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, or CMS. The goal of CMS is to overview the majority of organ transplants within the US to improve outcomes. CMS has the power to shut down or fine centers that …

By Julie Killian
China has recently executed a successful transplantation of the small intestine from a transgenic pig to a crab-eating macaque at Nanjing General Hospital of Nanjing Military Command. China initiated the experiment with the interest of discovering alternative ways to deal with the shortage of organs for donation. The hope is that the success of this operation will enable future transplantations from transgenic pigs to humans. The encouragement lies in …

NEW YORK—When Ana Lita was a child in Romania she used to sing to her father’s mentally ill patients.
She was afraid of patients who would attempt to touch her. “But my father told me ‘to replace that fear with love, for they have an incurable illness,’” she recalled.
From her childhood in a small Romanian village to her current role as executive director of the nonprofit, Global Bioethics Initiative …

On the 27th of November at the French National Assembly in Paris, a panel discussion on the ethical issues related to organ trafficking and transplant tourism in China was led by Member of Parliament for the Bouches-du-Rhône, Valérie Boyer and by Dr. Harold King, the contact person for Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting (DAFOH) in France.
The discussion was held by French medical professionals, including transplant surgeons who shared their …

The iconic billionaire CEO of Apple Inc., Steve Jobs, is one of the most visible organ transplant patient in the world. Jobs health problems were widely publicized and most media outlets reported on his liver transplant in 2009. In most cases the waiting list for organ transplants are long and people generally receive the surgery after waiting on line for years. However Jobs was able to get a transplant in …

By Julie Killian
December 11, 2013 will mark the first G8 Dementia Summit in London, United Kingdom. The summit is interested in creating an international approach to dementia research and policy.
Alzheimer’s Disease International (ADI) has issued a policy brief for the summit, which uncovered the number of people living with dementia to be about 44 million in 2013 worldwide. The brief also projects that this number will grow to 76 million …

By Julie Killian
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is attempting to implement a new regulation that would redefine bone marrow as an “organ.” This new regulation is generated by the issue of compensation for bone marrow donation which has had historical tribulations. Doreen Flynn who has three children with Faconi anemia, a genetic disorder that can lead to bone marrow failure, needed the donation for the survival of her children. Flynn has fought in court …