By Remy Servis A recent article in US News and World Report has brought to light the true costs of increasingly expensive drugs and other pharmaceutical products that are meant for consumers with some of the most complex and serious chronic diseases in our world. This comes against the backdrop of the June FDA announcement [...]
By Jessica Haushalter Who has the "right to die?" People with terminal illnesses, people with non-terminal illnesses, or no one at all? In our summer school program, Dr. Terry Perlin of Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Dr. Charles Debrovner of NYU Langone Medical Center, presented the ethics behind euthanasia, assisted suicide, and end-of-life care. "The [...]
By Jessica Haushalter On June 15th, I embarked on a journey to learn more about bioethics. This was the day I started classes at the Global Bioethics Initiative Summer School Program. At this program, wonderful lecturers from various parts of the United States and the world present on a myriad of bioethical topics. During the [...]
We are pleased to inform you that the Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations at its 2015 Resumed Session, held from 26 May to 3 June 2015, decided to recommend our organization to be in Special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council at the United Nations. This recommendation is subject to the approval of the [...]
By Grace Kim As mentioned in previous articles, there are many factors that influence organ donors and affect the rate of organ donation, such as asking potential donors a second time or offering incentives through self-interest motivations. An important aspect to factor in organ donors and donation is religion. In many countries outside of the [...]
By Kaitlyn Schaeffer Many couples facing fertility problems turn to the assisted reproduction industry for help – the rise in the number of people seeking in vitro solutions has resulted in an increasingly large number of frozen embryos (as many as one million) being stored across the nation. These frozen embryos occupy an ill-defined space: [...]
By Kaitlyn Schaeffer Italian neurosurgeon Sergio Canavero has big plans for the next few years: he’s preparing to transplant a head onto a donor body. This past Friday, at a conference in Annapolis, Dr. Canavero announced to a crowd of over 100 doctors, researchers, and reporters that he believes he can accomplish this feat in [...]
By Rose Bowen Last week, JAMA Internal Medicine published an article detailing the findings of an investigation into the effects that state policies have on organ donation and transplantation in the United States. Using data from 1988-2010, the researchers found that the majority of state policies promoting voluntary organ donation are ineffective at reducing the [...]
By Kaitlyn Schaeffer Yesterday, the California Senate passed the End-of-Life Option Act by a vote of 23 to 14. The bill, if it garners approval from the Assembly and Governor Jerry Brown, will make it legal for California residents with terminal illnesses to end their lives with doctor-prescribed medication. The bill was modeled after Oregon's [...]
By Remy Servis This week, doctors at Houston Methodist Hospital in Texas completed the world’s first partial skull and scalp transplant on Jim Boysen, a 55-year-old man from Austin. Since receiving a kidney-pancreas transplant 23 years ago, Mr. Boysen has been taking immunosuppressants to prevent rejection of the new organs. These drugs, while crucial to [...]
