By Arthur Caplan Academic bioethics has never been popular with Republicans. Libertarians dislike academic bioethics because it seems too elitist and anti-free market. Religious thinkers worry it is technocratic, soulless and crassly utilitarian. Now with Trumpism add a populist disdain for expertise, experts and the scientific method and you have a stew that means few [...]
By KAREN WEINTRAUB @kweintraub NOVEMBER 8, 2016 The drug was still experimental, but clinical trials suggested it could be a lifesaver for patients with a lethal form of blood cancer called multiple myeloma. And those patients were clamoring to get it. They overwhelmed drug maker Janssen Pharmaceuticals with requests for the medication. Most companies [...]
Face transplants are slowly becoming an everyday surgery in the world. Just this past August, Dr. Eduardo Rodríguez performed one. In a 26-hour operation, the most extensive face transplant operation to date, the plastic surgeon and his team removed the face and scalp of a young victim of a fatal accident and successfully grafted the [...]
Global Bioethics Initiative in partnership with the University of Zagreb School of Medicine and Inter-University Centre invited students and professionals worldwide to attend Dubrovnik International Bioethics Summer School, August 5-14, 2016 - DIBSS. Our summer school program brought together brilliant minds from around the world and we welcomed them on August 5th, to the first International Bioethics Summer [...]
The researcher and biologist Fredrik Lanner, from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, started to edit the DNA of healthy human embryos. This is the first reported action taken in gene editing on developing human embryos in the world; it’s another step onward to ultimately tailor-make a human being. Such procedure is still banned in most [...]
In it's latest opinion, Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal, argues that everyday drugs like EpiPen, should be economically affordable to all. After Mylan, the pharmaceutical company and owner of EpiPen, raised the drug's price from $100 in 2008 to $600 this year, it received a series of critics and backlash. This resulted in Mylan offering patients co-payments on the [...]
In less than a year, 30 vaccines are in development to help fight the Zika virus; and two of them are already on the human trial phase. Nonetheless, it will take at least a few years until one of them becomes viable to stop the virus from spreading. Astonishingly, only two Pharma giants are pitching [...]
GlaxoSmithKline's new therapy sparks up the health care costs debate With Biotech giant GlaxoSmithKline newly developed cure for "bubble-boy" disease, the health care costs debate gets another chance to take the public arena. The highly priced drug, Strimvelis, is a gene therapy for severe immune deficiency, giving children a chance to live well after the age of 2 [...]
Global Bioethics Initiative (GBI) is dedicated to fostering public awareness and understanding of bioethical issues, and to exploring solutions to bioethical challenges. Through its events and activities, which include annual summer schools on global bioethics, GBI seeks to keep the international community, policy decision-makers, the media, and the general public aware of important bioethical issues [...]
On July 21, 2016, Dr. Rita Charon, M.D., Ph.D, Professor of Medicine at Columbia University Medical Center and Executive Director of the Program in Narrative Medicine at Columbia University lectured for GBI summer school participants and guests on the principles underlying narrative medicine and the methods employed to help doctors recognize patients and diseases, convey knowledge, and accompany patients through the ordeals of illness. Learn more [...]
