NEWS
Remembering Robert M. Veatch Ph. D. with our recognition of his brilliant career in bioethics
The Kennedy Institute of Ethics at George Town University sent us an email with the sad news of the death of Robert M. Veatch Ph.D. on November 9. We send this In Memoriam to our readers as a means of recognizing the [...]
English sperm donor wins legal battle after clinic used his sperm against his wish nine times
We have published several articles about fertility clinics' procedures (read HERE and HERE). In countries where there is non-anonymous gamete donation, these clinics should respect the donor’s wishes. In our opinion, this is in the best interests of the children produced, and [...]
Urethral complications after gender reassignment surgery: a systematic review
More cautious approaches when undertaking gender-transition to both surgery and hormone treatments are needed A recent systematic review that included 879 articles has evaluated the impact of gender reassignment surgery on the development of urethral complications. Read more here [1]. Reassignment surgery [...]
Gene editing. The need for research with human embryos to treat diseases according to the new Nobel Prize winner
We have published an article about The Second Summit of Gene Editing in November 2018 in Hong Kong where Jennifer Doudna said "CRISPR-Cas9 for human germline editing should not proceed at the present time” (read HERE). Now an interview published in Spanish [...]
HIV reservoirs are discovered after antiretroviral therapy. They could be the cause of long term effects in patients
Our Observatory has published several articles on the HIV epidemic possible cures. In this sense understanding, HIV dynamics across the human body is important for cure efforts. Antiretroviral therapy studies continue to find new effects. Antiretroviral therapy left reservoirs in different tissues [...]
Opioid litigation in the United States. The crisis appears to be far from being resolved and deaths continue to rise
As we said in two previous articles (HERE and HERE), the opioid epidemic has grown with the coronavirus outbreak, with more than 70,000 deaths every year in America alone. Amid the pandemic, the death toll continues to spiral out of control. In [...]
LGBTQ youth mental health in coronavirus era: unprejudiced update
"Prudence demanded from a large part of the scientific community, must be exercised in order to avoid the consequences of treatments or interventions that, far from helping these people, push them into desperate situations." Our Observatory has published several articles about the [...]
Evolution and bioethical issues of the drug abuse epidemic in the US
Increasing overdose deaths in the United States is an issue that greatly concerns healthcare authorities and bioethicists. Are prevention campaigns proving effective? Could healthcare regulations be improved? Can doctors do better in the prescription of these drugs? What is the prognosis of [...]
The sperm shortage prompts fertility clinics to expand their search to unimaginable extremes. Sperm donation after death is debated in Britain
A new approach to alleviating the shortage of sperm donors in Britain was published in the Journal of Medical Ethics (01/08/2020). The article in question mainly centers around a proposal that would allow men to give consent for their sperm to be collected [...]
U.S. physicians have one of the highest rates of suicide of any profession
For the third annual observance of National Physician Suicide Awareness Day on Sept. 17, the President of the American Medical Association published an article addressed to their associated entitled Now’s the time to have a difficult talk about physician suicide. In the [...]
Spot on single parent family – mother or father – as a growing trend in our societies. Children in single-parent households difficulties
It is known that several features of life in postmodern society appear to empower individualism. One social effect is the fact that individual homes and single mother or father households have been on the increase over the last few decades in Western [...]
Long -Term effects of COVID 19 is being studied by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevision – CDC
COVID 19 long term effects in patients is an issue of concern not yet sufficiently studied. Last September an article published on the CDC website gave an update on the topic (read HERE). The article says that "CDC is actively working to [...]
The United Kingdom allows scientists to infect healthy volunteers in questioned coronavirus trials
A recent article published in The Washington Post reported that "Beginning in January, British researchers will infect fewer than 100 healthy young adults with the novel coronavirus to determine how much virus is necessary to spark an active infection. The researchers hope [...]
US study shows HIV infection increases the risk of dementia by 50 in older patients
According to the latest figures for the HIV epidemic, “[t]here were approximately 38 million people across the globe with HIV/AIDS in 2019”. An estimated 1.7 million individuals worldwide acquired HIV that same year (read HERE). Specialists say that these figures could be [...]
Should Chemsex be a public health care priority in developed countries?
In 2018, our Observatory published a brief news article, entitled “Chemsex on the rise among homosexuals. How will it affect public health?”. The piece, which was based on a BMJ report, concluded that, “Various authors have called for chemsex to become a [...]
Persons Living With Parkinson Disease. Patients, family and caregivers
Palliative care is an important issue in medical ethics. Global health care institutions such as the World Health Organization do not recognize it as a basic right for terminally-ill patients (read HERE). Medical institutions and bioethicists, however, disagree. Our Observatory strongly supports [...]
Mind and machine. The ethics of brain-computer technologies
Last September, the Royal Society launched a report entitled iHuman: Blurring lines between mind and machine addressing neural interface technologies, the life-changing opportunities, and challenges, of brain-computer devices. See HERE an example. Devices that interact with the nervous system Neural interfaces are [...]
No medical consensus on the moment of the death of a person. Issue that affects public trust
Determining the moment of death remains of singular importance for ethically assessing organ donation. Our Observatory has published many articles about this issue. A recent study discusses the issue, with particular reference to Lewis and colleagues' recent proposition to the revision of [...]
Down people discrimination before birth in the UK
Down people discrimination, a sad feature of our developed societies. Basic human rights are not for them. Our observatory has already published the risk of discrimination before the birth of this collective given the new Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing (NIPT) (read our article [...]
Researchers who discovered CRISPR genome editing awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020
CRISPR genome editing discoverers Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Our Observatory has published many articles about gene-editing advances in biomedicine and their bioethical implications (read HERE). Since Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna developed the novel [...]
