Getting An Earful
by Craig Klugman, Ph.D.
In the book (and film) Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton, dinosaur DNA from in insects that bit the dinosaurs and are now preserved in amber. Scientists are then able to extract the dinosaur DNA and using West African bullfrog DNA to fill in the blanks in the genome, they recreate many dinosaurs in a park. The book and film were works of science fiction adventure since the dinosaurs go out of control. The story is a warning about the hubris of playing with DNA and bringing back the past.… (Source: blog.bioethics.net)
Source: blog.bioethics.net - June 6, 2014 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Craig Klugman Tags: Featured Posts Organ Transplant & Donation Science Stem Cells 3-D organ printing artificial organs Van Gogh Source Type: blogs
Bone marrow donation and compensation: My moral dilemma
It’s a criminal offense to pay a person to donate an organ. That policy fits well with societal norms that restrict commerce in certain areas. For example we don’t allow people to sell themselves into slavery. We certainly don’t want people to be coerced for financial reasons to sell their organs and endanger their lives.
And yet, arguments for paying for organ donation exist. People die all the time for lack of a suitable organ available for transplant. Is it right to interfere with their pursuit of life, health and happiness by restricting how people use their wealth? And of course doctors and hospitals...
Source: Health Business Blog - December 6, 2013 Category: Health Managers Authors: dewe67 Tags: Patients bone marrow donor Source Type: blogs
African Girl Brought to UK to Harvest Organs
This is so horrific and evil that it almost defies reason. Officials have rescued a girl from Somalia that was brought to the UK to harvest her organs. They are sure that this is not an isolated incidence. The Telegraph has the story:The unnamed girl was brought to the UK from Somalia with the intention of removing her organs and selling them on to those desperate for a transplant.Child protection charities warned that the case was unlikely to be an isolated incident as traffickers were likely to have smuggled a group of children into the country.The case emerged in a government report which showed that the number of human...
Source: Mary Meets Dolly - October 22, 2013 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Biotechnology Source Type: blogs
Columnist: Government Should Take Organs for Donation
I have said many times that we abandon the embryo at our own peril. Once we allow some human organisms to be ripped apart for their cells, then we all start to look more and more like harvestable biological material.No where is this more apparent than in the debates about organ donation. Donating organs in the event of death used to be considered something that should be completely voluntary and without incentive. But because the demand for organ outweighs the supply, more and more we are hearing that organ donation should be "opt-out" instead of "opt-in" where doctors presume consent unless otherwise s...
Source: Mary Meets Dolly - October 2, 2013 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Science and Ethics Source Type: blogs
Could crowd funding be the next step to get drugs to market?
Pure Transplant Solutions, a biotech from Austin, Texas, has taken a new step in order to get funding for their medial device.
They're looking for funding for the ARC device:
The ARC device works by removing a donor recipient’s antibodies that causes the rejection of organs that aren’t biological matches. If successful, the device will make any available organ viable for transplant into a patient in need and reduce the typical waiting time for a transplant from seven years to less than two years.
Its use will also help to lengthen the usefulness of donated organs for their recipient since all bodies eventually attack...
Source: ePharma Summit - September 9, 2013 Category: Medical Marketing and PR Tags: Organ donation education Investors for biotechs crowd sourcing Pure Transplant Solutions Medical Device Funding Source Type: blogs
Organ Donation for Transplant with Multiple Sclerosis
A recent blog post about the plight of Sherri Muzher and her struggle to be of use beyond her life by donating her organs (while still alive; thus hastening her death) spared a lively conversation in the comments section. One of the questions and concerns tables was whether or not Ms Muzher’s organs and tissue would even be acceptable as transplant options for people in need.
As I often do when we come upon a medical question in our discussions, I reached out to several experts for clarification. In this case is was Dr James Bowen, M.D. of Swedish Neuroscience Institute. Dr Bowen is not only a respected researcher ...
Source: Life with MS - August 21, 2013 Category: Other Conditions Authors: Trevis Gleason Tags: MS multiple sclerosis clinical trials comments MS and family MS doctors MS in the news multiple sclerosis clinical trials multiple sclerosis cure research Source Type: blogs
International Organ Trafficking Ring Broken Up in Costa Rica
In a note about a year ago, I commented on the black market for transplant organs, particularly kidneys (see: Black Market for Transplant Organs Becomes Global Phenomenon). People in less developed countries essentially "sell" one of their kidneys through a black market network to a recipient in a more affluent country. This note mentioned the frequent source of such kidneys as China, India, Brazil and the Philippines. Below is an excerpt about an international organ trafficking ring that sold kidneys to patients in Israel and Eastern Europe and was broken up by Costa Rica police and Interpol (s...
Source: Lab Soft News - June 27, 2013 Category: Pathologists Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Healthcare Business Healthcare Delivery Hospitals and Healthcare Delivery Medical Consumerism Medical Ethics Source Type: blogs
Proposed Changes to Organ Donation Blur The Line on End of Life Care
Rolling into work this morning, NPR reported on a radical change in organ donation policies which could profoundly change how palliative care is perceived and how families and health care professionals make those very challenging decisions at the end of life. At the heart of the effort is an attempt to increase the number of organ donors of course but the ethical question is in how to achieve that noble goal. Among the changes under consideration is the ability for hospitals and organ procurement organizations (OPOs) to make their own policies on how to approach families and patients about organ donation instead of f...
Source: Pallimed: A Hospice and Palliative Medicine Blog - June 24, 2013 Category: Palliative Carer Workers Authors: Christian Sinclair Source Type: blogs
Sherpa Pak Transplant Heart Transport System Gets U.S. Green Light
Paragonix Technologies out of Cambridge, Massachusetts received clearance in the U.S. for the Sherpa Pak Cardiac Transport System. The Sherpa combines oxygenated perfusion of organs and safe organ storage. The device is indicated for hypothermic transportation of hearts in a cold environment for up to four hours in preparation for a transplant. From the announcement:Currently, the availability of cardiac transplantation is governed by the “ischemic time”, that being, the elapsed time from heart donation to recipient implantation. According to The International Society Of Heart and Lung Transplantation (“...
Source: Medgadget - February 13, 2013 Category: Technology Consultants Authors: Gene Ostrovsky Tags: Anesthesiology Cardiac Surgery Source Type: blogs
News from Germany: Organ Transplantation and “Research Donations”
On May 25, 2012, theParliament of the Federal Republic of Germany ( “Deutscher Bundestag”) passed “The Act to amend the German Transplantation Act” (“Transplantationsgesetz”, “TPG”,BT-Drs. 17/9773) and “The Law to Regulate the Opt-In Solution for Organ Transplantation” (BT-Drs. 17/9774, BT-Drs. 17/9030). Only a couple of weeks later, on June 15, 2012, theBundesrat (one of the German constitutional bodies) has acknowledged both acts (Art. 77, 78 of the German Constitution). According toArt. 50 of the German Constitution, the federal states participate in the legislation and administration at a federal level and in matters c...
Source: PredictER Blog - August 2, 2012 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Anonymous Source Type: blogs
