blog.bioethics.net - the editors' blog of The American Journal of Bioethics

Common Ground on Abortion? Not Likely.

2009-07-01T13:17:33Z

President Obama isn't really asking for much. Really it's quite simple: both sides of the issue, conservatives and liberals, must give up a little bit to reach a "common ground" on a perennial issue to lay this "culture war" on...

Caplan: Think Big on Health Care

2009-06-30T01:45:39Z

Arthur Caplan reminded us last week not to get bogged down in the details and to "think big" on health care. To read more about what he said, click here or read the full text of his MSNBC column below....

Follow-up on The Wild West of Nanotechnology

2009-06-25T17:53:59Z

Today, The Scientist has revealed more about the scandal involving nanoscientist Chiming Wei which was first written about here on bioethics.net. This scandal has brought into question what counts as "expertise" in nanomedicine, The Scientist claims, and one source was...

My Mommy Is My Daddy Is My Mommy

2009-06-23T20:00:04Z

Stem cell research has the potential to change the standard gendered parental relationships by making it possible for women to produce sperm and eggs from stem cells say British researchers in the Globe and Mail. Better yet, a new Canadian...

Be Careful What You Wish For

2009-06-17T15:58:21Z

In collaboration with Nanotech-Now.com and Lifeboat Foundation, Tihamer Toth-Fejel comments as this month's guest columnist about the prospect of a much less ominous future for nanotechnology that most. Yet, as the title suggests, it still presents some issues for society...

Your Out! Auf Wiedersehen to the Doctor's White Coat

2009-06-17T12:46:07Z

They never were fashion-forward, but the AMA had a much better reason to vote out the traditional doctor's white coat this week. The long sleeves have been proven to spread infection when brushing across sick patients for hours at a...

Stuart Laidlaw is Going to Get Me [a] Shot from Merck

2009-06-17T10:11:27Z

I couldn't be more pleased that [insert gratuitous but sincere praise:] outstanding Toronto Star writer Stuart Laidlaw has been rigorously following the Merck/Elsevier scandal. It's practically flattering that he's listening to bioethics' and in particular bioethics' publishing voices, and he's...

Cultural Sex Selection: No Harm, No Foul?

2009-06-16T12:45:42Z

Emily Willingham asks an important question as to whether the apparent cultural preference toward having a male child in the family among Asian-Americans represents a harm--either to Asian-American girls, or simply to women generally. I'm inclined to think the latter....

Botched Prenatal Test = Botched Knee Surgery? I Don't Think So.

2009-06-16T11:41:45Z

But if you as Susan Wolf, professor at the University of Minnesota, she would tell you that suing for one screwed up procedure is no different than suing for another. Except for one small detail: when you screw up a...

BioEdge and Charo's "Conspiracy of Hype"

2009-06-15T11:17:21Z

One can hardly be surprised to find that Michael Cook's BioEdge blog would jump at the chance to take Alta Charo's remarks about the "hyping" of stem cell research as an all-too-easy chance to suggest that embryonic stem cell research...

Who Cares About Preventive Care? Who Should?

2009-06-10T18:12:01Z

The role and scope of preventive care in our healthcare system has been a perennial issue for decades. Emily Willingham raises the issue and its role in healthcare reform and are larger healthcare system in light of a recent encounter...

Open Access Publisher Under Scrutiny for Taking Sham Paper

2009-06-10T17:46:52Z

First came The Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Density, now comes The Open Information Science Journal. As The Scientist tells us today, it's not just the large academic publishers that are in hot water for publishing phony journals, but...

Metamorphosis: The Margaret Battin Story

2009-06-09T18:11:49Z

It's the workaholics who are told that "your work is your life". It's many in academia who find that they are drawn to study the issues that afflict them or plague them or trouble them most about themselves or about...

Has Medical Bankruptcy Become Part of the American Way?

2009-06-08T10:27:20Z

Following up on last week's post which talked about how even insured Americans are shelling out more and more dollars out of pocket to pay for their healthcare, guest blogger Emily Willingham, PhD tells us that research suggest that in...

Special Double Issue AJOB 9:6-7 Available Now on Bioethics.net

2009-06-05T11:02:55Z

Facebook and other social networking sites. Direct-to-consumer genetic testing. A taxonomy for empirical bioethics. The issues were so important, so numerous, and so overwhelming that it took a special DOUBLE issue of AJOB to cover them all. The response from...