Little Updates from Thanksgiving Weekend

Several of the things that happened while we were gobbling:

Tulane may not be setting up the Big Easy Bioethics Center just yet but it is at least setting up a pretty interesting speakers' series. Don't go drunk, except maybe to the enhancement lecture.

There aren't many people working on the bioethics of IT-driven genomics, although much is being written in the popular literature. Most recently the fields have begun to set up conferences at which a lexicon is developed as well as a kind of institutional history of the ways in which all of the relevant fields (and there are many) have begun to converge. Ok a little plug: one of us has written a book about computational genomics and ethics, but only four people in his immediate family read it.

A symbol was paraded of the UK's problem establishing any kind of marrow registry enrollment among those of minority ethnic background. Asian families in particular do not often donate bone marrow.

Speaking of children in the UK who require special assistance, this piece in the News Telegraph chronicles the NHS' controversial decision to fund preimplantation diagnosis (and IVF) for families who seek to have a child in part to secure a donation. Covering the same story of Zain Hashmi, the piece highlights the problem for those of minority ethnic background.

China has a mess on its hands with DNA identification:

A non-regular investigation conducted recently in Zhejiang Province indicated that the requests for DNA identification of ones own children are rapidly increasing at a rate of 40 - 50% every year.

So George Annas isn't the only bioethicist playwright (although he is damn good): Christmas Carol has been adapted by Santina Maiolatesi of Chesapeake Research Review (along with Doris Baizley). No word on who will play Mini Tim.

Swiss News agency The Local discusses the off-label prescription of medications in children in the EU, in particular in Sweden, at Karolinska Institutet and elsewhere, noting a new European Commission regulation that requires that medical companies "begin testing medicines intended for children on children."

An Orlando judge has upheld the living will of a 73-year-old Florida man, after it was argued that his wife's durable power of attorney (a general, not a healthcare document) might trump the living will. His wife argued vehemently that she could not agree to disconnect his life support systems. The effect of the news is hard to judge, but it appears that we are in for more confusion about what these documents mean and how they relate to the legal system and to other legal instruments. Helpfully, the Florida legislature has not offered any specific instructions on how to interpret the role of any other documents, so the judge gets to make up new policy de novo!

Another piece on how sperm donors from Denmark are so hip.

Drug Policy Alliance offers its interpretation of the Monday Supreme Court deliberations on medical marijuana, which are to involve questions both of states' rights and of the scope of drug and medical policy.

Kangla Online reports that Imphal, India based Regional Institute of Medical Sciences has been admitted to the UNESCO bioethics world network. Imphal is in the northeast of India, a nation that is becoming an international bioethics powerhouse, in part due to the incredible focus on sex selection in the nation but also due to pretty innovative approaches to law and philosophy of medicine there.

You think you could be an unethical sort? The kind of person who would put the ring of Gyges to its most obvious use? Would you torture prisoners? You are human, so the answer is probably yes, or so new research on cruelty suggests.