This 25-minute documentary by Al-Jazeera presents a balanced view of the campaign for euthanasia in Australia. No presentation will satisfy everyone, but this one, "Licence to Kill", presents articulate folk on both sides of the question. Philip Nitschke's do-it-yourself suicide classes are spine-tingling. Much better than YouTube kitty videos.  (Some nice shots of the Opera House, too.) 

Hollywood celebrity Angelina Jolie was hailed this week for her bravery in revealing that she has had a preventative double mastectomy. The New York Times published her explanation as a scoop on its op-ed page:

“For any woman reading this, I hope it helps you to know you have options. I want to encourage every woman, especially if you have a family history of breast or ovarian cancer, to seek out the information and medical experts who can help you through this aspect of your life, and to make your own informed choices.”

Susceptibility to breast and ovarian cancer runs in Jolie’s family. Her mother died at 56 of breast cancer and she carries the BRCA1 gene. Doctors told her that she had an 87% chance of contracting breast cancer. After the operation, she said, the risk is now only 5%.

The news was… click here to read whole article and make comments

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) goes on sale on May 22 after more than a decade of revision by 1,500 experts. As the bible of psychiatry, it is enormously influential. Based on its diagnoses, patients will be able to claim sickness benefits, insurance and compensation. Drug companies can market new products. Odd behaviour will become a medical problem.

The purpose of DSM-5 is to enable doctors to make more reliable diagnoses of mental disorders by setting strict criteria. But most of the commentary that has accompanied its launch has been negative. As The Economist notes, “In the eyes of many critics it is a vehicle for misdiagnosis, overdiagnosis, the medicalisation of normal behaviour and the prescription of a large number of unnecessary drugs.”

The new edition adds to the ever-expanding number of diagnosable conditions: disruptive mood dysregulation disorder (children’s tamtrums),… click here to read whole article and make comments

Cloning humans might be one step closer, with scientists in the US managing to use adult skin cells to produce an embryo clone.

The research, conducted by Oregon Health and Science University and published in Cell, involved the replacement of the nucleus of a normal egg cell with that of a skin cell. This procedure is known as somatic cell nuclear transfer. A few days after this, stem cells were extracted from the embryo.

The stems cells from cloned embryos are used to create tissue genetically identical to the DNA of the patient. This means that procedures like organ transplants could be performed without a risk of rejection.

The researchers are sceptical that the embryos could be developed into viable babies. They did not implant the embryos and said they had no intention of doing so. They said that this technique had been tried on… click here to read whole article and make comments

Is bioethics compatible with democracy? This is not a question that surfaces very often in policy debates featuring prestigious bioethicists. However, in a provocative column in The Guardian, Nathan Emmerich, a young bioethicist, asks whether bioethicists are  turning into a priestly caste:

“In a secular age it might seem that the time for moral authorities has passed. However, research in the life sciences and biomedicine has produced a range of moral concerns and prompted the emergence of bioethics; an area of study that specialises in the ethical analysis of these issues. The result has been the emergence of what we might call expert bioethicists, a cadre of professionals who, while logical and friendly, have, nevertheless, been ordained as secular priests.

“This suggestion – that there are expert bioethicists – might appear to have profoundly anti-democratic implications. Indeed… click here to read whole article and make comments

The German and Czech governments allow sex offenders to be surgically castrated – provided that they give informed consent to the procedure. This has put them at loggerheads with the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT). It has denounced the practice as degrading treatment which should be ended immediately.

Writing in the Journal of Medical Ethics, John McMillan, of the University of Otago, in New Zealand, argues that the CPT is mistaken. All the evidence shows that prisoners are not coerced and that they choose this option freely in an effort to pull their damaged lives together.

There are various options open to sex offenders who want physiological assistance in controlling their sex drive. Chemical castration is reversible – but more expensive. The Czech government says that it cannot afford it. An orchidectomy is the surgical… click here to read whole article and make comments

A new bill is before the South Australian parliament that would make IVF available to lesbian couples and fertile single mothers.

The bill, proposed by minister for social inclusion Bill Hunter, is intended to overcome "discrimination" in current IVF regulations. Current law permits access to IVF services only for women deemed "medically infertile".

Mr Hunter said that the bill discriminated against women who were healthy but whose "social circumstances prevent them from conceiving without some sort of assisted reproductive treatment".

Both major parties have allowed a conscience vote on the bill. It has already passed in the upper house and is expected to pass in the lower house by a two vote majority.

Current restrictions mean that women have to travel interstate for IVF treatment.

State premier Jay Weatherill last week publicly supported the lifting of restrictions. However, Attorney-General John Rau and former health minister John Hill have said they would not support reproductive treatment for same-sex couples.

A Californian women has been sentenced to 5 years imprisonment after she misappropriated US$2.5 million from a surrogacy company. Tonya Ann Collins, 37, set up the company Surrogenesis in 2005, along with the escrow company Michael Charles Independent Financial Holding Group. 

From then until 2010, Collins used money from the companies for various unauthorized expenses - automobiles, homes, jewellery, clothing, and vacations for herself and others. Over 50 surrogate mothers were defrauded of their payments, in addition to countless clients who lost tens of thousands of dollars. On top of her jail sentence Collins has been ordered to pay restitution to the victims.

Collins was able to avoid detection by pretending Michael Charles was an independent, impartial party in the financial transactions to pay for surrogacy procedures.  Eventually, Surrogenesis and Michael Charles suffered substantial cash flow problems, and various surrogate mother fees and related surrogacy expenses were not paid by the companies as… click here to read whole article and make comments

A complex custody dispute has come before an Israeli court, raising questions about the limits of legal parenthood as well as the rights of parents with disabilities. A disabled woman is taking state social services to court after being denied custody of a child she had conceived by surrogacy.

In 2009 wheelchair-bound Ora Mor Yosef organised the insemination of a volunteer surrogate mother with sperm from an Israeli father. Mor Yosef's intention was to take custody of the child once born. However, when the surrogate gave birth to healthy girl, Jewish social security services immediately took custody of the child on the grounds that Mor Yosef was not a legal parent. The child was handed over to adoption services.

Mor Yosef appealed to the Israeli High Court of Justice, which has halted the adoption procedures until the end of a court case assessing the woman's rights… click here to read whole article and make comments

Of the 166 detainees at Guantanamo Bay, about 100 are on a hunger strike. About 20 are being force-fed, according to the New York Times. About 40 medical staff have arrived to ensure that the detainees are fed.

The men want their cases heard before a court. Many of them have been at Guantanamo for 12 years without being charged.

What are the medical ethics of force-feeding? It seems to violate the norms of informed consent and refusing burdensome treatment. The American Medical Association sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel on April 25. It quoted the 1975 Tokyo Declaration of the World Medical Association which takes an unambiguous stand on the issue: “Where a prisoner refuses nourishment and is considered by the physician as capable of forming an unimpaired and rational judgment concerning the consequences of such a voluntary refusal of… click here to read whole article and make comments