... there's something about African Heads of State

... well, some of em anyway. I'm sure you will remember the South African President's ruminations about HIV being not the cause of AIDS, and it all being a nasty conspiracy of white supremacists aimed at denigrating black men. Anyway, Thabo Mbeki has since been engaged in a bitter race towards the ultimate goal, namely the title of 'Nuttiest President on the African Continent'. His most recent efforts in that regard are not focused anylonger on AIDS, he has moved on to suggesting crime isn't that serious a problem in South Africa (population: about 40 million, annual number of murders: 18,000). Another serious contender for the covetted title was for awhile his that-time Deputy President Jacob Zuma. Zuma thought nothing of having unsafe sex with a woman he knew to be HIV infected. Incidentally that woman was not one of his wives (plural, odd, I know) and claimed to have been raped by Zuma. Zuma decided to take serious efforts at post exposure prophylaxis in form of ... guess what ... a shower. Yep, Zuma thought if he washed himself properly his chances of contracting HIV would be reduced. Truly challenging to determine whether Mbeki is ahead or whether Zuma is currently the frontrunner.

My apologies, I have to concede that I kind of digress. I really wanted to tell you about another serious African presidential contender for the title of 'Nuttiest President on the African Continent'. I'm talking about the Gambian President Yahya Jammeh. He claims (yep, proudly on the record) that he is capable of curing AIDS within three days. I understand he was offered a place in various local psychiatric hospitals but he declined, obviously worried that he might have to share a room some time down the road with Thabo Mbeki, or (scary thought) Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, Mbeki's Minister for Health Prevention.

Moral Minds - On Yawning and Empathy

I read this most fascinating book by Mark Hauser. He argues that we as a species have developed a universal moral instinct guiding our ethical decision making. Here's a snippet from the book - sort of my end of the week type quote:
'In my discussion of empathy in humans, I mentioned the interesting observation that people who are more empathetic are more susceptible to yawning. Yawning is generally contagious. But it is really contagious if you have a big heart, unable to turn off your compassion for others. Based on this correlation between yawning and empathy, the psychologist James Anderson wondered whether other animals might also be susceptible to contagious yawning. 39 Captive chimpanzees watched videos of other chimpanzees yawning and doing other things. Though inconsistent across individuals, some individuals consistently yawned back. We can't say that the yawners are empathetic while the non-yawners are not. What we can say is that given the observation that contagious yawning is a signature of empathy in humans, it is possible that the same holds true for chimpanzees and other species. This possibility, as well as other observations of caring in animals, sets up a more specific look for empathy.'

Lucky day for bioethicists: Another Jehova's Witnesses story for our clinical ethics teaching

Reports today's issue of the Canadian broadsheet GLOBE AND MAIL that the authorities in one of the country's provinces have taken control over the medical care of a couple's newborns. In this case, of their sextuplets two newborns died in the meantime, the other four need regular blood transfusions to stay alive. The kids are unfortunate enough to have parents who happen to be Jehova's Witnesses. Not unexpectedly Jehova has told his witnesses that their kids may not receive blood transfusions etc etc - really the usual ridiculousness that religions dump without warning on the uninitiated and unprepared observer. So, these parents are quite happy to see them die rather than receive life saving blood transfusions. Dad reportedly left the hospital when the life preserving transfusions took place as he didn't feel good about sticking around while his newborns were being 'violated'. Of course, if he wasn't be a member of an organised religion (meaning there's plenty more where he came from), the courts would have him on neglect and probably child abuse charges. Given that he believes so very strongly, it seems somehow his 'conscience' based decision deserves some respect instead of derision.

The main point (ie the take-home message) is this: As an adult, competent person you're entitled to decline life preserving means such as blood transfusions. There is no way, however, that you're entitled to make such a decision on behalf of your kids. You are entitled to harm yourself, you are not entitled to harm others (including your kids). That you belief otherwise is besides the point, clinical judgment must win the day, and thankfully it does in most countries.

Funny though that news media continue reporting such cases. I assume this is done so us bioethicists get our hands on more teaching materials ... and for that we ought to be grateful to them!

Beware: AIDS microbicide makes you more vulnerable to HIV infection

An HIV prevention trial was halted in various Southern African countries and in India. The BBC reports that the investigators discovered that instead of reducing the risk of HIV infection the microbicide in question actually increased the risk. In other words, more participants (it being a microbicide, all women, of course) became infected in the active agent arm then in the placebo controlled arm of the trial.

There are several interesting questions with regard to this trial, none of which was flagged in the BBC news report:

1. The women who participated in the trial, by definition were HIV negative when they enrolled. They became infected (almost certainly due to unsafe sex) during the trial. The question is whether these infections constitute a trial related injury that ought to be subject to compensation. Many of them might well have had a therapeutic misconception, that is they might have thought that the stuff they got in the clinic gave them some (a lot - complete?) protection against HIV.
   
2. Indeed, one wonders whether these women will be provided with access to HAART when this could be clinically beneficial to them.
3. Sexy as the idea of an HIV microbicide is, none of the trials undertaken so far have led anywhere. As a non-expert I wonder whether this is a dead-end type concept that is never going to work. You might say, reasonably so, that only further research will tell. The trouble is that we will only find out when women become infected during a trial. That's arguably a pretty high price to pay, even if the women were volunteers and even if they gave truly informed first person consent.

Kids, clones, and rights

I came across this really worth reading commentary by the Australian philosopher, lawyer and science fiction writer Russell Blackford. He currently works at my old stomping ground, Monash University's School of Philosophy and Bioethics. So, a fellow Melbournian - no surprise then he'd write good stuff (... just kidding). It's a commentary on Francis Fukuyama and Franco Furger's Beyond Bioethics. Check it out here! My favourite snippet: 'Perhaps we actually should hold parents to a more exacting standard. It depresses me when children are held back in developing their talents or their knowledge of the world. It is especially galling to see kids being taught that the world is only 6000 years old, or that it is under the control of a powerful being who detests homosexuals, or any of the other kinds of implausible and destructive claptrap with which kids are frequently indoctrinated. It’s difficult to make teaching these things a crime - what with the issues of freedom of religion - but educated people can recognise it as harmful and reprehensible, and be a lot more forthright in condemning it.'

Does Africa need cloned animals - or am I missing something?

Calestous Juma argues on the BBC website that Africans need cloned animals to generate their meat products. He claims that cloned animals would be more likely to survive in the harsh African climate. Juma is, and here I quote from the BBC's website, 'Calestous Juma is a professor of international development at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, and co-chairs a high-level expert panel of the African Union on modern biotechnology'. A lot of heavy-weight competence and business class airfares, that much is certain. Anyway, I shouldn't bitch too much - have been there, done that (well, the junket trips). Juma's argument strikes me as odd. He acknowledges that cloned animals tend to be more likely to suffer serious health problems (read: die faster, die younger), and that they also happen to be much more expensive than the average local cow that came about by her parents doing ... (well, you get the drift). Everyone knows these days that meat production is hugely inefficient in terms of how much energy we have to invest and how much we eventually get out of it. Many more Africans could be fed by means of local produce if no meat production took place on that continent at all.

Juma can think of another good reason why cloning is so important, namely because African nations could utilise such competence to eventually clone animals from species that are on the verge of extinction. No doubt that is just what Africans would do, at least those Africans that desperately need cloned cows so they can feed themselves. However, in all fairness, he's got a point when he stresses that joint research partnerships between developed and developing countries would increase biotech capacity on the African continent. That indeed is a very worthwhile thing, even if it is probably wasted on trying to clone cows for Sudan.

Please do note that I am not at all making a case for or against utilising sentient animals as a food product. The argument against is overwhelmingly strong, but my doubts about cloning for Africa are unrelated to that case.

Novartis - rapidly running out of friends in India

Indian treatment access activists demonstrating against Novartis' legal challenge against the Indian patent regime. Novartis' success, as I reported earlier, would put at risk the Indian production of cheap generics (eg for the treatment of HIV/AIDS in many developing countries).

Hogmanay hogwash

Many New Year parties in the Uk had to be cancelled due to atrocious weather conditions at the end of last year. In fact, sitting in my living room in Glasgow I was glad I had not to go out and brace myself for gale force winds and torrential rainfalls. Strangely though, while organisers in places such as Liverpool and Manchester cancelled their shows in the early afternoons organisers in Edinburgh only cancelled their's in the late evening. About 100,000 prospective revellers were subsequently stuck in Edinburgh without any reasonable alternatives. Not only didn't it occur to the organisers to have an alternative indoors venue in place ( considering the weather conditions were pretty precisely predicted by the weather bureau), but they also ensured the folks were truly stuck in Edinburgh and would only be able to leave the next day. So, while the local tourism-reliant economy boomed that time around, one wonders whether prospective party goers will learn their lessons and stay clear of Edinburgh, as undoubtedly they should. After all, they now know that they will not be told early enough that Edinburgh's Hogmanay will be cancelled, until it is too late for them to leave Edinburgh and go somewhere else.

My Name is Dr John Elliott, and I am about to die with my head held high

A moving story in today's Sydney Morning Herald, Sydne's quality daily, on Dr John Elliott, an American physician (a Sydney resident) who travelled all the way to Zurich to commit physician assisted suicide. There's not much point in me re-telling what has happened. Read it here!

Islamic School chains kid

G.M.B. Akash won the World Press Photo Award for this photo of a youngster in chains in an Islamic School in Bangladesh. The boy's crime? He ran twice away from that school... - Since publication of the photo in a Nepalese magazine Mr Akash has been at the receiving end of murder threats by angry Muslims. Another case of shooting (well, not yet) the messenger.

post scriptum 05/02/2007: Someone emailed me today to advise that Akash won the WPP Award for a different photo. Not that this makes a great deal of difference to the rest of the story, but if he did't win it for this photo, I thought some might wish to know. I certainly do not want to leave you with wrong impressions about the picture. - I have no way to verify this claim or the initial claim, so fel free to investigate in case you want to know :).

Remove Ruth Kelly from ministerial office

Here's a comment on my take on Gay Adoption (posted on the New Humanist Editor's blog)... read till the end and add your signature :).

Posted by Laurence Boyce

"Religious views, you might say, and I would certainly concur are private affairs. We all are perfectly entitled to believe in any particular God (and as you will know, there are plenty of them on offer out there) or none at all. The golden rule in this regard is that we basically are entitled to do in our private lives whatever we consider appropriate in that regard."

It sounds plausible enough, but the trouble is that religion has never been content to restrict itself to a purely private sphere of influence. Why would it? Religions purport to hold the key to eternal life; the stakes could scarcely be higher. This simple observation perfectly explains the exquisite arrogance of the believer.

As for Ruth Kelly, I see that a petition has begun for her removal from office. Please sign up today and tell all your freinds; then maybe we won't have to tolerate her for too much longer.

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/kellyweu

Winds of Change - update on gay adoption

The Guardian cartoonist Steve Bell on the gay adoption controversy. The BBC reports that Tony Blair has caved in to Cabinet and MPs' demands that there will be no conscience based exceptions from the requirement of anti-discrimination legislation for church run adoption agencies. That would be excellent news for civil rights in the UK.

Gay adoption

Public Obligations and Private Preferences

Just a few weeks ago the Scottish Parliament did the right thing. It permitted adoption agencies to allow gay couples to adopt children. Frankly, this being the 21st century, I didn't expect anyone to bat an eyelid in response to this decision. And not many eyelids were batted beyond the usual suspects belonging to various church hierarchies. Cardinal Keith O'Brien, our local representative of the Vatican, predicted entirely predictably our descent into a spiral of immorality. Explain that take on the issue to thousands of well-cared for AIDS orphans in Southern African who have been adopted over the years by gay couples. Even the Catholic Church knows that there is no evidence that children brought up by gay couples are any worse adapted than children brought up by straight folks. So, it's not its concern for the children's well-being that drives them. Its take on the matter at hand is that a fairly old, logically inconsistent booklet forming the ideological basis for much of Mr. O'Brien's statements, tells us that gay adoption is wrong. Why anybody in government should care is something I truly do not comprehend. The Catholic Church, when stripped of all the bluster of titles and robes, has long ceased to be a credible arbiter of morality. It knows little to nothing about human sexuality and tends to limp from one home-made sexual scandal to the next.

Enter Ruth Kelly. The Communities Secretary is not your average church going Catholic, far from that. She is a card carrying member of Opus Dei. Opus Dei is a particularly fundamentalist arm of the Catholic Church. Religious views, you might say, and I would certainly concur are private affairs. We all are perfectly entitled to believe in any particular God (and as you will know, there are plenty of them on offer out there) or none at all. The golden rule in this regard is that we basically are entitled to do in our private lives whatever we consider appropriate in that regard. That certainly applies to Ruth Kelly as much as my Polish plumber. The trouble really began when Ms Kelly decided to create a loophole in said adoption rules. She plans, supported by regular Pope chum Tony Blair to permit religious organizations to discriminate against prospective adoptive gay parents. I am not surprised she would come up with such a strategy. The last Opus Dei member I came across advised my gay office manager that she would pray for him so he would be able to become heterosexual. I wish I could say 'just made that one up', but I didn't.

Ruth Kelly should have recognized that she has a clear conflict of interest between her public responsibilities as a communities secretary and her private-preference religious views. In John Reid's famous words (uttered admittedly in a different context), she is certainly not fit for purpose and should be replaced by someone who is not abusing government office to achieve religious ideological objectives. – And spare me the nonsense about the grave danger to children's well-being if the Catholic Church really closed its adoption agencies, as it threatened to do if anti-discrimination legislation would be applied to its activities as they apply to everyone else's. Leaving aside this demonstration of the Church's prioritizing of its ideology over the children's well-being as well as its clear attempt at blackmailing the democratic state, surely it should not be overly difficult to channel the public funding the Church receives for its adoption agencies to a charity that has its eyes on the ball (the children as opposed to the book). – Still skeptical as to whether the Church and its government minister might have a point? Just imagine the book would have said that black orphans may not be adopted by white people. Would you still think the Church has a case?

China's rulers: Ethically inspiring TV for you :)

AP reports today that mainland Chinese TV stations must broadcast 'ethically inspiring' programmes to the country's citizens. Given that in the corruption and civil rights violations plagued PR of China a lot of news would be less than inspiring some clarification from the powers that are has been provided. The programming must 'reflect the reality of China in a positive way'. Now you know. That probably is the PR of China equivalent to the news programming on Rupert Murdoch's Fox News which is clearly attempting to brainwash the US public into believing that GW Bush is a competent and honourable President of the USA.

Cabinet row over adoptions by gay couples

The Guardian reports today about a UK government row over adoptions by gay couples. Here's my letter to the editor of the paper, responding to that report: 'Quite remarkable that the fundamentalist Catholic sect Opus Dei's permanent representative in New Labour's government, communities secretary Ruth Kelly, proposes that unjust discrimination is acceptable as long as it is meted out by people and organisations sharing her particular set of prejudices. She probably does not believe that gay people working in adoption agencies should also be entitled to prevent members of Opus Dei from adopting children. It is very obvious that she prioritises her individual system of prejudices over the greater good of society. High time for cabinet to put a stop that. Can't someone put her in charge of developing rules for collecting traffic fines or something similar?'

Global Health Priority Setting

In the next issue of DEVELOPING WORLD BIOETHICS (a journal of which I am a co-editor) we will publish a paper arguing that tsunami related international aid was disproportionate if one looks at the number of people affected compared with other disease and disaster related deaths in the world. The authors alert us to the fact that if numbers alone mattered international aid should be spending arguably substantially higher for HIV/AIDS than on the tsunamis disaster in the end of 2004. Their contribution should perhaps be seen in the context of a larger debate about proper priority setting in international health related aids programmes. Laurie Garrett, of the US Council on Foreign Relations, argues in a thoughtful recent article that current funding priorities are all too often too narrow-mindedly focused on targets such as a certain number of HIV positive people in a given developing country on antiretroviral therapy at a certain point in time.[1] This, he rightly points out, often comes at too high a price as local resources are re-routed to achieve that particular objective. Healthcare professionals go for better-paid jobs in such programmes, and as a consequence developing nations’ health delivery systems begin to crumble. Moreover, given that such targets are usually donor-driven (eg by the Gates Foundation) there is a very serious risk that once the funding dries up the programmes become unsustainable. Garrett suggests that we should no longer focus on such narrow objectives but that instead we ought to shoot for public health outcomes, such as overall life-expectancy and increased maternal survival.

---

[1] Laurie Garrett. 2007. The Challenge of Global Health. Foreign Affairs 86(1): 14-38.

and... to end this week on a funny note

Here's a classic... from YouTube, Ali G interviewing medics on medical ethics and other stuff. Pretty hilarious :).

Novartis vs the developing world's poor

The Swiss company Novartis is taking the Indian government to court
over its legislation pertaining to generic drugs. Novartis wants to
make it more difficult for Indian companies to produce generic drugs.
According to a report at nature.com MSF is collecting signature under
a petition calling on Novartis to drop the case. The medical charity
points out that 'India is the pharmacy for the developing world'.

Further information about the background to the MSF campaign can be found here.


The petition is available here

Paying for Neglected Disease Research

There has been a lot of hand waving accompanying recent donations of large swathes of money by the likes of Bill Gates and others. - Don't worry, I won't even mention the insufferable Bono and his funny Africa related initiatives (you bought the red motorola phone, watch, armani underwear, condom already in order to eliminate poverty in africa? do it now, according to Bono and his friends this constitutes a major contribution toward the elimination of world poverty.) - Somehow, at least this was the impression given by many commentators, these sorts of philanthropic giving-away exercises would make a big difference in the fight against neglected diseases such as Malaria and TB. MSF reports today that in actual fact these private activities don't make much of a difference as the sums required to deal effectively even with TB are substantially larger then what even the Gates Foundation is prepared to spend. All goes back, ultimately to the responsibility of governments to provide the funding required to develop the tools to eradicate such illnesses. Further useful background readings at one of the useful health sites on the web, the kaisernetwork.

USA: 7000 deaths caused by illegible doctor's scripts

The German news magazine DER SPIEGEL reports that about 7000 people die unnecessarily annually in the USA because pharmacists cannot read the illegible handwriting on doctor's prescriptions. They subsequently dispense wrong medication, a lot of people die. Well, the most obvious, and correct point surely is to ask why doctors don't use digital prescriptions, and there doesn't seem any answers to that. Another question, however, is surely why pharmacists hand out drugs if they cannot read the prescription. Also makes me wonder why patients just gobble up whatever the pharmacists is handing out to them, without even bothering to check whether it's actually related to their illness...

I know you don't care... but isn't it a beauty... my new Gaggia Classic :)

Yes... serious caffeine addict at this end :).

Fundraising to feed AIDS orphans

Let me tell you something about an AIDS charity worthy probably also of your support. It's a (really - trust me) community based project in Southern Africa. What they do, in a nutshell, is to try to keep AIDS orphans in some kind of family unit (most likely relatives or neighbours). In order to ease the burdens on those usually impoverished families, however, the initiative provides 2 meals per day per child through community based food kitchens. Phedisang's approach to the problem is two-fold: It aims to move as many of the kids it feeds as is feasible on to the state grants that these kids are entitled to (but that they would never receive if it wasn't for the logistical support from Phedisang). So, basically, the first step is to keep kids properly fed, the second step is to move them on to state support in order to free donor money for other children in similar need.
To my mind it's a very clever system because it is sustainable in the longterm, because it's small and doesn't rely on massive administrative operations (gobbling up much of the donor money), and reassuringly, there are no overseas concultants on obscene international salaries that need to be 'fed', too. Check it out and consider supporting them!

Limiting disabled off-spring's physical size

A case has been reported from the USA where parents have their severely disabled off-spring injected with hormones to prevent her from growing. Their main motive is their child's well-being. If their child would grow to that of a normal adult the parents would be unable to care for her properly. Here's a link to the parents' website explaining why they're doing what they're doing. The facts as they are reported on the parents' site have been vetted by bioethicists with a professional background in pediatrics and have been confirmed to be true. Their findings were published in a peer reviewed journal in 2006. I find it difficult faulting the parents for their choice. One of my colleagues, Hugh McLachlan has. His arguments can be found here.

Here is an excerpt from a commentary made by Douglas S Diekema (MD, MPH) from the Treuman Katz Center for Pediatric Bioethics in Seattle. His views pretty much summarise what I think about this matter.

'Joel Frader pointed out something that many others have, which is that perhaps this treatment misses the point because it doesn't focus on the failure of society to support these familes. While I totally agree that many families who have children with disabilities are left adrift and unsupported in the US, and I would further agree that represents a huge problem, I would nonetheless suggest that the issue of societal failure to support many families who have children with disabilities is a separate issue. First, to argue that this kind of treatment should not have been offered because the real issue is that society needs to provide support doesn't really help these families. The fact is that society doesn't provide many of them the support they need, and it's not clear that refusing to offer them options like this (when appropriate) changes that fact--it simply leaves them with no societal support AND no options like this one. Second, this family did not seek growth attenuation because they lacked support. The parents concerns would not have been addressed by full support. They were not driven by a feeeling that this was the only option they had left, but by the sense that the option of growth attenuation acheived their goal of optimizing quality of life better than any other solution. Buying them a mechanical lift or full time nursing care wouldn't have changed the fact that having a smaller daughter would mean they would be able to lift her, carry her, hug her more easily, and take her places more
easily.'

On Sunday January 07, 2007 the OBSERVER newspaper published a thoughtful commentary on this case and the debate surrounding it.

The 'gay' sheep saga continues

I posted in the past a few items on the biological research on the sexual orientation of sheep at OHSU. Here's a link to an article in today's SUNDAY TIMES on the issue. Further reports were published here and here, particularly ridiculous was a commentary published in the NEW YORK SUN. The same nutter published the same commentary (well, more or less the same) in a Moonie owned rag called WASHINGTON TIMES (not to be confused with a serious paper, the WASHINGTON POST). In case you wonder why one should spend any time whatsoever discussing this matter, you might wish to check out this US based blog, or this, or this, or this, or this, or this and this for a UK based ranting (cheap shot, I know, but there's plenty more where that came from).
To give credit where credit is due, some are concerned about the potential abuse of such research, eg here, here and here. I must admit I began to wonder about the kind of institution that OHSU is when I read this piece :-) [just kiddin].

Another torturer down ...

Saddam Hussein, former Pres of Iraq and another torturer in chief was hanged yesterday. Frankly, even people usually opposed to capital punishment (like myself) should probably not give a toss one way or another. This guy has been responsible for terrible atrocities during his reign. Millions of Iraqi citizens left their country to protect their very lives from him and his thugs.

Having said that, the trial has of course been farcical. Set up essentially by the winners (if there is such a thing, given the mayhem in that country) of the war, the presiding judges were removed twice during the trial because the current powers that are in Iraq didn't like what they had to say. The actual execution was also a bit macabre. The executioners all wore hoods above their heads, not a great deal different to the way how Saddam's prisoners were executed I would imagine. If the new, 'democratic' Iraq can't do a great deal better than the old one... perhaps there is reason to be concerned for its future.

Here's a nice compilation of quotes from Arab papers on his execution.

Xmas and things

Quite amusing the kind of verbal acrobatic us atheists/secularists/agnostics engage in when we try to avoid Xmas in our email and other communications come December 24/25/26. Trying to avoid the obvious, namely Xmas, we go about it by wishing just about everything else, thereby nonetheless acknowledging the need to wish anything special at all. So we send 'Season's Greetings', wish a 'very early' HNY or a 'great holiday'. - All fair enough I guess. After all, we don't believe in Jesus Christ superstar and the rest of the trinitarian crowd. We should probably wish a 'Merry Christmas' to those who believe. I wonder, though, why we should spend a lot of time wishing anyone else anything else. A Christian friend sent her 'chrissie' greetings, while a colleague of unknown beliefs send 'happy holidays etc etc'. Another nice way of leaving the greetings matter open. After all, you'd substitute the 'etc' with 'Xmas' if you wish or wish 'lots of gifts' or indeed with 'and plenty more good sex'. In most non Xtian countries there are no holidays and Chinese NY falls on a different day than our Jesus Christ inspired NY. So, why bother wishing a HNY either?
Guess those of us who truly don't believe should just move on with their lives and stop wishing this and that just because it's the time of wishing things.
But that's just me, struggling every year about this time with the question of whether to wish, and if so, what to wish...

Oxford Dons refuse to hand control over to externally controlled Council

It seems that not all is lost in higher education. Oxford University's academics refused to hand over control of the institution's financial affairs to external Council members. Thereby they ensured that the self-governance of one of the world's premier universities remains a certainty. This ultimately will ensure a greater degree of academic freedom than would otherwise be the case. Congratulation to colleagues at Oxford for preventing ex-businessman turned Oxford Vice Chancellor John Hood from handing control over the university effectively to external business people.

Unethical HIV research

ACT UP Paris has been critical of currently ongoing clinical HIV trials in Uganda and Zimbabwe. Check out this link for further detailled information. The organisation is concerned about standards of care, informed consent issues and claims that patients in these trials are subjected to unnecessary risks.

UK arms sales corruption probe

The current UK Prime Minister entered office with the promise to deliver the cleanest government ever in the history of the country. True to form his Attorney General ended today a corruption probe investigating whether BAE had indeed used a 60 mio GBP slush fund to bribe Saudi officials in order to seal a major arms deal. Remarkably the investigation wasn't ended because it was all too obvious for anyone to see that the allegations were untrue. No, the investigation was ended due to it being considered a threat to 'national security'... - No wonder there is an ever growing lack of trust in politicians and politics in the country.

Primate experiments are 'morally required' say scientists

A report by a group of leading biomedical researchers, chaired by David Weatherall, has concluded, according to THE TIMES that 'Experiments with monkeys are “morally required” as the only way to answer scientific questions of crucial importance to human health, an expert inquiry said yesterday.' I am not qualified to evaluate the scientific claim herein, namely that 'scientific questions of crucial importance to human health' can only be answered by undertaking experiments involving primates. I have some doubts, as surely, experiments involving humans should yield even better results. Be that as it may, though, an ethical case for primate research could not possibly be made even if that statement was correct. It is not possible to derive a moral ought from this observation. To be fair, however, this conclusion was cooked up by a TIMES journalist. The actual report contains a reasonably sophisticated analysis of the ethical issues involved.

Che Guevara and today's students

Good (or bad) ol Che has become a Warhol like icon of modern consumerism. No doubt he would turn in his grave did he know. Alas, we don't turn in our graves when we are dead, because that is part of being dead (ie we don't move about anylonger).
What puzzles me about this current fashion is that seemingly most of those youngsters (well, being safely in my 40s now, folks in their 20s are youngsters on my books) have no clue whatsoever about Che Guevara's ideals, and much of his life. Just the other day I noticed in a very close friend's bedroom a huge Che poster (red background, the lot). Thing is, my friend is a deep adherent of modern capitalism, he shows open disdain for my 'public sector' work as an educator, wants to open up a business and be a successful entrepreneur. Now, surely my friend is entitled to his views. What is puzzling about this one, however, is that Che Guevara, had he come across my friend during the Cuban revolution, would have had him shot on sight.
Well, you'd argue that at a time when Milos Foreman's songs from his musical HAIR are being abused to sell shampoo, quite possibly we should accept that Che's face graces the bedroom walls of business students. I remain unconvinced. I still think that once we choose our heroes, we should know enough about them to explain why they are our heroes. But, that's just me

Steven Purcell is gay - who cares?

The papers reported yesterday that the leader of Glasgow City Council, a New Labour politician by the name Steven Purcell 'outed' himself. It seems he split up with his wife some time in summer and for some reason or other thought it worthwhile holding a press conference announcing that he is gay. What puzzled me about this case is that actually even the broadsheets reported this amazing amazing revelation. - I mean, really, this is the 21st century, who cares?

General Pinochet is dead ... finally

Yes, the old king of torture died today, aged 91. Sadly so he successfully managed to escape prosecution and eventual prison for the many crimes against Chilean and other citizens committed under his dictatorship. In case you want to know a bit more about this terrible character, visit the Guardian's website. The paper has an excellent Special Report on Pinochet.

Unethical research on pregnant women with herpes

PUBLIC CITIZEN PRESS RELEASE


Drug-Company Sponsored Research Trial Needlessly Put Indigent Pregnant
Women and Their Infants at Risk

Placebos Administered to Pregnant Women With Genital Herpes Simplex
Virus Resulted in Unnecessary Cesarean Deliveries

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Dozens of primarily indigent pregnant women
enrolled in a drug-company sponsored research trial were needlessly
put at risk by being treated with a placebo rather than a generic drug
proven to help them, according to a letter authored by Public Citizen
and two medical school professors and obstetricians published in the
December edition of the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology.

The trial, funded by Glaxo-Wellcome (now GlaxoSmithKline), measured
the efficacy of valacyclovir administered to pregnant women with a
history of genital herpes simplex virus (HSV) in reducing outbreaks of
genital HSV lesions at the time of labor. Women with HSV outbreaks
during pregnancy, especially those who experience a first episode, are
more likely to have another outbreak while in labor. When this occurs,
a Cesarean delivery is routinely performed to prevent HSV transmission
to the baby, which can result in sometimes-fatal neonatal HSV
infection.

The clinical trial ran from April 1998 to November 2004 at Parkland
Hospital in Dallas, which serves a predominantly low-income
population. The results were published in the July 2006 edition of
Obstetrics & Gynecology, the official journal of the American College
of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG).

Valacyclovir is a drug that is converted in the body into acyclovir.
Since 1999, acyclovir has been recommended by ACOG to be considered at
36 weeks of gestation for pregnant women with their first episode of
HSV during that pregnancy to prevent another outbreak at the time of
labor and the need for a Cesarean delivery. The authors of the study
ignored this guideline by including in the trial 62 women who had a
first episode of genital HSV during the pregnancy, most presumably
recruited after the ACOG guidelines were published.

In addition, four of the researchers who wrote the 2006 article
published a review article in 2003 that concluded that acyclovir
significantly reduced Cesarean rates for women with both first and
recurrent episodes of HSV compared to a placebo. Nonetheless, for more
than a year after submitting their findings, the researchers continued
to enroll women with both first and recurrent episodes, half of whom
received placebos.

"At the very same time these researchers were publishing their
conclusion that acyclovir could reduce Cesareans, they weren't
offering this drug to these indigent patients," said Dr. Adam Urato,
an obstetrician at the University of South Florida and one of the
letter's authors. "They were knowingly placing their patients at
higher risk. Did the patients understand that the researchers
themselves had concluded that acyclovir reduced the risk of Cesarean?"

As a result of this conduct by both the drug company and the
researchers, a significant number of the women assigned to receive the
placebo had an HSV outbreak that led to a Cesarean section – an
outbreak that likely could have been prevented if they had been
appropriately treated with acyclovir. The Declaration of Helsinki,
developed by the World Medical Association as a statement of ethical
principles in medical research involving human subjects, states that
any "new method should be tested against those of the best current
prophylactic, diagnostic, and therapeutic methods."

The authors of the letter called upon the University of Texas
Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, which authorized the study, to
issue a formal apology to the pregnant women enrolled and to perform a
full investigation as to what went wrong to allow such a trial to take
place. They also called for compensation for the women involved in the
trial who were not properly treated and underwent Cesarean sections.

In addition, they urged ACOG and the editors at Obstetrics &
Gynecology to initiate an inquiry as to how this study was handled by
the journal. The Declaration of Helsinki also implores journals that
"reports of experimentation not in accordance with the principles laid
down in this Declaration should not be accepted for publication."

"Indigent pregnant women represent a particularly vulnerable
population," said Dr. Aaron Caughey, an obstetrician at the University
of California, San Francisco, and the lead author of the letter. "That
a research trial could be performed that put pregnant women at risk
when an effective medication was available flies in the face of
responsible medical research."

Public Citizen has a long history of involvement in the debate over
the appropriate use of placebos in clinical trials, particularly in
developing countries. "We have long contended that if researchers and
drug companies could get away with administering placebos under
questionable conditions in developing countries, they would do the
same to poor people in the United States," said Dr. Peter Lurie,
deputy director of Public Citizen's Health Research Group. "Now they
have."

My little letter to the editor of Scottish daily newspapers

The background of the letter (ie the story) can be found here.

And this is my letter:

Perth SNP MSP Roseanna Cunningham's views on adoption of children by same sex couples are remarkable. They are remarkable because they are not even tainted by any attempt to provide sound reasons (harm to children, that sort of stuff) for her prejudices against gay people. Rather, according to her, adoption of children by same sex couples is 'against nature's design'. Feel free to substitute 'God', 'the Almighty' etc etc for 'nature' if you wish, it's the same type of 'reasoning'. Scottish and other philosophers will be deeply grateful to Ms Cunningham as this little piece of 'wisdom' makes for a nice hook to begin a Philosophy 101 module: 'How not to make your case' might be a good heading for that class. The types of ideologues peddling such 'wisdom' tried to convince us a few hundred years back that the earth is flat, among other things. Big surprise then that they have also discovered further moral guidance in nature, telling us that gay adoption is bad. We all know that some people hold prejudices against gay people, ethnic minorities, single parents and other easy targets. What is remarkable is that the Scottish parliament is abused as a venue to propagate such prejudices. I call on the SNP to tell us prior to the next elections what its considered stance on this issue is. Scotland is the most secular part of the UK, surely Scots will want to know whether they can expect from a potential future SNP government gutter driven policies such as those propagated by its MSP Roseanna Cunningham.

... and here... the latest from the US of A

a teenager got shot and killed for throwing eggs at SUVs... seems the driver of one such monster pursued him with his vehicle and shot him.

Car drivers must soon pay for road utilisation

The UK government received a report proposing that car drivers shoulod be charged for using public roads. The report indicates that up to 28 billion GBP could accrue to users of trains and busses per annum. Must say I much like this idea (declaration of potential conflict of interest: I would be a beneficiary of this policy if it came into being - I don't have a driver's license and do not know how to drive a car). This should result into measurable reductions in cars on roads. This in turn would reduce the continuing destruction of our environment as well as make road utilisation more efficient for those using them (they would be able to get faster from A to B as there should be less cars about).
The funny people at SKY news (Rupert Murdoch's 'news' outlet) wondered aloud this morning whether the money would be spend to build more roads...

Caring SOUTH AFRICAN AIRWAYS style

I flew (torture class, don't ask) with South African Airways from London Heathrow to Johannesburg this week. Flight was pretty much unexceptional, the food was digestable, the inflight entertainment was OK, the seat was ... well, I got what I paid for. Even the service was pretty good.

Having said that, however, I want to share this story with you. Udo talks to SAA steward. Explains he has a very bad headache and requests a painkiller. Here's the SAA steward's response. No kidding: 'The person in charge of the painkillers is currently asleep. I can't wake her, as there would be a big fight. You have to wait until she is awake.'

It goes without saying that I went without painkillers as the stewardess 'in charge' of them slept during the night flight.

Cheers to the professional training SAA's stewards and stewardesses receive... makes me wonder whether their pilots also go to sleep and must not be awoken in case their services are needed during the flight...

Kuwait democracy

Bit of a joke really... but anyway... go to the Kuwait news agency's website, scroll down the links on the left-hand side of the monitor and click 'Democracy in Kuwait'. Q E D I would think. -

Patents versus Patients

Oxfam has issued a report today suggesting that rich countries continue to undermine the Doha Declaration (a ministerial agreement of the World Trade Organisation). The agreement was supposed to ensure that poor people living in the developing world will be able to access essential drugs in an affordable and sustainable manner. Oxfam concludes: 'Trade rules remain a major barrier to accessing affordable versions of patented medicines (generic medicines). The prevalence of debilitating and life-threatening diseases in poor countries is growing, but medicines are simply not available.'

Church of England coming out in favour of letting die

As a follow-up to the post below. The medical specialist body of the Church of England supports the view that it may be acceptable under certain circumstances to allow severely disabled newborns to die. It seems the organisation is continuing to think that active euthanasia for such newborns is wrong, but passive euthanasia (with the same consequence but possibly longer agony on the newborns' part) is acceptable.
Here's a remarkable (by Church standards) quote from one of its bishops (ie reasonably senior management type personnel): 'There may be occasions where, for a Christian, compassion will override the 'rule' that life should inevitably be preserved'.

Doctors' Society Asks to Consider Infantizide

Quite remarkable the news item in today's SUNDAY TIMES. The paper discovered a position statement (*pdf file!) the Royal Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology submitted in response to a consultation the Nuffield Council on Bioethics started some time ago. Nothing unusual about this, you might say. Well, the unusual, in fact, the unusually brave, thing about the society's statement is that it asks us to consider whether or not under certain circumstances active euthanasia of very severely disabled newborns is something that we should permit physicians to do. Here's the crucial part from the statement: "We would like the working party to think more radically about non-resuscitation, withdrawal of treatment decisions, the best interests test and active euthanasia as they are ways of widening the management options available to the sickest of newborns." The ethical rationale, as proposed time and again by moral philosophers such as Peter Singer, Michael Tooley and others is that it can be in the best interest of such newborns to get actively killed (in a painless manner that is not causing any distress to these newborns), instead of being kept alive to live a short life of a very low quality.
Quite interesting that this statement was overshadowed by a truly less important event, namely the death penalty for Saddam Hussein, the former ruling dictator of Iraq. To my mind the importance of a mainstream medical association suggesting that we ought to have a discussion about the question of whether active euthanasia for some severely disabled newborns might not the way to go, cannot be overestimated.
Let's hope this discussion will ever take place and changes will be implemented. It seems difficult to accept a status quo in which quality of life is subordinate to mere existence (at whatever cost in terms of life quality. Not all lives are worth living. It seems the Royal Society of Obstetrics and Gynaecology has come to realise this.

El dia de muertos

The German National Ethics Council will be abolished, long live the German Ethics Council. The old National Ethics Council was an institution essentially stacked with government appointees (much like the various incarnations of its US equivalent). It is proposed that the new German Ethics Council be stacked jointly with appointees by the government and the parliament.
Some have argued that there is a danger that democracy is eventually being replaced by expertocracy. The thing is, though, that the main problem with both outfits is that government has any role at all in appointing its members. Equally, it seems a misconception of the role and function of such advisory bodies that they could ever replace democratic decision making. The buck stops with the elected representatives of the people, and not with some eggheads, appointed by government or government and parliament.It's as simple as that.

Child slavery in Africa

Excellent article in today's New York Times on child slavery in Africa and other developing countries. It highlights the issue also from the perspective of families frequently selling their children into slavery in order to survive.

Germany plans to punish cancer patients who failed to undergo timely screening

The BMJ reports that Germany plans to penalise cancer patients who failed to undergo regular screening. That's very much in line with the country's policy to charge dental patients higher rates who failed to have regular check-ups.
The argument is obviously that these patients had a good chance to prevent getting seriously ill, yet they chose not to do so by omitting to undergo screening. Timely detection of early stage cancer and early intervention dramatically reduce serious illness and death.
Invariably such a drastic policy has its critics. Hazel Thornton writes on BMJ.com that such a policy 'intrudes on an individual`s right to refuse an imperfect intervention that can result in false negative and false positive diagnoses; can lead to gross over-treatment; to psychological harm and false categorisation as `cancer patient`.'
Thornton's argument misses the obvious point that the harmful effects of some false negative and false positive diagnoses are by far outweighed by the majority of correct diagnoses resulting into early treatment. Of course, patients are entitled to refuse such testing, but surely if they do, it is not unreasonable to ask them to compensate other tax payers for the additional cost their behaviour is causing.

post scriptum: Given that this blog has no discussion forum, I have decided to post the below reply to this blog (with permission by the person posting it).

Udo,

Your post on screening seem to imply that it is always cost-effective. Yet I haven't seen any numbers from you other than vague statements of how risks can justify the benefits. Have you done any calculations? You have to factor in that

1) cost of screening of millions of people

2) cost of false positives and invasive tests

3) cost of overdiagnosis - i.e. cost of treatment of people whose cancer wouldn't have caused any problems in their lifetime

4) cost of longer treatment for aggressive cases that are not helped by the treatment other than increase the time after diagnosis (at the expense of time before) (read up on lead-time bias if you don't understand what I am talking about here).

Do you know statistics at least a little bit? Do you understand the difference between relative risk and absolute risk reduction? Do you have a clue about how many people need to be tested for one person to benefit? Do you know that for every person whose life is prolonged, several are treated unnecessarily and may have life shortened as a result?

Do you know that you have a higher chance of being diagnised with some cancers if you are screened? Are you aware that because of false positives and overdiagnosis lots of popular screenings are not even remotely cost-effective because cost of screening+cost of treatment for overdiagnosed cases+ cost of false positives is significantly greater than the savings on less treatment for few?

You can take mammograms as one example and do your math. You can use numbers from this article ( http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/330/7497/936) which many consider overly optimistic - the mortality reduction listed in this article is way higher that what USPSTF used and about 4 times more optimistic than more recent Cochrane review (from October this year). If German government is using cost to justify their plans - they are way off. Insurance companies had to be forced to pay for screening because unlike German government they can do their math.

The balance of benefit and harm for most screening tests is not as clear cut as you think it is. Few peolple benefit tremendously from it, but some are hurt. It'd be nice to have some proof of cost effectiveness before you start penalizing people for not doing it.

M

More on 'gay sheep' research

I have finally made a decision re PETA's request to support their quest to have 'gay sheep' research at Oregon State University stopped. Here's the background of the story. On October 19, 2006 I wrote this letter to the Principal of the institution...

Dear Dr Ray:

PETA contacted me some time ago with regard to research undertaken by your Dr Roselli and colleagues. This, I assume, is primarily due to
the fact that I am reasonably well-known in the field of bioethics and
also perhaps due to my outspoken views on biological research on
sexual orientation.

I have since contacted Dr Roselli with questions pertaining to his
research. He chose not to respond. Assuming that his mail bag has
grown a bit since PETA's campaign, I won't fault him for that.

Having said that, based on my understanding of his research, he seems
interested in questions pertaining to the sexual orientation (and
their alterability) of higher mammals, with the main focus of his
research being sheep.

I should be honest, unless I misunderstand the research in question, I
think Dr Roselli's serves no health related purpose. Once his
questions have been answered one way or another, there are no health
benefits flowing either to sheep or any other higher mammals,
including humans. I do think that it is highly ethically questionable
whether it is acceptable to subject higher mammals to pain and
suffering in the course of research the outcome of which has not the
well-being and health of higher mammals in mind.

Equally, while I do not subscribe to the view that Dr Roselli himself
is driven by any kind of homophobic agenda, I cannot see how any
research results he might come up with would not be seized upon by
people with precisely such an agenda.

This brings me to the question of whether or not such research ought
to be undertaken. For better or worse, I have spend five years
working in a leading Southern African medical school. Considering the
health problems the world is facing, it seems remarkable to me that a
leading scientist such as Dr Roselli should concern himself with
frankly irrelevant questions. That the pursuit of these research
questions should result into pain, suffering and death for higher
mammals makes his endeavour all the more questionable.

Sincerely,

Sack Manto - What a Brilliant Idea

What a brilliant idea! South Africa'sMinister for Health (Prevention), Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, has finally got her own fan club, a website calling for her to be sacked ASAP. Tshabalala-Msimang, dutifully carrying out the painfully idiotic views of her boss, the country's President, Thabo Mbeki (who thinks HIV is not the cause of AIDS, and that there is no AIDS epidemic in his country), should have been sacked a long time ago, along with Thabo Mbeki.
So, make sure to leave your vote and support the campaign to get Tshabalala-Msimang sacked.

Faith schools - another anachronism

Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, went on public record demanding that faith schools become less exclusive and take in up to 25% pupils coming from other faiths or none. Funny man he is. Can't he see that the whole point of faith schools is segregation and the fostering of secterianism. Otherwise we would have only public schools in which all pupils received the same education. Faith at best entered the school by way of explaining what faiths are out there to adopt by those inclined to believe in a good omniscient 'God', 'Allah' or some creation like em.
Faith schools primary objective is to indoctrinate kids to ensure they stick with a particular religious ideology throughout their lives, thereby guaranteeing to the leaders of these religions influence in public life that they wouldn't have if they had to rely on the power of their arguments.
It is somewhat amusing that we have at this point in time a big debate about Muslim teachers wearing the Ninja turtle outfit during class, while the much larger moral evil is the very existence of faith schools. They clearly are designed to rob future generations of the opportunity to enter the world of adulthood without having been indoctrinated for many many years. A good colleague of mine calls this 'child abuse'.

madonna's children

So it's 'amtlich', Madonna is trying to adopt a boy in Malawi. Should she be allowed to do so? A whole bunch of professional do-gooders believe she shouldn't. Mostly children's charities operating in Malawi and the perhaps inescapable church groups. They're currently going to court in Malawai to prevent the adoption from going ahead.

This leads to various interesting questions, chief among them whether Madonna's course of action was the best she could have taken under the circumstances. This question is being asked by lots of commentators and the opinion of most is that Madonna is doing something wrong. Their main rationale is that she could help more orphans in Malawai if she sponsored instead schools or sponsored a much larger number of children thru a charity.

The critics clearly have a point here. However, that taking legal action in order to prevent the adoption from going ahead is the right response is doubtful. Imagine if it became a universal rule that unless you undertook a particular course of altruistic action some charity or other would sue you and demand that you do what it believes is the best thing (usually probably sponsor the charity and its staff...). In Madonna's case, it seems somewhat clear that everyone is better off (the child will have a fairly comfortable upbringing together with Madonna's other pampered off-spring; Madonna got the additional child that she wanted, the kid's biological father is supportive because he doesn't have to worry anylonger abbout the child's welfare).

So, while we're probably entitled to snigger at Madonna's action, clearly the actual outcome is desireable. There certainly is no reason to take legal action to prevent the adoption from going ahead.

A second question that puzzles me a bit is this: If the charities are really so concerned about children in need, is it acceptable to put a lot of stress on a little child in order to pursue a legal (and, let's face it, political) case against Madonna. After all, while the kid is getting used to seeing Madonna and her other half as his parents, there are these children's charities trying to bring this process to an end. How would the kid feel if they succeeded? Surely it's not better off returning to an impoverished African orphanage. The point I am trying to make is that the legal case is surely not in the child's best interest, quite to the contrary.

This, again, makes me wonder about the charities' motives.

I can't help thinking that this adoption is also a fairly powerfulstatement against racism...

Crime in South Africa

While I whinge (just below) about my stolen bike... one should never forget, that everything in this regard is relative. JUst check out the most recent (official, as in: not entirely credible) crime stats from the rainbow nation (aka South Africa).
Here's Cape Town's ex Archbishop Desmond Tutu's take on this matter.

Stolen Bikes and People

Check it out ... I got myself a new bike... yet again. It's the white Diamondback. The black Trek 4300 is the most recently stolen one. Beautiful bike... had it less than a year. - There is something odd about the UK and my bikes. I have lived over the years in quite a number of different countries, some of which with a substantially higher crime rate than the UK (think Joburg, South Africa). Thing is though, I have nowhere lost as many bicycles to theft as I have in the UK. It's truly belief defying. I guess during the last 18 months or so I lost bikes worth close to 2000 GBP to theft.
What particulary irks me is that there doesn't seem to be any culture of watching out for one's neighbours in this country. Most recently I had a bike stolen outside Tesco's in Argyle street. Now, that's an innercity food store. There's is substantial 24 hour pedestrian traffic. Yet, someone cutting thru my chain in order to steal the bike while I did my food shopping, didn't motivate any of the passers-by to call the police or even the security guard responsible for ensuring nobody steals Tesco's yoghurts. Not that the company seems to care about the perils its customers vehicles are in while their owners are shopping at Tesco's.

Organ 'donations' Chinese style

There have long been rumours that the organs of executed prisoners in the PR of China are available for sale to the highest foreign bidder. The UK's BBC managed to provide evidence for this. Its undercover journalist went into one of the largest organ transplant specialist hospitals in the PR of China and posed as a buyer (supposedly looking to buy an organ for his father). A doctor and a special marketing person from the hospital explained the deal to him (all on the tape from the hidden camera). Interesting anecdote on the side, the doctor advised that this is a particularly good time to buy organs as they have a surplus of executed prisoners' organs due to the fact that there is a wave of executions prior to an upcoming national holiday... nuff said, check the story out here According to news reports the country executed approximately 1770 people in 2005.

Researching 'gay' sheep

Weird story. I received a message from PETA asking whether I would support their campaign to have research involving 'gay' sheep at Oregon Health and Science's University stopped. From what I gather researchers there investigate the question of what leads some male-oriented rams to be male-oriented as opposed to female-oriented. They also experimented with changing hormone levels in sheep fetuses. The ethical questions with re to this research are really two fold: one certainly is whether this research interest is ethically justifiable, seeing that some animal suffering and death is involved (given that once the answer is found, there would be no health benefits for either sheep or humans or any other higher mammals), the other is whether this type of research ought to be undertaken in homophobic societies?
It will be interesting to see how these scientists will respond to public criticism of their work.

Why do we admire people doing silly and risky things?

It's kinda weird, a few weeks ago this Australian guy died who had a habit of fighting with crocodiles in front of cameras. He died in a freak accident, swimming too close to a sting ray. The frightened sting ray stung him with its tail in his heart. He died nearly instantly. Big drama in Down Under, the PM giving a speech celebrating the dead guy, stuff like one would expect in that part of the world.
Last night a presenter on a show usually propagating highly expensive, outrageously oversized gaz guzzling cars nearly killed himself while trying to set a new land speed record while riding a rocket driven vehicle. He crashed at something like 280-300 MPH. Since then the UK is in crisis mode much like Down Under for its hero.
The UK NHS is, of course, paid for by our taxes. I'm truly surprised that not more people are really upset that massive resources are spent on keeping this rocket car riding TV presenter alive. Why should we spent money to cover him for follies that he committed? To my mind, such people ought to be forced to take out private health insurance that is covering such risk behaviour. Thereby the general public (not usually prone to engage in similarly nonsensical activities!) can focus on spending its health care tax monies in other areas.

Burning the Pope's image

So, there we go again, someone criticises Islam and a few hours later the speaker's effigy is burned all over the Islamic world. There's something slightly contradictory about this peace loving ideology and too many of its proponents and 'representatives'. Particularly ironic is that the Pope (a rightwing ideologue by most people's standards) agrees with those currently burning his effigy on just about everything from opposition to reproductive health rights to gay equality to funny ideas about evolution. Putting these natural allies noses out of joint is kinda intriguing.
Here's what he had to say (quoting an obscure Christian character who died hundreds of years back): 'Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.' Invariably accusations form those burning the effigy suggest that the Pope got it all wrong, yet their very reaction makes one wonder (one being someone like me who is not a scholar on anything Muhammad or Jesus or Dianetics).
What irritates me so very much about this affair is that these people don't seem to realise that their convictions are all man-made. They are chosen by their adherents in a manner similar to other ideologies. It is entirely unclear why their leaders think that somehow they should be above criticism and ridicule anymore then, say, the Labour Party in the UK or the Rpublicans in the US. My gut feeling is that they know about the inellectual poverty of their enterprise. It is probably in direct response to their inability to defend their ideology that they quickly resort to the silencing of critics by various civilised and uncivilised means.

Proper role of Applied Ethics

There has been some argument in recent years about the proper role of Applied Ethics. Should the types of questions people in Applied Ethics confront be determined by the number of sentient beings currently (or potentially in future) affected by a given problem? Or should we aim to resolve particularly theoretically challenging questions, even if the answers to these questions would, if implemented, affect only very few sentient beings? Well... I have argued in a number of articles and editorials for an affirmative stance on the first as opposed to the latter proposition. Surely there is little utility in calling something applied ethics if it isn't applied to a real-world practical problem. What are your views?

Test picture: Scottish Highlands

Picture 165
Originally uploaded by udo schuklenk.

Just testing whether Flickr gamma and blogger beta talk to each other. Ignore this posting and/or enjoy the picture :).
udo

Consciousness in PVS - Bollocks...

The Scotsman reports in today's edition that some people in persistent vegetative state might be conscious to a certain extent and capable of responding for instance to sentences spoken to them. Steve Miles, MD, a bioethicist at the University of Minnesota comments: '1. This woman had suffered a traumatic, not ischemic, brain injury five months before the testing. 2. The MRI showed that the frontal cortex was damaged from the trauma and post accident surgery but that the cortex and white matter were essential intact.
3. The PVS was diagnosed with the Royal College of Physicians 2003 guidelines. http://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/pubs/wp_vegetativestate.pdf However, those guidelines do not allow the diagnosis of post traumatic PVS until one year after the trauma because of the 20% prognosis for recovery in such persons. The clinical exam at 11.5 months showed recovery to Minimal Conscious State thus moving her outside the diagnosis of PVS as defined by the Royal College. 4. She was asked to imagine herself touring her house and playing tennis and appropriate areas of the brain showed metabolic activity. The researchers interpreted this as intentional cooperation rather than as word association responsiveness. She was not given a neutral stimulus such as “tennis” to test this difference.'

Go Zoe Go!

Zoe Williams comments in today's GUARDIAN newspaper that we all should take a much stronger stance against what she describes as 'deranged opponents of a vaccine against cervical cancer'. The main thing about a cervical cancer vaccine is that for it to act successfully against the HPV (which causes cervical cancer) it must be administered before women start having sex (with men). Once you got the bug, the vaccine can't help you.
Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the Christian Right is busily agitating against the vaccine saying that it would encourage young girls to have sex before they should. Of course, they are also quietly saying that girls should only have sex in marriage. Knowing, however, that this doesn't go down too well in modern societies they aim to prevent young girls from access to this potentially life saving vaccine.
Read Zoe Williams fairly sharp but to the point analysis is here.