Stem cell research - cultural wars continued

You will probably know of the never-ending ideological battles between pro-lifers and the rest of us. Main bone of contention is the moral status of embryos. Particularly viciously fought over was (well, is) the issue of embryonic stem cell research. For better or worse, embryonic stem cell research requires the extraction of embryonic stem cells around 10-14 days after conception. The embryos are destroyed in this process, much to the chagrin of pro-lifers. The cell accumulation they're concerned about has, of course, no central nervous system, no brain, no capacity to suffer, nothing in other words that would justify ascribing moral status to such embryos.
Comes scientific research 'demonstrating' that the same kind of therapeutic stem cell research can be undertaken without the destruction of embryos. In fact, so claims the research by Dr Catherine Verfaillie, we should also be able to use adult stem cells. Of course, if you can avoid fighting over nothing (with pro-lifers and others), that's what you should aim for. So, even if one subscribes to the view that the embryos in question do not deserve moral status of any kind, one should be relieved to see that valuable research can continue while cultural wars over moral standing can be avoided altogether by using adult stem cells.
Dr Verfaillie (that time of University of Minnesota affiliation) published her work in the prestigious peer reviewed journal NATURE. It has since turned out to be the case that some of the data she published was significantly flawed. Quite possibly her conclousions might not be sustainable in light of the serious mistakes she made. Perhaps, in light of the cultural wars just mentioned, it is not that insignificant that Dr Verfaillie since moved on to a Catholic university in Europe.
In case you're interested in good background information on stem cell research, check out this site at the US National Institutes of Health.

Drug, drugs, and drugs

Interesting article in today's OBSERVER newspaper. The word is that a research group established by Colin Blakemore, CEO of the UK Medical Research Council, proposes to re-classify drugs according the to harm they are likely to inflict on those taking them. They propose to de-link drug classification from the legal system's response to them and rely entirely on their direct harmful consequences. This means, for instance, that alcohol would receive a higher (ie more dangerous) ranking than for instance the party drug ecstasy. All perhaps unremarkable, except that it makes one wonder how any other system could possibly have ever been used. Surely, if one goes for drugs prohibition at all, one would want to deal with drugs in order of dangerousness to health as opposed to other criteria. But then, fighting drug abuse has long been code for fighting drug users (and occasionally those benefiting from the drugs trade). Of course, if ecstasy turns out to be a lower risk to our health than is alcohol, this begs the question why alcohol is not an illegal substance but ecstasy is. Here's the top 20 list:

1. Heroin
2. Cocaine
3. Barbiturates
4. Street methadone
5. Alcohol
6. Ketamine
7. Benzodiazepine
8. Amphetamines
9. Tobacco
10. Buprenorphine
11. Cannabis
12. Solvents
13. 4-MTA
14. LSD
15. Methylphenidate
16. Anabolic steroids
17. GHB
18. Ecstasy
19. Alkylnitrates
20. Khat

Sleeping thief

Nice story in today's online MAIL & GUARDIAN. A burglar in a Zimbabwean town went on gathering his loot in a small store that he broke into... and then fell asleep. He then went on to charge the store's owners with using 'magic' to protect their store from his activities...

Lottery ethics in British education

In the UK children are usually admitted to schools subject to their families living in close proximity to a given school. On the face of it this makes sense. After all, you avoid travelling long distances to get to school, etc. The problem begins when you realise that there are huge disparities in terms of school quality. Ever since it has become common practice that rich (well, even middle-class) people buy themselves houses close to desireable schools in order to give their children eventually a competitive advantage over other kids whose parents have to make-do with a not-so-good school.
Enter Tony Blair and his education secretary. The government has decided to do away with these so-called catchment areas and instead has opted that whenever there are more applicants for admission to a particular school there will be a lottery determining which children would be admitted. The result is that all children have an equal shot at getting into a better school, regardless of their parents' wealth. Likely that house prices in former school catchment areas will fall as living in such a catchment area will not increase the likelihood that a kid will get into a better school.
To me all of this makes perfect sense (equality of opportunity is one of the fundamental tenets of justice), but not, of course, to the TELEGRAPH newspaper, a conservative UK broadsheet.
Of course, a different issue altogether is, why there are better and worse schools, and why there are significant disparities to begin with. This, of course, is due to the fact that this country affords itself both private and public schools. Under Blair's reign the number of privately run schools has actually increased.

Why not sell your wife's kidney?

DIE WELT, a conservative German broadsheet, reports that a Pakistani national sold his wife's kidney so that he could pay for the purchase of a new tractor. His cunning plan (successfully executed, mind you) involved beating her to pulp in order to have a pretext for having her admitted into hospital. Once there she was quickly put to sleep by medical staff and the relevant organ extracted. Of course, she was the only one not knowing about this until a medical check-up some 18 months later revealed what had happened. Remarkably, relatives of the couple were in it as well as the medical staff.

So, while we go on about informed consent in biomedical research and health care practice... there's also the Pakistan version of the same.

Here's a pretty good documentary about organ sale in Pakistan.

Outsourcing is cost-effective, but does it always deliver?

The SPIEGEL news magazine in Germany reports a case where large companies outdsourced their occupational health provision to a a private health centre. Thousands and thousands of patients with occupational health related needs were treated by staff in that clinic, their blood was drawn etc. Thing is tho, nobody in that health clinic had any medical or even health care qualifications. There were builders, welders and others who took a liking to providing health care instead of building and welding etc. The owner of the clinic had a whole fleet of luxury cars confiscated. No doubt the clinic at the time made a very cost effective offer to the companies that subsequently outsourced their occupational health delivery to them ... and that is all that seems to matter in this day and age.

Wonna know how it feels to be an illegal immigrant?

Really interesting story on the BBC News website. Someone clever has set up a fairly realistic theme park in Mexico, of all places, aiming to give tourists a feel for what it is like to be an illegal Mexican immigrant into the US of A (land of the free etc etc). Fascinating stuff. Read the first person account of the corporation's Mexican correspondent about being an 'iilegal immigrant' at Eco Alberto Park in the central Mexican state of Hidalgo. The park itself is owned and operated by a local indigenous community, the Hnahnu. It is suggested that part of the rationale for setting it up was to generate empathy for 'illegals'.

Free Kareem Soliman

Interfaith Coalition Condemns Jailing of Egyptian Student over Blogposts, Calls on Egyptian President Mubarak to Pardon Abdelkareem Soliman

February 22nd, 2007

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Free Kareem Coalition
+1-617-661-0053
free.kareem@gmail.com

Interfaith Coalition Condemns Jailing of Egyptian Student over Blogposts, Calls on Egyptian President Mubarak to Pardon Abdelkareem Soliman

CAIRO – The “Free Kareem Coalition,” an interfaith group of human rights activists from around the world, condemned the sentencing of Egyptian student Abdelkareem Soliman for expressing his opinion on his personal blog.

A judge in Egypt today sentenced Kareem to four years in prison for the alleged crimes of “defaming the President of Egypt” and “insulting Islam.”

Dalia Ziada, a blogger and activist involved with the Cairo-based Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, explained that Kareem’s conviction remains the first time an Egyptian blogger has been arrested for writing on his blog. “It sends a chilling message to bloggers of all persuasions in Egypt and across the Middle East. We are not free to express ourselves openly on our websites.”

Kareem criticized Egyptian authorities for failing to protect the rights of religious minorities and women, and expressed views about religious extremism in strong terms.

Bahraini blogger Esra’a Al-Shafei, who launched the website FreeKareem.org to coordinate the international solidarity campaign, noted the basic human rights violation. “I was offended by some of Kareem’s blog writings. But I cannot support his imprisonment merely because he said a few things that insult my identity. Freedom of expression and open exchange of ideas must be respected.”

In November, Kareem was detained after being interrogated by prosecutors. He was held for over two months without trial and has remained in solitary confinement without access to his lawyers.

Kareem’s conviction comes despite global rallies on Kareem’s behalf, including demonstrations outside Egyptian embassies in Washington, Rome, London, Paris, Stockholm, and New York. Over 2,000 people have sent letters to Egyptian authorities demanding Kareem’s release.

Opinion editorials in the Washington Post, International Herald Tribune, and Beirut Daily Star have all also called for Kareem’s release, along with a bi-partisan coalition of US Congressional leaders, European parliamentarians, and Costa Rican representatives.

“We call on the appeals courts in Egypt to listen to international condemnation and do the right thing,” stated organizer Mohammed Shouman. “Kareem’s right to free expression has been violated and his conviction should be overturned.”

In the meantime, activists fear Kareem’s life is in danger and hope for high-level intervention. “We hope President Hosni Mubarak will pardon Kareem and allow him to start a new life outside of Egypt,” noted Al-Shafei. “We won’t be silent until Kareem is safe.”

See www.FreeKareem.org for the latest updates.

Here is a petition demanding his immediate release.

End to doctors' self-policing in the UK

There's some good news to report today. Doctors will lose the right to police themselves, at least if the UK government has its way. That probably is a good idea. For justice to be done it needs also to be seen to be done. A profession that essentially polices itself is about as credible an arbiter in conflicts between patients and doctors as an insurance industry having a policing body made up of insurance sales persons. Being a professional means to serve the public good. In return for us as society conceding a great deal of professional autonomy to doctors we expect a substantial degree of accountability in return. This objective was never met under the current regime. Change has long been overdue.

Budget airlines and 'harsh' landings

I don't know about you, but I am almost certain you've flown at one point or other with Ryanair, Easyjet or any number of other budget airlines if you live in Europe. We don't expect any service from them really, and they usually manage to meet this sort of expectation. What we do expect, of course, is that they bring us from A to B reasonably safely - at least we expect them to be as safe as any full-service legacy carrier. After all, our savings are meant to indicate that we're happy to be treated pretty terribly as opposed to getting killed in an accident driven by these airlines' cost cutting exercises.

Now, I wonder, whether there's a pattern here. Ryanair (and I got to be honest, after flying with them for a few times, I just can't get myself to use them ever again) is currently being investigated in the Republic of Ireland for its allegedly dangerous landing approaches. The claim has been made that rather than doing a second round if they come in badly, the airline's pilots will set the planes down anyway to avoid punishment from the airline's management. It goes without saying that the airline thinks the pilots are wrong. In my experience with Ryanair at least, truly nasty landings are standard operating procedure. I was on planes that literally fell out of the sky onto the tarmac and swerved all over the runway just to come to a stop before running out of space. The pilots seemed to go deliberately left to right to left just to increase the length of the runway. Pretty scary stuff. I decided that probably the life-time savings made by using Ryanair are not worth the nerve wrecking experience of its landing related gambles. - Mind you, I made a similar experience on a BA flight just this Monday, but at least it happens rarely on legacy carriers. That's a start.

In Indonesia (see picture above left) meanwhile, a plane was set down sufficiently harshly by a local by a local budget carrier's pilot to break apart on impact. Mind boggling.

So, other than the obvious question of whether or not we should be flying as much as too many of us do (myself definitely included here, so I am not pointing my finger at you!), I also wonder whether budget carriers in their ever-more desperate attempts at efficiency savings gamble with our and their staff lives. After all, as the old saying goes, if it looks too good to be true, it probably isn't true. Quite possibly budget carriers' prices are a case in point.

KLM's airline 'food', and Dutch anti-terrorism airport security

Yeah, I know, you will say 'big deal', 'not particularly interesting posting', but check out this photo of KLM's vegetarian breakfast in its economy class (commonly known also as torture class). The airline brags to its customers about great improvements it made to its inflight meals. Well, check out this dry role wrapped around two soggy slices of veggies. Even the poor stewardess on my flight from San Francisco to Glasgow thought of this offering as 'gross'... I couldn't agree more.

While I am at it, I'm sure you will know that most airports are busily fighting terrorists. Their primary focus in this regard is, as you'd expect, the duty free perfumes that we might wish to take on planes. Schiphol airport in Amsterdam has brought this by and large idiotic activity to even greater lows. So, here goes my true story: I bought in San Francisco's international airport perfume (you know, the stuff you better bring home if you want to live). It was carefully sealed in an airtight bag by airport security to ensure I couldn't secretly replace it with a nuclear bomb. Being safely (sic!) inside airport security I thought changing planes in Amsterdam would not be a major big deal. After all, so I thought, I had passed security already. Well, far from that, having arrived from the US of A in Amsterdam people busily scanned my back-pack again and found (no, not the nuclear device, but) the perfume bottle. 100 ml of deeply suspicious looking perfume-like material sealed in an undoubtedly fake sealed airport security bag from San Francisco. They quickly opened the dangerous package and discovered ... guess what..., there's perfume in there. Well, rules being rules, they happily confiscated the perfume and asked me to move on with my life. When I pointed out to them that the same bottle bought from a duty free agent in Amsterdam's airport and sealed by them could be taken on-board, they agreed. Of course, it would then probably be confiscated again by some other poor sucker in another airport on the look-out for terrorist perfume. While I appreciate the need to generate local sales... c'mon folks, surely duty free shops at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport can't be that desperate.

So then, here is my take-home message: if you live in the UK and you happen to think that Schiphol compared to London Heathrow is the lesser of two evils... think again!

On a more cheerful note, the Royal Bank of Scotland (see various postings below) wasn't heard of ever since and I have complained to my local branch manageress. The issue is now being investigated. I will keep you posted.

Dumping Homeless Patients in the Streets - LA Presbyterian Hospital Care in Action

First an update on the incompetence of Royal Bank of Scotland staff (see postings below for background). Bottom line: The bank was never heard of again. Scandalous is too polite a word to describe what I think about this outfit.

Anyway, on to Los Angeles. The Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center dumped a homeless paraplegic patient it had cared for on the streets of a particularly crime ridden neighbourhood. The patient was reportedly found crawling on the streets, with a soiled gown, a broken colostomy bag, and a plastic bag with his belongings clenched between his teeth. This story reminds me a bit of similar reports I heard with regard to private hospitals while I lived in South Africa. - No comment required, no doubt...

And more from the US of A

While I write this I am watching a TV programme, appropriately on Rupert Murdoch's Fox TV. There's a middle-aged woman with finger nails about 10 cm long or so. She's video taped aliens and tells us that they're watching us and that they're unhappy about how we treat mother earth. There's viewers calling in asking for advice from her. Fascinating... -

Anyway, talking about aliens and messages from beyond, today on my way to the corner of Powell and Market (still no word from the Royal Bank of Scotland - see last two postings for background), I saw a car with stickers I kinda liked. You know, stuff like 'Impeach Bush', 'no more lies', that sort of thing. While I briefy rejoiced in having found a like-minded soul, I noticed another sticker on the car, with an image like the one to the top-left. So, probably not a like-minded soul after all.

More from the US of A

For what it's worth, the Royal Bank of S (see posting below) was never heard of again, and I am quietly preparing for another day at the corner of Market and Powell. At least I know which credit card to cancel the day I get back to Scotland. - Bunch of jokers.

So, while I have plenty of time to watch TV in-between begging stints necessitated by incompetent Royal Bank of Scotland staff, I thought I might as well keep you posted on the oddities of US political life. And yes, you guessed it, other than the Obama vs Clinton question (ie Blackish vs Womanish - two possible firsts for the US presidency), sex is high on the agenda. The US being the conservative country that it is, has long been preoccupied by sex (a fixation only matched by older guys working for the Catholic Church - you can spot them wearing funnily colourful robes, and usually talking non-stop about sex [mind you, something they claim they don't have]) . US gay campaigners' primary policy issue is access to 'gay marriage'. Typical, if there's a law saying only straight folks may burn their hands on glowing/hot oven plates, only gay folks would start a campaign to achieve the same right. I am AGAINST gay marriage. What exactly is progressive about extending access to a failed institution to gay people? It is - at best - intellectually dishonest for anyone (usually at very young age) to promise to someone they know only a little to stick together with him or her until 'death parts' them. Close to half of all marriages fail, and there is an even larger number of unhappy marriages, yet gay folks busily campaign for a 'right' to more of just that. I think the civil partnership idea put into action in the UK and many other countries is the most sensible way of going about this. If two (why not more?) people want to give each other particular rights of access to each other's assets, visitation privileges in case of illness and such things, the state should support those decisions in some form or other. Marriage is fundamentally a religious exercise and should be eliminated from the state's statute books altogether. If you want to get married, grab your local priest and take it from there. The state has no proper business in this thing called marriage.

What's interesting about the US debate that's currently on the TV is the take some gay activists have on a recent Washington Supreme Court ruling. The court argued in its majority opinion that the state has an interest in upholding the institution of marriage (and limiting access to it to straight folks) because of its procreative character. Well, leaving aside for a moment that it wasn't love that was foremost on the judges minds but baby production, a gay activist is now campaigning to limit marriage to only those couples that actually have produced children. The thing is that it's not only many gay folks who are reproductively challenged but also 1 out of 4 married couples. So, the gay guy, attempting to show the idiocy of the majority opinion, argues that these marriages should be disssolved. Well, good on him and good luck to his cause (not that it's one I would support, but surely his argument is ingenious).

Well, there's a few other funny stories in the national headlines, but this should do it for now. Gotta get back to my begging corner at Market/Powell.

Some bad news from the Royal Bank of Scotland

I am currently in California. Haven't been to San Francisco for a very long time. I love this town.

Well, on to the Royal Bank of Scotland. Guess what, my credit card was declined just yesterday. This happened after I went out of my way to call the bank prior to going here so they'd not use unusual transactions overseas as a reason to shut down the card. Its call centre staff thanked me for being so considerate. I also transferred extra cash from my cheque into my credit card account to ensure I don't run out of money while in the USA. Well, yesterday my card didn't buy me a five quid brunch in the hotel bar. I sort of have to concede that I cursed (quietly) what I thought were incompetent hotel staffers. I tried then to ring my bank to find out why my card was declined. Goes without saying that I had to call at 4:30 am local time so as to catch someone working in the UK based call centre. Of course, the hotel had since cut my outside phone line, seeing that my card wasn't valid. So, the toll free call to my bank had to be made from my mobile and cost me probably a small fortune. After spending probably 5 minutes in a (likely) expensive (for me) queue I got thru to a call centre operator. It quickly became clear what happened. I am a victim of a suitably incompetent call centre agent. When I called to top up my credit card balance (with a transfer from my cheque account) the call centre staffer decided instead to move a large chunk of money from my credit card into my cheque account. The result is that I travelled to the USA with a carefuly drained (and, in fact, overdrawn) credit card account. I'm sure the bank has since busily levied charges for my overdrawn credit card... guess it's a typical case of let the buyer beware.

The bank is currently trying to fix the problem (at least on the phone its staffer acknowledged straightaway that it's their fault), but it could be a couple of days till my card would be back in credit.

Begging is fairly common in this country, so if you see me today on the corner of Powell and Market street, spare me a dime while I wait for the Royal Bank of Scotland to fix its mistake. One has to eat after all ...

Udo Schuklenk is testing

... 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...