‘Objection of conscience’ was a hot bioethical topic in 2007 and will remain in the spotlight for 2008. Objection of conscience overlaps with the bioethical issue ‘clinician autonomy’, a topic that the nonprofit Bioethics International travels the continent discussing with clinicians, hospitals, medical associations and others.   Do clinicians, pharmacists, patients, and hospitals have the right [...]

Microsoft launched HealthVault, a free web-based service that allows users to store their medical records online and eventually share them with doctors and health care professionals. On October 17, an executive at Google noted that the search giant was also interested in the area of health information services. And on November 19, 23andMe, a startup [...]

Medscape recently published a comprehensive article on pandemic flu preparedness, discussing the history, epidemiology and basic preparedness principles connected with the pandemic flu. Helpful information on disease control and mitigation together with surge capacities in hospitals is also included. [full article below]
Dark Clouds on the Horizon: Preparing for the Next Influenza Pandemic

In the face of terrorism and catastrophic natural disasters, modern regional trauma systems that improve survival for critically injured patients are more vital than ever.
Yet many fundamental assumptions underlying these systems — such as the notion that it is imperative to send the sickest patients to the hospital first — have rarely been subjected to [...]

Arrangements between vendors of healthcare products and services, such as pharmaceutical manufacturers, medical device makers and hospitals, and physicians are increasingly becoming the subject of intense scrutiny by the federal government. Recently, federal investigators have targeted these types of vendors for a variety of practices designed to generate illegal referrals for their products and services, [...]

Google Inc-funded 23andMe launched on Monday and began offering a DNA saliva test for $999 per person, which would help U.S. users of the online site learn about disease risk, inherited traits and their ancestry.
Eventually users, who sign up for the saliva test online and receive it by mail, will also be able to participate [...]

Who’s Afraid of “Soulless Scientism”?
Some Republican presidential candidates are breathing easier because of the news on stem-cell research, and some religious leaders are proclaiming a truce in their conflict with scientists. But I wouldn’t bet on any longterm peace, for a couple of reasons.
First, despite the breakthrough in producing stem cells without using embryos, researchers [...]

MRI scans show that physicians’ brains learn to edit out emotional reactions to patients’ pain during medical procedures, letting them do their jobs. 

(WSJ) The promise of using stem cells to treat disease has moved a tantalizing step closer to reality, without the ethical shackles that have long hindered its progress.
In a compelling scientific feat, independent teams of researchers in Japan and the U.S. have created human embryonic stem cells without destroying any human embryos. Scientists said they [...]

Avoid gender biased care
Despite concerted efforts to fight two-tier medicine in Ontario, new evidence suggests that it is far more prevalent than anyone believed.
But the kind of two-tier medicine highlighted in a study to be published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal next month is not a result of public versus private care. It is [...]