A court order preventing doctors from taking an 84-year-old man off life support will remain in place, for now.  Justice Perry Schulman reserved his decision on a motion by the man’s children to maintain life support following a five-hour hearing yesterday that ran into the early evening.
Samuel Golubchuk, an Orthodox Jew, has been on life [...]

As the school bus rolled to a stop outside her Lake County home, Beth Jones adjusted the bright yellow document protruding from the pouch of her daughter’s wheelchair, making sure it was clearly visible. In bold letters it warned, “Do Not Resuscitate.”
The DNR order goes everywhere with Katie, including her 2nd-grade classroom at Laremont School [...]

A state law enforcement investigators’ report — obtained by CNN from a confidential source close to the investigation — into the deaths of patients at a New Orleans hospital in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina provides new details about the events that occurred at Memorial Medical Center.

Sources familiar with the investigation tell CNN that the [...]

In the past few weeks, marine biologists working in Papua, New Guinea, spoke about the need to ban fishing in certain parts of the ocean hard hit by rising temperatures. Meanwhile, in the American Midwest, stem cell pioneer James Thomson of the University of Wisconsin at Madison announced what may be a Nobel Prize-worthy discovery: [...]

This year’s annual World Disasters Report, launched today by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), examines the issue of discrimination in disasters. It looks at which groups are discriminated against and why, how discrimination manifests itself, and how it increases vulnerability.
Among the groups identified as often discriminated against – often [...]

The state Supreme Judicial Court ruled yesterday that a doctor can be sued over a car accident caused by his patient, greatly expanding potential liability for the medical profession.  
A divided court said that the mother of a boy who was hit by a car and died can sue the physician who prescribed numerous medications to [...]

“I have lost count of the number of panel discussions I have held in Pakistan to push for laws against the kidney trade,” says Farhat Moazam, the founding chairperson of the Centre for Biomedical Ethics and Culture of the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation (SIUT) in Karachi.
Pakistan had begun to establish itself as a [...]

Mark Weinreb, a onetime bagel baron from Long Island, has his sights trained on one of medicine’s hottest commodities: He plans to collect and store adult, or mature, stem cells from people across the country.
With scientists racing to find ways to use stem cells to fight disease, Weinreb heads a new company — Manhattan-based NeoStem [...]

Dr. Fred Mirarchi, Bioethics International’s summer expert speaker, published the world’s first study on DNR orders and patient safety on November 16, 2007 in the Journal of Emergency Medicine.  Dr. Mirarchi is the Medical Director and Director of Operations for Hamot Medical Center’s Department of Emergency Medicine. 
[Abstract] Living wills are thought to protect the medical decision-making [...]

The global fight to contain the deadly H5N1 avian influenza virus is richer by over $400 million. Nine donor countries, including India, on Thursday pledged $406.1 million for pandemic preparedness.
While US was the single largest donor, pledging $195 million, Japan pledged $69 million, Germany $4.3 million and India $2 million.
The European Commission donated 78.4 million [...]