Scientists eager to splice human genes with animal cells are seeking public feedback on the prospect of such controversial research, the Bioethics Advisory Committee (BAC) said on Wednesday. A consultation paper on its website said the BAC considers human stem cell research to have considerable potential in the treatment of currently incurable diseases, such as [...]

Months before the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made Atlanta lawyer Andrew Speaker the unwitting poster boy for drug-resistant tuberculosis, the agency and its advisers discussed a strategy to get more funding by publicizing the deadly strain of the disease, records show.
Frustrated that money for combating TB had dwindled as Congress favored newer threats [...]

Some pediatricians say last year’s controversy over whether the state should mandate Texas schoolgirls to be vaccinated against the human papillomavirus has translated into more individuals getting the vaccine.”It’s really kind of an interesting thing — the controversy has really helped us get the word out,” said Chris Turley, vice chair for clinical services at [...]

A recent kidney transplant operation, in which each family of the two patients donated a kidney to the other, has spurred even greater controversy, bringing intervention from authorities, the Guangzhou-based Information Times reported Wednesday.
The operation was first denied by the No. 2 Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical College in the southern province of Guangdong. The [...]

Britain’s prime minister called Sunday for overhauling the country’s organ donation system, saying doctors should be able to remove body parts from deceased patients without prior needing consent.
Gordon Brown noted in an opinion piece Sunday that more than a thousand people die in Britain each year waiting for organ transplants. Switching to a Spanish-style “opt-out” [...]

Two former sales representatives for Amgen Inc. are suing the biotech company, alleging it pushed its sales force to search doctor’s confidential medical records for potential patients to boost sales of a drug used to treat psoriasis.

Watching her tend her ill son, there is no doubting the love Clare Ginns feels for her ten-year-old son Joshua. “Are you comfy?” she asks as she gently props up her boy with pillows on the sofa. “Now, let’s give you your lunch,” she says. She even manages to handle the pumping of liquidised food [...]

Seniors and the disabled flocked to the pharmacy counter in 2006 with their new Medicare drug cards, fueling a 6.7 percent increase in health spending, the federal government reported Monday.
In most other areas of health care, there was a welcome slowdown in spending. It still cost more to go to the hospital or doctor, but [...]

“This will be my last campaign,” Booth Gardner said. “This will be the biggest fight of my career.” He walked along the lane between the beach of driftwood and his compound of houses. The driftwood clotted the shore; it was the end of summer now, and the cove was still, but in winter massive branches [...]

A ruling by Switzerland’s highest court has opened the possibility that people with serious mental illnesses could be helped by doctors to take their own lives.Switzerland already allows physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients under certain circumstances but the Federal Tribunal’s decision, which was released on Friday, puts mental illnesses on the same level as [...]