Pharmaceutical companies are assessing the worst-case scenario financial impact of an avian flu pandemic — and it is not a pretty picture.
In almost all likelihood, industry observers say that an avian flu pandemic would cause major staffing and supply shortages, forcing drug companies to drastically reduce manufacturing. Many drug firms would only produce essential, life-saving [...]

Legislators yesterday shelved a plan to increase individual control over online medical records.
The measure had backers from both sides of the aisle in the House, but hospitals and medical associations opposed it. Debate raised questions over the measure’s unintended consequences and uncertain costs.
The bill would have allowed people to restrict access to their own records [...]

He sits quietly at the corner cafe, a gold watch flickering on his wrist. If you need a liver, or want to sell a piece of yours, grab a chair and get acquainted with Mustafa Hamed, a 24-year-old ex-bus driver who fell unexpectedly into a life as a broker in human organs.
Hamed’s 4-year-old son, Mohamed, [...]

MPs are planning a change in the law to allow babies to be conceived from artificial sperm, a move described by opponents as playing God with human DNA.
A furious debate is building over how far to leave the door open to its use in IVF treatment, ahead of a Commons vote due shortly on the [...]

WHEN IS A person dead — or dead enough?
The question has long influenced decisions about when it’s appropriate to end medical treatment for people who are hopelessly ill. However, a quieter debate has simmered for years about how the concept of death informs the practice of organ transplantation. Transplant surgeons rely on strict definitions of [...]

With a limited supply of organs, liver transplant surgeons must worker harder to maintain the guiding principle of doing no harm, medical ethicists said.Give a liver to a patient too soon, and the doctor could cut short the person’s life or unnecessarily burden them with having to deal with the complications of organ rejection medicines. [...]

Older, sicker patients could be allowed to die in order to save the lives of patients more likely to survive a massive disaster, bioterror attack or influenza pandemic in California.
It’s not how nurses and doctors are accustomed to doing things, nor how Californians expect to be treated. But it is part of a sweeping statewide [...]

A woman dying of Alzheimer’s has a fever. Should she be given antibiotics? Many people would say yes. But a provocative new study suggests that antibiotics are overused in people dying of dementia diseases and should be considered more carefully because of the growing problem of drug-resistant superbugs.
The study raises ethical questions about when it’s [...]

Patients who don’t like the care they are getting from their doctors are always free to leave them and find a new one – if they can fnd one in these days of chronic physician shortages. But do doctors have the right to “fire” a patient?
That’s what Jennifer Thomson has been asking herself. She had [...]

HOW cool are those Gardasil Girls? Riding horses, flinging softballs, bashing away on drum sets: on the television commercials, they are pugnacious and utterly winning. They want to be “One Less,” they chant — one less victim of cervical cancer. Get vaccinated with Gardasil, they urge their sisters. Protect yourselves against the human papillomavirus, or [...]