[Economist] MORE than a week after the earth convulsed beneath it, Haiti has still to plumb the depths of suffering and want. The numbers are still only more-or-less informed guesses, but their magnitude is grim: perhaps 200,000 killed, 250,000 more injured and some 3m in desperate need of help. The generosity of the world’s response [...]

[dailymail] A car crash victim has spoken of the horror he endured for 23 years after he was misdiagnosed as being in a coma when he was conscious the whole time.
Rom Houben, trapped in his paralysed body after a car crash, described his real-life nightmare as he screamed to doctors that he could hear them [...]

[AP] Britain is using genetic tests on some African asylum seekers in an effort to catch those who are lying about their nationality, drawing criticism from scientists and provoking outrage from rights groups.
The United Kingdom Border Agency launched the pilot project in September amid suspicions there might be a large number of asylum applicants lying [...]

[medscape] Every day, doctors face pressure to choose between practicing defense medicine or trying to lower healthcare costs.
Your patient comes in, and even if you think the treatment is ‘wait and see,’ you can’t do that. If you miss diagnosing a disease and the patient sues, his attorney will hammer you for not having done [...]

[reuters] A lawsuit challenging patents on two human genes associated with hereditary breast and ovarian cancer can move forward, a U.S. federal judge ruled on Monday.
A lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union challenged patents held by Myriad Genetics (MYGN.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and the University of Utah Research Foundation on grounds [...]

[WSJ] Editors of some of the world’s top medical journals will soon begin to demand more stringent, uniform reporting of conflicts of interest by researchers.
The requirements will go beyond existing disclosure rules at many medical journals to include items such as financial relationships involving spouses, partners or minor children. Also required will be disclosure of [...]

Official guidelines are causing a crisis in care of the terminally ill and growing anger among patients’ families, medical experts say.
[BBC] The advice allows food and fluids to be withdrawn from patients, who are then continuously sedated, if they are judged to be close to death.
In a letter to the Daily Telegraph the six doctors [...]

[AP] Pfizer Inc., the world’s largest drug maker, will pay a record $2.3 billion civil and criminal penalty over unlawful prescription drug promotions, the Justice Department announced Wednesday. The department said the $2.3 billion settlement included a $1.2 billion criminal fine, the largest criminal fine in U.S. history. The agreement also included a criminal forfeiture [...]

[NYT] JUNE 30, 2009 – Need a kidney? You may be able to buy one in Pakistan, which has become one of the world’s largest “kidney bazaars,” according to an article published in the May-June issue of The Hastings Center Report, a bioethics journal.
But who sells their kidneys, and what becomes of these people afterwards? The article, [...]

The acknowledged inspiration for Jodi Picoult’s My Sister’s Keeper novel about a couple who conceives a child to save the life of a daughter with leukemia, is speaking out now ahead of the release of the new movie starring Cameron Diaz on Friday.
With the help of Denver infertility specialist Dr. William B. Schoolcraft, the Nashes [...]