Amid controversies over embryonic stem cell research, drugs using adult cells are already bearing fruit
[Fortune] When it comes to stem cells, the public — and the media — tend to focus on embryos. But researchers and analysts say marketable therapies already are emerging from less controversial work with adult stem cells.
Adult cells make up the lion’s [...]

[PioneerPress] A bill that would expand the public reporting of gifts, royalties and other payments to Minnesota physicians was tabled Wednesday by a Senate business committee that feared its impact on medical research and job growth.
Sen. John Marty, DFL-Roseville, argued that expanded reporting would expose the conflicts of interest that occur when doctors receive anything [...]

[NYT] As many American companies in the last decade have sent tasks like customer service and computer support to other countries, drug makers have followed suit by outsourcing clinical trials — the human studies that determine the safety and efficacy of medicines.
The New York TimesNow, an article about the globalization of clinical trials, published Thursday [...]

[FoxNews] Their entire genetic sequences will be posted on the internet as part of the Personal Genome Project, a Harvard-based endeavor that aims to discover the genetic basis of hundreds of diseases, conditions and even personality quirks.
The best way to find that out, some scientists believe, is to put everything out there in the open [...]

Pfizer, the world’s largest drug company, is getting into stem cell research to explore the potential of induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells (where ordinary cells like those taken from adult skin are coaxed into behaving like embryonic stem cells). Pfizer hopes to build up a team of 50 to 60 scientists specializing in stem cell [...]

The Supreme Court will hear arguments for Wyeth v. Levine, pertaining to whether manufacturers complying with FDA stipulated warning requirements can be held liable under state tort law for not supplying adequate warnings, this November.  Professor Zipursky of Fordham University, my alma mater, provides the following relevant facts: 
Levine’s facts present a shocking tragedy of the sort that can overwhelm [...]

Hurray for the Biotech world – they have developed a way to transform “one type of fully developed adult cell directly into another inside a living animal, a startling advance that could lead to cures for a variety of illnesses and sidestep the political and ethical quagmires associated with embryonic stem cell research,” reports the [...]

“Ob-gyns should routinely screen all women between the ages of 19 and 64 for HIV, regardless of their risk factors”, according to a Committee Opinion, paper issued August 1, 2008 by The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG).
“Women represent the fastest growing population of persons infected with HIV in this country, and heterosexual [...]

[Friday's Globe and Mail] Unlike doctors, scientists don’t have an ancient moral code like the Hippocratic oath. But graduate students beginning their careers in medical research at the University of Toronto now have their own solemn ceremony in which they pledge to conduct themselves in an ethical fashion.
Karen Davis, graduate co-ordinator at the Institute of [...]

How will the world look in the year 2058? Sixty thinkers from around the world rise to that challenge in “The Way We Will Be 50 Years From Today,” a collection of essays edited by longtime journalist Mike Wallace.

The consensus view is that we’ll muddle through many of the issues that vex us today – [...]