Biomedical Regulations & Ethics
Frozen in time: You can be cryogenically preserved, but will you ever be revived?
Preservation technologies promise the ability to suspend life for decades or even centuries. That would come with all sorts of ...
3-parent baby sparks backlash after doctors use experimental procedure as a fertility treatment
A baby with DNA from three people has been born in Greece following a controversial fertility treatment. The baby boy, weighing 2.9kg ...
Transparency and trust: Is there room for ‘the people’ in the human gene editing debate?
How does excluding the people service the WHO's stated goals of transparency and trust? ...
Why esketamine will force doctors to rethink office visits for depressed patients
The Food and Drug Administration approved esketamine (Spravato) for treatment-resistant depression to be administered under physician supervision. It’s a derivative of ...
5 things to consider with direct-to-consumer health products
Direct-to-consumer (DTC) versions of teeth alignment kits, genetic tests, hearing aids, heart-rhythm monitors, neurostimulation devices, and mental health tools are ...
Genetic uncertainty: When research participants should be told that their test results have changed
“Do you mind if we take one more sample?” asked the endocrinologist who had already stuck six needles into the ...
Genetic tests by Inova draw warning letter from FDA, citing potential for ‘serious health consequences’
A suite of genetic tests used to predict a person’s response to specific medications is being marketed illegally by its ...
Viewpoint: Autism research is leaving girls behind
Evidence that clinicians are missing girls with autism has been building for years. Because autistic girls tend to exhibit different traits than ...
Birth control pill for men: Why is it taking so long?
A birth control pill for men has passed initial human safety tests, experts at a leading medical conference have heard ...
Podcast: ‘Artificial womb’ raises awkward ethical questions about abortion, child welfare and health freedom
Biotechnology is fundamentally changing food and medicine. Thanks to genetic engineering, for example, we have access vitamin-fortified GMO crops, plentiful ...
Gene therapy for beta-thalassemia blood disorder one step closer to European approval
The first gene therapy to treat a rare blood disorder is one step closer to approval [March 29] following a ...
Viewpoint: Esketamine promises to boost depression treatments—but we don’t know enough about long-term effects
With great fanfare, a new antidepressant entered the U.S. market in March [2019], the first fundamentally new medicine for depression ...
Viewpoint: We need to speed up biosimilar drug approval process
Generic versions of brand-name small-molecule drugs saved Americans more than $1 trillion between 1999 and 2010. Biosimilars now have the potential ...
DNA as a crime fighting tool: Why we may be in danger of putting too much faith in it
What happens to a society when there’s suddenly a new way to identify people—to track them as they move around ...
China revives discredited ‘malarial therapy’ as cancer treatment
American surgeon Henry Heimlich is best known for inventing a way to rescue choking victims, but a quarter-century ago, he was vilified ...
‘Game-changing’ drug first ever postpartum depression medication approved by FDA
The Food and Drug Administration on [March 19] approved brexanolone, the first drug specifically targeted to treat postpartum depression — ...
We need a ‘global registry’ of all human gene-editing research, World Health Organization panel says
An influential committee of the World Health Organization said on [March 19] that it would be “irresponsible” to try to ...
There’s a war on ‘prediabetes’ and why that may be bad medicine
In medicine, prevention is usually an unalloyed good. But in this case, other diabetes specialists argue, medical and epidemiological data ...
Is it OK to take sperm from the dead?
[A] New York judge earlier this month ordered a medical center to save the sperm of Peter Zhu, a 21-year-old cadet ...
Viewpoint: Elective, unproven IV therapies create ‘perfect storm of risks’
We don’t have to look very far these days to find wellness facilities touting this or that intravenous (IV) infusion for “detoxification” and ...
Japan wants to use stem cells to treat paralysis—but ethical questions remain
On February 18, 2019, The Asahi Shimbun reported, “Ministry [of Health, Labor and Welfare in Japan] OKs 1st iPS [induced pluripotent ...
Viewpoint: Call for moratorium on heritable gene editing reminds us of gene therapy’s troubled early days
A group of influential scientists have urged that clinical use of CRISPR be put on hold in the wake of ...
Can pig-human chimeras meet our growing demand for transplantable organs?
Experiments show pig-human chimeras might be able to farm human organs for transplantation and disease research. But would it be ...
Viewpoint: To fix the FDA, we need these qualities—including a commitment to regulatory reform — in its new leader
With the just-announced resignation of FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the White House and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex ...
Top CRISPR researchers want global moratorium on heritable gene editing
After the first International Summit on Human Gene Editing in December 2015, a statement was released. The organizers were unanimous ...
US approves immunotherapy for breast cancer for first time
Roche’s cancer immunotherapy Tecentriq (atezolizumab), a PD-L1 inhibitor, scored its fifth Food and Drug Administration approval on [March 8], for advanced triple-negative ...
Using ketamine for depression or recreation: What’s the difference?
[G]iven ketamine’s long-standing reputation as a recreational drug—so notorious that users talk about entering a “K-hole” after taking it—you might ...
How much did the Chinese government know about controversial CRISPR babies research?
When scientist He Jiankui announced he’d conducted an experiment that led to the birth of twin girls with CRISPR-edited genomes in November, ...
