There has been much written about the upcoming vote on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, especially about the proposal to liberalise abortion further in Northern Ireland. Sarah however has spotted a little-discussed government amendment, which, if passed, raises a serious issue of medical ethics (ironically a restriction of same right that the government wishes to defend; namely the right of a person to decide what happens to their own body).

If the amendment is passed, tissue samples for creating human/animal embroys can be taken from people who are not considered mentally capable of making their own decisions. Now, obviously there are some areas (such as financial ones), in which it is right for carers/relatives to have a degree of control, as that might be the only practical situation. I cannot, however, see any rationale for this. As Sarah points out:

Leading learning disability charities said they knew little about this amendment to the Bill, which has, not surprisingly, received very little publicity… if this amendment to the Bill is passed on Wednesday, it will not only sweep away 25 years of progress in medical ethics. It will also sweep away too many years of hard work by Disability Rights campaigners to convince the mainstream world that we are human, too, and that they should do Nothing About Us, Without Us.

Via Andrew Sullivan, Razib at Gene Expression has posted this speech which Obama gave in 1994. Its not that long so I’m posting the whole thing after the jump because it sums up my views on this. I will say though that I think Obama is being unfair when he accuses Charles Murray of racism.

I think that Murray is one of those rare thinkers who put forward these opinions because he was genuinely searching for the truth. For instance Obama argues against welfare reform which Murray also propagated, but which according to a lot of serious people has played a big role in getting black people in the inner cities out of poverty. The fact it hasn’t been accompanied with health care reform is another matter.

Also in Murray’s favour is the fact that he was one of the few right-wing thinkers/pundits who saw the brilliance# in Obama’s post Rev. Wright speech on Race.

My review of John McWhorter’s book, ‘Losing the Race’ is also relevant. Anyways, the speech is after the jump.

Today is the big day people!!! If the scientists in Switzerland at CERN get anything right, we won’t get sucked by a massive black hole. It’s a funny video though… that’s something I suppose.

Ok, so its a bit of a tablody headline… *cough*… but you never know?
On Wednesday:

The most powerful physics experiment ever built, the Large Hadron Collider will re-create the conditions just after the Big Bang in an attempt to answer fundamental questions of science and the universe itself.

Tabloidy headlines aside, the scientists say that nothing big can theoretically be destroyed. But who belives in scientists eh? Certainly not Sarah Palin and she may be the American Vice President soon.
Look out for a flurry of similar headlines in tomorrow’s papers. Let’s hope they know what they’re doing. A good BBC piece on the whole experiment is here.

Angela Saini points out that:

Physics World has reported that physics in China is booming. Chinese scientists now publish more papers than the UK and Germany. In fact, at the current rate, by 2012 it will be churning out more physics articles than the entire number of science articles published by US researchers.

Werner Marx, an information scientist from the Max Planck Institute in Germany, said, “Usually scientific development in nations does not show such a strong acceleration as we have seen in China, so it will be interesting to see how it responds and develops in the future.”

Well, it won’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what the impact of that strong acceleration will be. By the way, Angela is a friend and a new blogger, writing mostly about science. Go check out her blog.

Justin has started blogging for a new blog by Greenpace about nuclear power, called Nuclear Reaction. I contribute monthly to Greenpeace anyway, so happy to give it a plug. But his introductory post states this:

With nuclear, not a day goes by without a jaw-dropping news item. The industry news is chock full of ‘NO WAY!’ moments. Much of it is darkly, surreally comedic. If you were to write a sitcom that involved some of the nuclear incidents I’ve blogged in the last few weeks, the show would bomb as too far-fetched.

By now some of you might have seen the government’s new £10 million campaign highlighting the number of alcoholic units in drinks, which was launched because it was felt that people were underestimating the level of alcohol that they were consuming. Larger glasses and stronger beers and wines have become increasingly common, and this was an attempt to get people to estimate their consumption correctly.

There are two problems with this campaign.

A straw poll on your views about this tricky ethical issue please.

Gordon Brown recently brought the subject of transplants back into the news by supporting a similar system to the Spanish, who have the highest organ transplant rate in the world. The system is effectively an ‘opt-out’ arrangement and deceased patients with no specific instructions are ‘presumed’ to have given consent for their organs to be used.

The argument for:

More and more patients are dying on transplant waiting lists. Many of these people are young, with congenital conditions like cystic fibrosis, primary liver cancer or autoimmune kidney disease meaning they need new hearts, lungs, livers and kidneys. Less people are dying in road traffic accidents due to improved road safety, but this results in a decreasing source of healthy organs.

Gordon Brown seems to be heading for a big increase in nuclear power:

“The plans, part of Gordon Brown’s first programme as PM, are said to be aimed at cutting carbon emissions and getting the best energy mix for the UK.

It would be for the private sector to initiate, fund, construct and operate new nuclear plants and cover costs of decommissioning and waste management.”

What do people think about this? Is this our only option if we want to cut down on oil and gas, or is it too dangerous?

Boris Johnson has an article in today’s Daily Telegraph on overpopulation in the world and how policy makers are ignoring the potential consequences:

Science legend, James Watson, who won the Nobel for discovering DNA along with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins, has put his double helix in his mouth:

The 79-year-old geneticist said he was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really.”. He said he hoped that everyone was equal, but countered that “people who have to deal with black employees find this not true”. [Link]

Yikes. The Science Museum has cancelled his forthcoming sell-out speech. I can’t disagree with their decision, they explained they do not shy away from controversy but in this regard he had “gone beyond the point of acceptable debate”. Let’s take a closer look.

This has been around for some time and it’s a real favourite of mine. It’s a conversation with God. It’s not real (or could be depending on your point of view) but it’s always food for thought and a good conversation starter. It’s a touch long but worth a read, enjoy.

Scary and fascinating in equal measure is this new study (speculation really given that anything could happen in the next 100 years let alone 1000) funded by the Bravo TV station. The ‘findings’ are certainly food for thought: one day we’ll all be brown!

India’s polio rates have soared and most new cases are Muslims.

This picture is part of a set documenting the campaign to rid the world of polio, taken by my favourite photographer, Sebastiao Salgado. India is one of the six countries deemed ‘at risk’, along with Pakistan, Somalia, the DR of Congo, Nigeria and Sudan.

Recent reports from the UNAIDS foundation have estimated that 5.7 million Indians are living with the potentially fatal HIV virus. The statistics were collated at the end of 2005, making India the nation with the greatest number of HIV carriers. It is closely followed by South Africa, where one in ten adult population is infected with the virus.

The epidemic is unevenly distributed across India, with just six states accounting for 80 per cent of the estimated cases. The epidemic is thought to have spread from high-risk groups, such as sex workers and injecting drug users, to the general population.

Whilst campaigns to step-up condom use amongst sex-workers has helped, the general reluctance to promote barrier contraception and sex education amongst the general population has slowed down the fight.

As DrMonkey says, it is irrelevant whether India takes the top spot or not, the real problem is feeling that “promotion of condom use and safe sex will only increase promiscuity.”

Admirable and virtuous charity organisation, The World Bank, seems to have been caught telling fibs about malaria in Africa and India.

The Lancet carry an international report claiming that the WB (no, not the channel that shows Smallville) have published fake figures and have squandered millions on useless medicines. It also alleges that the WB have welched on a pledge to commit $300-$500 million in Africa. The Bank says this is poppycock and are investing one beelleeon dollars over the next few years. (more…)

Hundreds doctors on the NHS, of Indian origin, are planning a demonstration outside the Department of Health on Friday to protest against recent changes to immigration laws. The change may hit up to 15,000 international medics.

The Guardian explains:

The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants said that an estimated 15,000 international trainee doctors seeking posts or working on short-term contracts will be unable to complete their training and be forced to go home because of a law brought in as part of last month’s overhaul of immigration, which ruled that junior doctors from outside the EU should only be eligible for jobs that cannot be filled by a “homegrown” candidate.
…
Dr Billoo Joy, from Kerala, India, came to England two years ago, and is on a two-year contract in Norwich which will not be renewed. “I am still around £2,000 in debt from doing my Plab [the test to allow doctors to practise in the UK] and paying rent. It’s been a real struggle. I didn’t expect further uncertainty.

“If I had been told four years ago that this would have been the case I never would have come, but now if I go back to India I will have lost that training and will have to start again with no hope of paying off my debts. Before it was difficult to get a job. Now it’s impossible.”

While I see the need to encourage home-grown doctors, the government has quickly passed the law without any regard for the doctors already here. They are left stranded, unable to finish their terms or pay off debts, because employers have been told to overlook them.

The Sunday Times published a letter today, signed by various academics in support of the Leeds uni professor Dr Frank Ellis.

But who are these ’supporters’? A bit of digging reveals some interesting connections.

“Hmm, looks like a nasty case of revelations. My advice - take a few paracetamol, have a lie down and whatever you do, don’t found any religions.”

Israeli and Swiss neurologists have diagnosed the children of Abraham as suffering from delusions, as they claim there could be a perfectly rational medical explanation for three world religions.

Moses, Jesus and Mohammed all experienced revelations on mountain tops, but the Jerusalem/Geneva team suggest they were probably just feeling a bit peaky and suffering from altitude sickness. The doctors state that a lack of oxygen can alter brain function in the temporo-parietal junction and prefrontal cortex. The same symptoms have been reported by modern climbers and mountaineers, including those who claim to be atheist or non-spiritual. When I say ’symptoms’ I didn’t really mean receiving commandments or anything, more feeling afraid; seeing a presence and lights.

Hello all. I shall endeavour to write at least a post or two about my time in the States, I did plenty of Hunter S. Thompson-esque article research for you lucky people. But first something I encountered via this month’s Wired magazine.

A Nation of Guinea Pigs is a hard-hitting piece written by Jennifer Kahn about how Big Pharma is outsourcing clinical trials to India, raising many concerns about the patients participating.

It’s a familiar tale. Huge and powerful Western company grows tired of spending what it sees as excessive amounts of money in the West and looks toward the developing world. Yet just as there are two sides to every business outsourcing story, it is likewise unfair to brand all clinical trials in India as unsettling. Some truly hold patient care paramount. Many will help people otherwise too poor to afford any treatment. But most won’t. Why elements of the medical world are somewhat concerned about this eastward trend in clinical trials is the sheer scale. Sean Philpott, managing editor of the American Journal of Bioethics, likened the shift to the nineteenth century gold rush:

“Not only are research costs low, but there is a skilled work force to conduct the trials,” he said. In the rush to reap profits, Philpott cautions that drug companies may not be sensitive to how poverty can undermine the spirit of informed consent. “Individuals who participate in Indian clinical trials usually won’t be educated. Offering $100 may be undue enticement; they may not even realize that they are being coerced,” he said.

Following on from my previous article advocating drugs testing on humans, I have found two things: buying and selling kidneys is legal in Iran (thanks Steve); a company is already trialling drugs on humans, in India (thanks Suvir).

There have been previous calls in Britain to consider legalising organ selling, specially since a huge black market already exists.

While a legal trade in organs seems eventually inevitable, even ethical, I’m going all the way. I want the right to buy a human body to test drugs on in the UK. I already explained how it could work, now let me explain why.

As a society, we are getting increasingly better at managing our own symptoms and signs.

We can see that the increased medicalisation of daily life is an ever-growing phenomenon, with even Bree from Desperate Housewives getting in on the act. She uses her child’s Ritalin to assist her in accomplishing more within her busy schedule. Her husband sees a turnaround in her uptight demeanour, and her children are pleased to see her taking a greater interest in their daily lives.

The trend is increasingly spreading here.

Prescriptions of Methylphenidate - most commonly sold as Ritalin - rose to 359,100 last year, a rise of 344,400 since 1995. Figures from the Prescriptions Pricing Authority reveal that there has been a 180-fold increase in prescriptions since 1991 when only 2,000 were issued in England.

Several newspapers also suggest that an increasing proportion of doctors are giving patients (considered intellectually equal to themselves) free rein with medications designed to support their emotional wellbeing.

After all, they should know right? Plus, choice is the current buzzword of choice in the medical world.

Researchers at Cambridge University foresee a future where ‘cosmetic neurology’ is the way forward in gaining more from our lives.

Ritalin was originally marketed as a treatment for children and adults with attention deficit or hyperactivity problems but, as with many drugs, was rapidly adopted by alternative users.

Many students found it helped them concentrate and calm down before exams. The drug is now frequently sold illicitly on campus and is widely available on the internet.

Given the disparate views on medication and nature prevalent within the populace, I ask you whether you’d be up for using Ritalin to help you with revision in the way that a fifth of American university students have confessed to doing?