Archive: Life Sciences and Public Health

Features

06-29-09 | Your Genes Aren’t Covered for That

By Susannah Baruch
Policy must protect not just genetic information itself, but also access to care that is critical for prevention, early detection, and treatment—and to the support systems that help individuals care for themselves and their families when serious illness strikes.

06-23-09 | Personal Profiling

By Andrew Plemmons Pratt, interviewer
Will access to our own genetic information make us healthier? That’s the idea, but there’s a lot to learn as we share and interpret it. Meanwhile, questions remain about proper oversight of an industry that blurs the line between consumer and research participant.

Sandra Soo-Jin Lee on Direct-to-Consumer Genomics and Social Networking [23:36m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (52)

06-15-09 | The Color of Our Genes

By Osagie Obasogie
Advances in genomics may yield profound medical, scientific, and social advances. But if we are not careful, commercial and forensic applications may resuscitate harmful ideas about race.

06-09-09 | The Sunny Side of an Underwater Mortgage

By Arthur Robinson Williams and Daniel D. Langleben
From a biological standpoint, socially cooperative behaviors could be an end in themselves, as far as your unconscious brain is concerned. But financial systems and policies ignoring the often-unconscious human social instincts do so at their peril. The authors offer a few practical steps for reinforcing the “social contract” that might alleviate the growing rift between the financial markets and society.

06-05-09 | Neuroscience Goes to War

By Jonathan D. Moreno
With more attention to the empirical applications of modern neuroscience, we can better understand the connections between predictors of success and individual variability in training and learning. Equivalence may not be the key to preparing the modern soldier.

05-28-09 | What Works and What Doesn’t

By Interview by Jonathan Moreno
It’s the very simple health care concept with the very fancy name. Comparative effectiveness research examines the benefits of different procedures used to treat the same illness, allowing health care providers to make the best decisions about options for patients.

Jonathan Moreno and Ruth Faden Discuss Comparative Effectiveness Research [23:29m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (88)

05-26-09 | Can We Bank on Objectivity?

By Patti Tereskerz
Managing financial conflicts of interest is a complicated policy matter, as researchers and their institutions often receive both public and private funding to support research that leads to new treatments. But research also indicates these conflicts are widespread and ingrained. How far should we go in addressing the issue?

05-19-09 | Cure Cancer? Not Without a Course Correction

By Merrill Goozner
The “war on cancer” devotes too much in search of new cures and too little to understanding the results of existing oncology therapies.

05-08-09 | What My 91-Year-Old Mother Wants for Mother’s Day

By Jonathan D. Moreno
Smart government can and must deliver a reasoned, evidence-based health plan for all. Compassion demands it. Is that so much to ask for this holiday?

05-05-09 | The Baby Business and Public Policy

By Marcy Darnovsky, PhD
Drawing lessons from other countries’ regulatory successes could help temper the commercial pressures in the U.S. assisted reproduction sector, without in any way diminishing reproductive rights.

05-05-09 | Throwing the Baby Out With the Amniotic Fluid

By Michelle N. Meyer
One important distinction that is not made often or clearly enough by either ethicists or lawyers is that between decisions to procreate and decisions not to procreate. Witness, for instance, the reaction to Nadya OctoMom™ Suleman.

04-30-09 | When Drugs Aren’t the Answer

By Jason L. Schwartz
Public health measures that reduce the potential for spreading disease through groups of people present a strong defense in the face of an outbreak. We should have been talking about them earlier.

04-29-09 | Flu Farms?

By Aysha Akhtar, MD, MPH
Controlling infections once they reach the human population is crucial, but the origin of many pathogens may lie in factory farming operations, where potent diseases develop.

04-27-09 | Intelligent Solutions

By Michael Rugnetta
A raft of scientific evidence in recent years, along with a recent book, demonstrates that environment has a very strong impact on an individual’s brain development. The work effectively rebuts most of the lingering arguments over the controversial Bell Curve hypothesis.

04-27-09 | Reprogramming Cells With Protein Power

By Jeanne F. Loring
Using specially engineered proteins instead of DNA to coax mice cells back into an embryonic state is promising, but doesn’t resolve many potential problems. For regenerative medicine research in humans, embryonic stem cells remain the gold standard.

04-23-09 | Reading the Mindreading Studies

By Justin Masterman
Increasingly complicated fMRI research demands increasingly sophisticated evaluations of its validity. We should neither ignore the serious problems with fMRI, nor dismiss its potential to make important scientific discoveries.

04-20-09 | Serving Twinkies While Rome Burns

By Ross Wiener
The answer is a mix of politics and profits, two things that should not get in the way of national standards for school nutrition to help better educate our youngsters.

04-17-09 | Ethics Triumph

By Michael Rugnetta
The new rules on embryonic stem cell research weigh ethical considerations and sound science. Now that’s progressive.

04-13-09 | How Genes Are Like Plutonium

By David Koepsell
Patenting unmodified genes rewards discovery, not invention. We must prohibit the process and invalidate all claims to unmodified genes to facilitate more open science.

04-01-09 | Our Textbook Problem

By Chris Mooney
Don’t fall for the optimistic spin that some are putting out: What happened in Texas last week was bad, bad, bad for science education.

03-30-09 | Stem Cell Fairy Tales and Stem Cell Fables

By Rick Weiss
Injections of stem cells into the brain may not offer a great treatment for Alzheimer’s, but human embryonic stem cells may yet provide the information that scientists need to find a cure for this devastating disease.

03-30-09 | Bioethical Transparency

By Sujatha Jesudason
Transparency, trust, and diverse community participation are critical to proper ethical use of biotechnologies. Full disclosure of the policymaking process and extensive public engagement are a must.

03-24-09 | Scientific Integrity Makes a Comeback

By Lisa Ikemoto
A federal court ruled Monday that an FDA decision to limit access to emergency contraception was based on politics and ignored scientific advice. The move highlights the importance of Obama administration directives to protect scientific integrity in the policymaking process.

03-23-09 | No Bailout for Biodiversity

By Rick Weiss
Despite being major engines for local economies and important sites for informal science education, section 1604 of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 makes it explicitly illegal to appropriate even a dollar of bailout money to aquariums or zoos.

03-19-09 | Reproductive Freedom

By Kavita R. Shah and Frances R. Batzer
Patients should have the autonomy to make their own medical decisions such as whether to have or not have a child. And physicians should have the freedom to refuse a request if they feel the patient would be compromising the quality of life of the resulting child.

03-18-09 | New Stem Cell Policy Founded on Ethics and Expertise

By Jonathan D. Moreno and Michael Rugnetta
Predictably, President Obama has run into some political pushback on last week’s Executive Order. The complaints have arisen primarily over two issues, neither of which is substantial and both of which deserve to be countered.

03-17-09 | Our Inequitable Immigrant Vaccination Policy

By Aysha Akhtar, MD, MPH
Vaccine policy in the United States is riddled with inconsistencies that are prejudiced against those coming into the country and which undermine the system as a whole.

03-16-09 | Snack Shelf Epidemic

By Rick Weiss
The peanut product recalls continue, revealing more cracks up and down the food safety system. And people keep getting sick.

03-10-09 | Designing Baby Neanderthals

By Gregory E. Kaebnick
Researchers recently reported reconstruction of the Neanderthal genome, which raises the possibility of reconstructing the species. The problem here concerns what we do to sentient creatures, not what we do to nature.

03-09-09 | Obama Lifts Stem Cell Restrictions

By Science Progress
With the stroke of a pen, President Barack Obama today erased the Bush administration’s eight-year-old restrictions on federal funding of research involving human embryonic stem cells, reaffirming his commitment to evidence and biomedical hope over his predecessor’s ideological distortion of science.

03-06-09 | New Era for Stem Cell Research

By Jonathan D. Moreno and Rick Weiss
When President Obama signs an executive order reversing Bush’s policy on Monday, it will help the United States retain and reclaim worldwide leadership in the fast-moving and promising field of regenerative medicine.

03-03-09 | Cheaper by the Dozen

By Nancy Scola
The salmonella-contaminated peanut outbreak is raising alarm over the U.S.’s fractured food system—a system “organics” and conventional mass-market foods often travel through side-by-side.

03-02-09 | Age, Race, Religion, Sex, Disability…and DNA

By Rick Weiss
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission just proposed rules to implement the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act. But that still leaves several agencies to sort out how to protect consumers from insurance discrimination.

02-23-09 | Multiple Choice

By Jessica Arons and Shira Saperstein
Questions about whether to regulate fertility treatments differ in distinct ways from debates over the regulation of abortion care.

02-23-09 | The Big Business of Nano Litigation

By Rick Weiss
A recent conference examining the legal protections corporations are taking to defend themselves in the event their products turn toxic should raise regulatory questions.

02-18-09 | Is Sunlight Always the Best Disinfectant?

By Michael J. Werner and Ari Stern
If the end goal is to encourage high quality science, we need to better understand the impact of financial conflicts of interest and get more information about whether existing policies to manage them are effective.

02-17-09 | Vaccines Are Safe and Vital

By Mike Pazos
Last week, the British Sunday Times reported that the original study which sparked a ten-year debate about vaccine safety and autism was based on faulty data. Days later, a special U.S. court ruled that there is little to no evidence linking vaccines to autism. Together, the two events may cool a simmering debate about how to protect young children’s health.

02-13-09 | Baby Bailouts and Benetton Babies

By Jonathan D. Moreno
Two stories in the news this week call for the establishment of international standards for reproductive services that draw a line between procedures that are medically appropriate and scientifically compelling.

02-12-09 | Darwin’s Dangerous Descendant

By Chris Mooney, interviewer
Screenwriter Matthew Chapman, the great-great grandson of the great great scientist, reflects upon science, politics, and culture 200 years after Darwin’s birth.

02-09-09 | Does Science Threaten Democracy?

By Erik Parens
A recent book examining the errors of progressives and conservatives in scientific debates provides a fruitful accounting of the arguments. But grouping the left with science and the right with tradition is a flawed approach to talking about science policy.

02-09-09 | Readying the Global Flu Shot

By Rick Weiss
While pandemic flu is off the media radar, public health officials are busy tracking what they call the number one infectious threat in the world—and are preparing for the worst-case scenario. Above: A scientist works at the U.S. Naval Medical Research in Jakarta, Indonesia.

02-03-09 | Web of Care

By Joseph J. Fins
A physician and ethicist observes that electronic medical records can act as public documents in the context of the local medical community where one’s local reputation as a clinician is forged. With them, all care is now witnessed, open to local peer review: others can read what I write and assess its content, clinical judgment, and quality.

02-03-09 | Harnessing Complex Hospital Care

By Evan G. DeRenzo, PhD, Jack Schwartz, JD, and Steven Selinger, MD
Our health care system needs a systems-based approach to excellence in the care of hospitalized patients to ensure efficiency, empathy and the highest quality medical treatments.

01-30-09 | Change Young Scientists Can Believe In

By Beryl Lieff Benderly
Increased federal funding of basic research must be accompanied by thoroughgoing reform of the grant process to create a new generation of American researchers.

01-26-09 | Unsavory Snacks

By Rick Weiss
Part of the problem behind the recent spread of Salmonella-infected peanut paste products is a disastrously underfunded FDA.

01-14-09 | Eugenic Statecraft in the Operating Room

By Jonathan Moreno, interviewer
In his recent book, Three Generations, No Imbeciles: Eugenics, the Supreme Court, and Buck v. Bell, Lombardo investigates the history behind the 1927 Supreme Court ruling that upheld a Virginia law allowing state-mandated sterilizations for citizens deemed “socially inferior.”

Eugenic Statecraft in the Operating Room [20:35m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (5)

01-12-09 | Speedy FDA Process Gets Observers’ Goats

By Rick Weiss
A Food and Drug Administration advisory panel has deemed a drug from a genetically engineered animal to be safe and effective even though the agency has not yet decided what the rules for such approvals should be.

12-19-08 | Not Up to Standards

By Jessica Arons
The new regulation disrupts the careful balance established by medical codes of conduct and standards of care, placing the health, well-being, and dignity of patients at risk.

12-16-08 | Next Steps for Progressive Stem Cell Politics

By Marcy Darnovsky, PhD
In the wake of the Bush administration’s policies, we will have the political space to craft a pro-research stand that simultaneously highlights the need for consistent and enforceable regulation, for hope without hype, and for developing human biotechnologies according to principles of social justice and human rights.

12-15-08 | Public Nano-tudes

By Rick Weiss
Proponents of nanotechnology—along with federal regulators—have some serious work to do beyond public education if the field is to break through safely to commercial success.

12-12-08 | How Reducing Negligible Risks Drives Up Health Costs

By Donald Light
The over-prescription of statins is costing Americans billions, and the media is complicit with the problem. An independent national institute that compared the effectiveness of treatments could reduce unnecessary spending.

12-08-08 | Screening Newborn Screening

By Rick Weiss
Genetic screening for newborns can spot devastating disorders, but false positives and research-driven mission creep are cause for concern. Knowledge is nothing to fear, but parents should have the right to decide what they want to know about their kids.

12-02-08 | Deciphering Today’s Signature War Injury

By Beryl Lieff Benderly
Traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder are major clinical challenges for doctors treating soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Although very different in nature, the symptoms of the two conditions overlap, making diagnosis and treatment difficult.

12-01-08 | Building a Better Bird

By Rick Weiss
Whether by DNA manipulation or old-fashioned selective breeding, we engineer our food. Is it time to get over it?

11-25-08 | Medicare Costs and the Income Trap

By Peter Ubel
Biomedical research cannot solve all the problems of public health. An effective overhaul of the current system won’t happen without attention to some basic psychology and economics.

11-24-08 | Entrance Strategy

By Rick Weiss
Researchers are eager to see the new administration move away from President Bush’s policies on human embryonic stem cell research funding. But what will it take to get to the first clinical trials?

11-19-08 | No Virtue In Fatalism

By Adrienne M. Martin
Refusing to pursue recent and possible future developments in medical research is itself a morally momentous decision—and that inaction has consequences Cohen and other right-wing thinkers refuse to acknowledge.

11-18-08 | The Revolution Will Be Personalized

By Rick Weiss
It will be an uphill battle to justify some of the upfront costs of the personalized medicine revolution, given the technical, political, and educational hurdles that stand between where we are and where we want to get: to a place with better care that costs less.

11-12-08 | Synthetic Biology

By Denise Caruso
Synthetic biology is on the brink of two noteworthy accomplishments: to be able to “streamline” and redesign the genetic material of living organisms to make them operate more efficiently; and to design and assemble entirely new, artificial life forms from scratch. But a lengthy list of potential risks, as well as broad scientific and social concerns, are largely unaddressed.

11-10-08 | A Taxonomy of Scientific Appointments

By Rick Weiss
The Washington rumor mill is buzzing with names of possible science appointees—and there are dozens of major science-related positions to fill. The questions appointees will face are an opportunity for a clear break with past approaches.

11-06-08 | An Emerging Consensus

By Richard Hayes, Ph.D.
The international community is developing policies that support embryonic stem cell research and embryo screening for medical purposes, but oppose human reproductive cloning, embryo screening for non-medical purposes, and genetic “enhancement.”

11-04-08 | Personal Medicine, Public Bioethics

By Bernard Lo, M.D.
Advances in biotechnology are entering everyday life at an accelerating pace. But biotech isn’t something to fear. What the next president and the American public needs is smart bioethical advice from a National Bioethics Advisory Council.

11-03-08 | Lather, Rinse, Protect

By Rick Weiss
Keeping hands clean—literally and figuratively—saves money and lives. The point is worth considering as the country closes the door on an era of regulatory slumber and considers anew how to get people and institutions to behave in more socially responsible ways.

10-28-08 | Spitomics

By Steven Kotler
The first stop on the road to a healthcare revolution: saliva-collection parties. But as the nascent direct-to-consumer genetic testing industry grows, what can consumers really expect to learn from these services?

10-24-08 | Pro-Life, Pro-Cloning?

By Michael Rugnetta
“Saving” embryos from destruction through the Human Cloning Ban Act, as conservatives suggest, would neither save them or the women carrying them to term.

10-15-08 | State Stem Cell Policies Deserve National Attention

By Liz Barry, J.D. and Sean J. Morrison, Ph.D.
American science succeeds because it rewards achievement, ability, and the promise of good ideas. Merit, not geography, should determine where research dollars go, because families affected by disease don’t care where the cure comes from.

10-14-08 | Cease and Desist

By Rick Weiss
To the pharmaceutical companies out there pushing spurious claims about their medications with millions in marketing dollars: Stop. Now. And please submit your data to the FDA for review.

10-06-08 | Where’s the Biomed Bailout?

By Rick Weiss
Congress last week passed a continuing resolution that will keep the National Institutes of Health budget flat-out flat for the fifth year running. The policy is flat-out wrong, as Americans who have diseases that five or ten years from now should be curable are going to have to wait a lot longer.

09-30-08 | The End of Impairment?

By Mark Meier
Drugs that improve attention or prevent fatigue raise ethical questions in many workplace settings. But what about hospitals, where med students can supply themselves with the pills that let them work harder?

09-29-08 | Start Me Up

By Rick Weiss
The face of stem cell research is changing as research moves towards the clinic and commercialization, and as patients demand access to experimental treatments.

09-19-08 | Advocates of the Gold Standard

By Tristan Fowler
In the past year, stem cell research has taken great strides forward. Advocates and researchers alike are pushing for the federal government to expand its support.

Advocates of the Gold Standard [29:40m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (5)

09-16-08 | A New Way to Bank

By Michael Rugnetta and Michael Peroski
Major innovations in the United States are often driven by collaborative research. Regenerative medicine is no different, and the federal government can help coordination.

09-15-08 | Nanoparticles Get Nanoregulation

By Rick Weiss
How can FDA reasonably protect public health in the interim period before researchers completely understand the science of nanotechnology?

09-09-08 | Six Easy Pieces

By Arthur L. Caplan, Ph.D.
Americans know that the future fortunes of the country rest on scientific and technological advances, so Mr. President, let’s take biomedical science policy seriously.

09-08-08 | Not a Flock of Dodos

By Rick Weiss
The battle over teaching evolution is still far from won in this country, despite the overwhelming mass of scientific evidence that supports this model of how the biological universe works.

08-29-08 | Study the Masters, Grasshopper

By Rick Weiss
Three recent studies propel regenerative medicine forward, but don’t yet move it to the clinic. There is still no better venue for studying cell processes than embryonic stem cells.

08-25-08 | Oversight from Bench to Bedside

By Michael Werner and Hans Smith
Stem cell based research and products are carefully managed at the federal, state, and university level. Efforts to change or strengthen these rules must demonstrate that even more regulation is actually necessary.

08-22-08 | Is Michael Phelps A Sonic Doper?

By Rick Weiss
There are lots of righteous rationales for being against doping, but only one stands up to real scrutiny: the rules say it is not allowed.

08-13-08 | Anthrax and the Mad Scientist

By Chris Mooney
The FBI’s case against Bruce Ivins summons mythical fears of science as a perilous ethical endeavor—and that’s a threat to the image of scientists everywhere.

08-08-08 | The Wild West of Reproductive Technology

By Rick Weiss
Unproven and experimental fertility treatments, combined with an ill-conceived presidential policy on stem cells, have created an industry that needs corralling.

07-28-08 | Contraception Is the New Abortion

By Jessica Arons
A proposed HHS rule would alter the meaning of the word “abortion.” If implemented, our best tools for preventing the need for abortion would suddenly be redefined as abortion.

07-25-08 | Ethically Challenged

By Rick Weiss
An expert panel at Stanford University has determined that nearly one quarter of the colonies of human embryonic stem cells that the Bush administration had approved as ethically derived and eligible for study with federal funds do not meet Stanford’s ethics standards and should no longer be available to researchers there.

07-25-08 | Time to Sweat the Small Stuff

By Rick Weiss
Medicines delivered in nanoparticle form, more potent than their ordinary counterparts, are on deck for regulatory approval. The agency has some catching up to do before it can determine the safety of these cutting-edge products.

07-21-08 | Genetic Testing for Presidential Health?

By Teneille Brown
Are selective mandatory genetic tests for presidential candidates merited in the case of Huntington’s disease?

07-18-08 | Public Health’s Newest Tool: the Fountain of Youth

By Rick Weiss
Resent research concludes that even if scientists were to score a complete home run by finding a “cure” for any single chronic disease such as cancer or stroke, life spans in developing countries would hardly grow longer.

07-01-08 | What To Do With A “Deleterious Mutation”?

By Andrew Plemmons Pratt, interviewer
Filmmaker Joanna Rudnick tested positive for a BRCA1 mutation at age 27. Staring down an almost certain risk of developing breast cancer, she set out to make a documentary of her own choices about prevention and to explore the impact of genetic testing and cancer on women across the country.

What To Do With A “Deleterious Mutation”? [20:50m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (4)

06-18-08 | Genetic Due Diligence

By Rick Weiss
A lack of federal leadership on the regulation of genetic testing could undermine the benefits of the next medical revolution.

06-12-08 | Living Longer, But Living Better?

By Rick Weiss
Elderly Americans are growing in number, which means we need to act quickly to improve the quality of long-term care in our country.

06-11-08 | The “What if?” of Dual-Use Research Awareness

By Michael Stebbins, Ph.D.
A clear set of policy guidelines for reporting biosecurity concerns in research labs is clearly in order. Here are some suggestions.

05-27-08 | Our Fractured Food Safety System

By Nancy Scola
As food worries grow, so does the appeal of a single federal Food Safety Administration to deliver effective oversight of what America eats.

05-22-08 | Manufacturing Uncertainty

By Andrew Plemmons Pratt, interviewer
In his new book, Doubt Is Their Product, Michaels chronicles the “tricks of the trade” that mercenary scientists and product defense firms employ to delay or prevent regulation of chemicals that kill. Their tactics put them in the good company of cigarette companies and global warming deniers.

Manufacturing Uncertainty [17:16m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (9)

05-05-08 | A Brief History of Genetic Testing

By Ricki Lewis
Before you send off that swab of DNA to learn your fate, even in light of the recent passage of the Genetic Information Non-discrimination Act, consider the legacy of genetic screening and testing.

05-02-08 | Safe Vaccines and Healthy Children

By Andrew Plemmons Pratt, interviewer
Vaccine safety has grabbed headlines in recent months, as some parents, fearing alleged links to autism, exempt their children from vaccinations. Multiple studies have demonstrated there is no such link, but there is more to understand about how vaccines keep kids safe, and how public health ensure the safety of vaccines.

Safe Vaccines and Healthy Children [12:51m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (4)

04-25-08 | Reflections on DNA Day

By Michael Stebbins, Ph.D
Reflecting on the meaning and implications of DNA Day underscores the need for a national science curriculum.

04-25-08 | What’s Human Dignity Got to Do With Bioethics?

By Sirine Shebaya
Report to the president fails on both academic and public policy levels to shine a meaningful light on human dignity and bioethics.

04-24-08 | Neuroethics 101

By Michael Rugnetta
New technologies enable scientists to understand, alter, and enhance our brains. These raise a host of policy-relevant questions about privacy, social and political coercion, access to technology and therapy.

04-24-08 | They (Might) Know What You’re Thinking

By Michael Peroski
Neuroscientists boast that fMRI technology could allow for mind-reading machines. The technology raises numerous legal issues. But the big question is, will it work?

04-23-08 | Hearts and Minds

By Chris Mooney
The successful rightwing documentary demonstrates that science needs a loud, accessible, entertaining, mass media response to creationist nonsense.

04-22-08 | It’s All In the Genes (Or Is It?)

By Andrew Plemmons Pratt, interviewer
Various companies now offer direct-to-consumer genetic counseling. Public concern about genetic discrimination is on the rise. The Senate may soon vote on the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act. But there are many uncertainties to consider as genetic medicine gets increasingly personal.

It’s All In the Genes (Or Is It?) [10:30m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (6)

04-09-08 | Abortion and the Slippery Slope

By Pablo Rodriguez, MD, Wayne C. Shields, Jennifer Aulwes
The case of the mysterious disappearing search term is about so much more than one scientific database; it’s about how we talk about reproductive health.