by Suzanne M. Rivera, Ph.D. The Presidential debate on Wednesday was fascinating theater. Much of the post-debate commentary in social media has focused on Mitt Romney’s threat to cut federal funding to PBS as a way of reducing the deficit (save Big Bird!) and President Obama’s unexpected restraint (including this piece of NSFW satire from…
By I. Glenn Cohen As the New York Times reported this week, in an article entitled “Another Use for Rapid Home H.I.V. Test: Screening Sexual Partners,” some in the public health community are exploring the ramifications for a use of the new OraQuick home HIV test that the company has been somewhat coy about: using…
Related to Nikola’s post below on the proposed revisions to the deceased donor kidney allocation policy, Al Roth has posted some interesting commentary from OPTN/UNOS Kidney Transplantation Committee Chair John Friedewald (in response to a query on a list serve): “The current proposal for kidney allocation from the UNOS kidney committee is what it is not…
By Nikola Biller Andorno The Kidney Transplantation Committee of the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN)/United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) has put forward a proposal that would substantially revise the existing national allocation system for kidneys from deceased donors. It would also dissolve alternate local kidney allocation systems, which were put in place to…
By Scott Burris No, I mean it: this is a question to Bill of Health readers who know about the law on this topic. This week, a colleague handed me a palm card she’d been given at a subway station here in Philadelphia. “Cash for diabetic test strips” it read. Comparing prices on the company’s…
Wednesday, October 10, 2012 4:00pm Radcliffe Gymnasium 18 Mason Street Cambridge, MA Please join us for a presentation of the 2012-2013 Radcliffe Fellows Series. Bill of Health Co-Editor I. Glenn Cohen will discuss the growing phenomenon of medical tourism, the practice of citizens of one country traveling to seek medical care in another country. He will…
Tomorrow, Wednesday, October 3 at 5:30 pm, Bill of Health co-editor I. Glenn Cohen will participate in a live national broadcast on Actionspeaksradio.org regarding Diamond v. Chakrabarty, the 1980 case that first established the right to patent life. For information on how to listen or attend the recording live in Providence, RI, click here. And for some background from Glenn…
by Suzanne M. Rivera, PhD For a variety of reasons, racial and ethnic minorities in the US do not participate in clinical research in numbers proportionate to their representation in the population. Although legitimate mistrust by minorities of the healthcare system is one reason, institutional barriers and discrimination also contribute to the problem. The equitable inclusion of…
Our colleagues at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, the Department of Government, and the FAS Dean’s Office at Harvard are sponsoring an exciting event next Thursday and Friday, October 11-12, 2012, in honor of Professor Dennis Thompson. The symposium is free and open to the public For information on the lineup of speakers…
By I. Glenn Cohen Inspired in part by attending the “Baby Markets Roundtable” (an annual gathering of reproductive technology and the law scholars) this week at Indiana Bloomington, I wanted to share a few thoughts on the new NBC television show The New Normal. The series is a sitcom that follows the lives of a…
