Wesley J. Smith

I only bring this up because it provides a vivid example of how so much of the West has become, in the old Gilbert and Sullivan phrase, topsy-turvy. The Dutch Government is bringing a parliamentarian named Geert Wilders up on charges of hate speech for making incendiary statements about . . . . Continue Reading »

Well after years of saying it was coming, finally Geron got permission to attempt a human trial of its ESC-derived drug for acute spinal cord injury. (This is not a direct infusion of stem cells, but of a type of adult neural stem cell created by differentiating the ES cells.) This is not an . . . . Continue Reading »

We have a lot of problems, but I was mildly surprised that health care only scored in at 60 percentile as a matter of high concern to the American people in a Pew Poll, with Medicare at 59%—a sharp decline from previous samples. And this was a surprise: Health insurance was at 52%. From the . . . . Continue Reading »

Readers of SHS have heard of the tragic case in Italy of Eluana Englaro, diagnosed for 17 years to be in a persistent vegetative state. Her father won the right in Italian court to remove her feeding tube, but has been unable, so far, to find a medical facility willing to dehydrate Eluana to death. . . . . Continue Reading »

SHS’s good friend, attorney Jerri Ward, is gearing up to fight a case in Texas that is eerily reminiscent of the Haleigh Poutre case. An attorney ad litem for a terribly abused baby named David Coronado Jr., wanted to stop all treatment because the baby is expected to remain profoundly . . . . Continue Reading »

In the UK, an adult stem cell trial using cadaver cells will begin seeking to cure blindness. From the story:[[A] two-year trial involving 20 patients with corneal blindness will begin this month at the Princess Alexandra Eye Pavilion in Edinburgh and the Gartnavel General Hospital in Glasgow. The . . . . Continue Reading »

SHSers may recall the awful death of Kerrie Wooltorton in the UK, who drank anti freeze as a suicide method and was let die because she had a note pinned to her clothes saying she didn’t want to be saved (even though she called the ambulance).A reader who has asked to remain anonymous sent me . . . . Continue Reading »

I think the punishment is woefully weak, but it is a rare case of a health facility (Bristol Hospital, Bristol, CT) being publicly sanctioned for withdrawing or refusing wanted life sustaining treatment. From the story:In one case, a woman who suffered a heart attack and congestive heart failure . . . . Continue Reading »

Uh, oh: Here it comes. Incoming Secretary of Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Daschle wants to create a US Agency to control costs based on the UK’s Orwellian-named National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), which substantially controls the ethics and medical . . . . Continue Reading »

As regular SHSers know, I love non controversial biotechnology. Here’s another good example. If it works, it will be a case of life imitating, well not art exactly, but schlock.Scientists have invented a mini robot that might be injected into a stroke patient’s blood stream with which to . . . . Continue Reading »