Wesley J. Smith

Any health insurance reform that seeks to maintain a private system will have to stop the companies from cherry picking their applicants. Otherwise stories such as this will drive the American people into the arms of a single payer or other form of public health care system: When the Golden Rule . . . . Continue Reading »

This report is a bit vague but apparently there is a futile care case in Alaska with lawyers with the Alliance Defense Fund preventing the hospital from forcibly removing a patient from care. From the World Net Daily report: The Alaska Supreme Court has granted a motion sought by an attorney working . . . . Continue Reading »

This could be the early stages of some very good news for Parkinson’s patients. Two years ago SHS readers learned that human paralyzed spinal cord injury patients have had feeling restored with their own nasal mucosa stem cells—a story utterly ignored by an MSM that would have shouted . . . . Continue Reading »

An article has been published in the Chronicle of Higher Education (subscription required) entitled “Bioethics Crisis Looms Unless NIH Changes Course, Critics Warn,” byline Richard Monastersky. Bioethics crisis? Apparently, practitioners believe we need more bioethicists to tell us what . . . . Continue Reading »

I love taking photographs, and I took some nice ones (if I don’t say so myself) on my recent cruise. Here is a sampling:Jet lagged at 4 in the morning, I had a mirrored elevator all to myself. Fun ensued.Dawn on the Baltic.An Estonian convent destroyed by Ivan the TerribleSt. Petersburg: the . . . . Continue Reading »

Bad news and good news—first the bad: A very close friend’s mother was diagnosed with colon cancer. But the very good news is that her disease was caught so early she won’t even need chemotherapy.Why? She had a colonoscopy! Had she not taken this life saving step, a few years down . . . . Continue Reading »

A big proof of principle advance has been announced on the IPSC front. Human brain cells have been reverted to an embryonic-like state with drugs—and without using any cancer-causing gene, reducing the need for virus vectors. From the story: A major advance in transforming one kind of cell . . . . Continue Reading »

I have reported on the Canadian futile care lawsuit involving Samuel Golubchuck here at SHS previously. For those who may not recall, Golubchuck is a terminally ill elderly patient being treated in a Winnipeg hospital’s ICU. Doctors want to refuse life-sustaining treatment. The . . . . Continue Reading »

I admire James Thomson, the scientist who first derived human embryonic stem cells and helped push the IPSC “lead into gold” breakthrough into human application. As most of the Science Establishment has outrageously hyped the potential of using ESCs for CURES! CURES! CURES!, Thomson has . . . . Continue Reading »

I read this NYT op/ed by Columbia physics professor Brian Greene whilst flying home from Europe in the Herald Tribune. On its face, Greene seems to be promoting better science education both in schools and among the general public. But it struck me that his underlying message is that science should . . . . Continue Reading »