Wesley J. Smith

Neil Munro is a wonderful journalist for the National Journal—one of the most prestigious public policy journals in the world. He covers biotechnology like no other and has a story out “Two Roads on Stem-Cell Policy” (no link available) about the tremendous successes that appear to . . . . Continue Reading »

The final verdict is in, and Wu-suk Hwang definitely did not clone human embryos. What he appears to have done is create stem cell lines from parthenogenesis in which eggs are stimulated to divide to the point that stem cells were obtainable. (Parthenogenesis is a form of asexual reproduction that . . . . Continue Reading »

I heard today from Professor McLaclan, whose support for reproductive cloning I criticized here at SHS. Rather than put his comment to me in the comments section to the original post, where it might be missed, in fairness, I thought it best to present it here. Professor McLachlan writes:Dear Wesley . . . . Continue Reading »

This story demonstrates, yet again, that people who are diagnosed as profoundly cognitively impaired may merely be unable to communicate. A man described as being in a minimally conscious state has regained the ability to talk and eat after his brain was stimulated with electrodes. From the story:A . . . . Continue Reading »

Experiments on zebra fish have produced a promising adult stem cell technique that could restore vision to the sightless. From the story:British researchers said on Wednesday they had successfully grown in the laboratory a type of adult stem cell found in the eyes of both fish and mammals that . . . . Continue Reading »

This is interesting: The mask of Charlie Chaplain has a nose that sticks out on the outside. The same nose is concave on the inside. But because our brains know that noses stick out, not in, it refuses to “see” the nose correctly. The power of the human mind to overrule the impulses of . . . . Continue Reading »

Sometimes I think that to some bioethicists, it’s all a mind game. The latest example is an article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are on a hunger strike, and the authors are upset because army doctors are helping to force feed them. . . . . Continue Reading »

This is true compassion: The George Mark Children’s House of San Leandro, California (SF Bay Area), is the first freestanding hospice and respite center for children in the country (as hard as that is to believe). This new approach to pediatric end-of-life care has expanded the approaches to . . . . Continue Reading »

This story doesn’t surprise me. Human beings are omnivores biologically. That means eating meat is natural for us—and healthy when consumed in moderation. This is why vegetarianism requires discipline. (In this regard, I recall a statement by a very well known animal liberationist, who . . . . Continue Reading »

One of the greatest fears among the general public about transplant medicine is that the sickest patients will not be viewed as people so much as organ farms, and indeed, that patients may be euthanized in order to gain access to their organs. Now, a San Francisco transplant surgeon is charged with . . . . Continue Reading »