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Artificial nutrition: between treatment, ethical requirements and artificial life support
Doctor Diana Cardenas, Doctor of Medicine and Philosophy, reflects on the status of artificial nutrition which is a regular topic of debate, especially for the terminally ill or patients with an altered state of consciousness. Considered by the Claeys-Leonetti Law of...
Hague Conference: regulate a practice contrary to international law?
The Hague Conference - 6 to 9 February 2018. The Experts' Group at the Private International Law Conference will work on the legislative surrogacy bill to regulate transnational contracts. However, surrogacy is based on foundations that affect numerous human rights,...
Human eggs grown in vitro
British and American scientists have succeeded in growing human eggs in vitro from a very early stage "up to full maturation". This is a "landmark" procedure that could be used to preserve fertility in girls with cancer[1]. However, the study published in the...
Ibuprofen during pregnancy: potential cause of low fertility in women?
After studying the effects of ibuprofen on male fertility[1] and male human foetuses[2], scientists at Inserm (Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale - French National Institute for Health and Medical Research) focused on the harmful effects of...
United Kingdom: The first cases of three-parent IVF
In the United Kingdom, the medical team at Newcastle Hospital has been authorised by the HFEA[1]to "create the first three-parent babies" in Great Britain for two women with mitochondrial diseases [2] who wish to remain anonymous. The procedures will be supervised by...
Belgium: 1,000 cases of euthanasia each year without the patients’ consent
Every year, 1,000 Belgians are given a lethal injection without requesting it. This point was highlighted on 29 January by Doctor Marc Cosyns[1], during the trial of Ivo Poppe, the nurse accused of murdering about twenty people (see Belgium: former nurse accused of...
Medically assisted dying in Ontario: limited conscientious objection for doctors
On Wednesday, Ontario's Divisional Court made its initial decision on "extending conscientious objection in a medically assisted dying context" following an appeal lodged by several Christian Medical Associations [1] contesting the obligation to send patients to a...
A pocket device for human genome sequencing
MinION, a portable device the size of a smart phone, can sequence human genomes with unparalleled precision. Published in Nature Biotechnology, the work of scientists at nine universities (Great Britain, United States and Canada) have developed a new sequencing...
Japan: heading towards authorised research on chimera?
In Japan, a Ministry of Science Commission is requesting authorisation for chimeric research in an attempt to culture human organs in animals. This work should probably lead the Japanese Ministry for Education, Culture, Sport, Science and Technology to revise the law...
A German association circumvents legislation via Switzerland to introduce assisted suicide
In 2015, the ban by German Parliament on professionally assisted suicide forced the Verein Deutsche Sterbehilfe, the only assisted suicide association in Germany, to temporarily stop its activities. However, the association seems to have found a way of circumventing...
United States: The ban on abortion after 20 weeks is rejected by the Senate
On Monday, the American Senate "did not succeed" in opening the debate on a draft bill intended to ban abortion after the 20th week of pregnancy. The bill, which was adopted by the House of Representatives last October (see United States: heading towards ban on...
Are teenage girls whose mothers have had an abortion more likely to decide on abortion themselves?
According to a study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, teenage girls whose mothers have had an abortion are more likely to choose the same path. Having noted a correlation between mothers and daughters in terms of age at which they had...