Last week various newspapers (see here and here) reported on a planned research study of adrenaline for patients suffering a cardiac arrest outside hospital. The PARAMEDIC 2 trial (full protocol here) involves ambulance officers randomly gi…

Recent stories of those such as Miguel Pajares, who died from the Ebola virus after catching it from those for whom he was caring, seem to provide paradigmatic examples of compassion.

Defense lawyers are increasingly calling upon the services of neuroscientists to give evidence excusing, or mitigating the guilt of, their clients. A recent case illustrates some of the risks of doing so, as well (perhaps) of the potential …

The World Health Organization on Monday announced the outcome of its ethical deliberations. It found that, in certain circumstances, it was ethically permissible to use unproven drugs on Ebola patients. It then listed ethical criteria. Thes…

By Rebecca Roache Follow Rebecca on Twitter here Luke Malone has published an extremely moving, disturbing, and distressing article in Medium, entitled ‘You’re 16. You’re a pedophile. You don’t want to hurt anyone. What do you do now?’ (war…

At present I am travelling with my immediate family, seeing less immediate family, back and forth across the US south. One thing I’ve remembered: it can be good to be a part of a close-knit group. One’s faults and mistakes are more readily …

Cryonics – the practice of freezing people directly after death in the hope that future medicine can resuscitate them – is controversial. However, British Columbia is the only jurisdiction with an explicit anti-cryonics law (ban…

Summary: Patients potentially infected with Ebola have the right to experimental treatment outside of randomised controlled trials. Consent should be sought while they are competent if it is anticipated that they will lose competency throug…

Last month, Lord Robert Winston delivered the Physiological Society summer lecture entitled, ‘Shall we be human in the next century?’ You can watch it in full here (the stream starts working around 5”30 onwards). In the lecture,…

A recently released review by Australian mining magnate Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest (news article available here, full report available here) investigating training and employment for Indigenous Australians has made a controversial recommendati…