How to be happy
What makes us happy? There is a lot of data on the question now, and some surprising conclusions. One surprising conclusion is cheering: almost all of us (around 95% of people in developed countries) rate ourselves as quite happy or better.…
Read MoreGenocide: just a word?
By: David Edmonds In April 1915 there were hundreds of thousands of Armenians in Eastern Turkey: a year later they were gone. One historian told me that this fact was the relevant one. And whether or not we call what occurred a ‘geno…
Read MoreWhen politics meets bioethics
Ethicists disagree about very many things, but they broadly agree on how it is we should disagree: by finding flaws in the reasoning that leads others to a contrary conclusion, by putting forward arguments of our own, and so forth. The thou…
Read MoreTelling porkies: should the doctor tell her patient where the medicine comes from?
In a column in the New York Times this week Randy Cohen fields a question from an anaesthetist. Should the doctor ask a devoutly religious patient whether he minds that his anticoagulant (heparin) is derived from pigs? In reply Cohen sugges…
Read MoreShould NHS Medical Services be Rated Like TripAdvisor?
The website TripAdvisor (See: http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ ) allows viewers to access (and contributed to) popular ratings of hotels, restaurants and other travel related facilities all over the world. The NHS is now operating a website – …
Read MoreNon-lethal, yet dangerous: neuroactive agents
An article and editorial in Nature warns about the militarization of agents that alter mental states. While traditional chemical weapons are intended to hurt or kill people, these agents are intended to disable. For example, they might indu…
Read MoreHow not to criticize the NHS
The British National Health Service (the NHS) has been in news a lot recently. First it was the Investor's Business Daily in the US, which claimed that: 'People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the U.K., w…
Read MoreShould early non invasive prenatal testing be opposed?
It is now possible to detect fetal problems with just a sample of the pregnant woman’s blood. Women will probably be offered this test routinely in the first trimester. But the breakthroughs are said to raise serious ethical questions. In 2…
Read MoreThe party line and the flu-line
It has emerged over the weekend that the UK government ignored the advice of a key panel of scientific advisors in the formulation of its pandemic response. The panel advised against the mass prescription of antivirals (Tamiflu) because of …
Read MoreSymposium Announcement: Human Enhancement: What should be permitted?
The Brocher Foundation, and the Universities of Oxford and Geneva are pleased to announce the Symposium: Human Enhancement: What should be permitted? 20-21 October 2009, Brocher Centre, Geneva, Switzerland Biomedical science is increasingly…
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