Obtaining the stone was a costly business for the actor. He went to a hospital in great pain and ended up in a gurney for pregnant women. "They're wheeling me through the hospital," he recalled. "My legs are in the stirrups and I'm screaming -- and somebody says, Look, there goes Captain Kirk; he's having a baby!" ~ GoldenPalace.com press release
A paralysed Korean woman who took some faltering steps after treatment with adult stem cells in 2004 says that her treatment has failed badly. She can not walk; she is in constant pain; and she can not even sit in a wheelchair. Doctors say that her spine became infected during a second round of therapy. Hwang Mi-sun, 39, now warns other patients not to place too much trust in stem cell treatment.
Although adult stem cells have had more clinical successes than embryonic stem cells (which have had none), no therapies have been approved by government health officials in any country. However, euphoria in 2004 over the apparently successful research of the now- disgraced Hwang Woo-suk led the South Korean government to relax restrictions on the use of adult stem cells in clinical trials. In 2003 no treatment with adult stem cells was reported. In 2005, 118 people were given experimental treatments.
The results were none too promising. According to a report in the JoonAng Ilbo newspaper, 80% of 73 patients undergoing these experimental procedures developed serious side effects and 12 died. At the moment, emergency clinical trials of stem cell treatments are abused by researchers and companies in the majority of cases," says Kim Ok-joo, a bioethicist at Seoul National University's College of Medicine. "For their gain, they take advantage of patients' hopes. The nation needs ethical and legal frameworks for stem cell therapy. The nation need to be awakened from the Hwang Woo-suk myth."
News of the failure crackled on the blog of the editors of The American Journal of Bioethics. Friends and foes of embryonic stem cell research traded angry words and accused each other of distorting the facts. Arthur Caplan, probably the highest-profile US bioethicist and a supporter of embryo research, rejoiced that his opponents would have to eat crow over this apparent failure of adult stem cells. This prompted a long train of increasingly dyspeptic posts from correspondents who disputed nearly everything he said.
However, Korean experience just confirms what has already become clear from anecdotal evidence from other countries: that stem cell treatment of any kind has its risks. Nonetheless desperate patients want them and eager doctors will comply. Clinics in the Ukraine, Russia, China and the Dominican Republic provide stem cell therapies with adult stem cell, foetal stem cells and cord blood stem cells -- but none of them have produced evidence that they really work. Some patients have found partial relief for their ailments, but many have been bitterly disappointed and some have died. ~ JoongAng Daily, Jan 16; blog.bioethics.net
NO MORE FREE RIDES?
The idea that people have a moral duty to participate in medical research may be gaining traction. The notion surfaced last year when utilitarian British bioethicist John Harris argued that if people are to take advantage of the benefits of medical research, they should not be freeloaders and should participate in experiments. Later in the year, American bioethicist Rosamund Rhodes questioned the universally accepted concept of informed consent and suggested that ideally there should be some form of research conscription.
Now Dr Jess Buxton, the genetics editor of BioNews, a UK newsletter published by the Progress Educational Trust, says that such an approach is a positive development. She argues that the new UK BioBank, which will collect health information from half a million volunteers, is a sign that many people would agree. "The project may even help foster a new attitude to medical science -- that in order to reap the benefits of research, we must be prepared at least to support it, both as a society and as individuals," she writes. ~ BioNews 342
CLAWS CAUSE ANGST
Animal rights activists are campaigning for humane treatment of lobsters, a move which alarms fishermen in the American state of Maine. "These creatures are suffering terribly the way they are being treated," says a coordinator of the Shellfish Network, an English group. "We know they have the capacity to suffer." In Maine, which supplies 85% of America's lobsters, lobster fishing is an important industry.
Normally lobsters are boiled live, which incenses animal welfare activists. A spokesman for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals describes it as "felony-level cruelty". However, a spokesman for Maine's Lobster Institute says that lobsters are like insects: They don't have the hardware to process pain." And the president of the Maine Lobstermen's Association ridicules the concerns of the activists: "The PETA people think there are lobster families walking on the bottom holding hands. They eat each other. They are cannibalistic. They are not lovely creatures." ~ Portland Press Herald, Jan 1
CORNELL UPDATES HIPPOCRATIC OATH
A leading American medical school has revised the Hippocratic Oath to take account of contemporary values. Weill Cornell Medical College's version is more inclusive and more positive, ending in an affirmation to be faithful to the honourable traditions of the profession rather than in a curse upon a doctor who does not respect the oath.
Most medical schools long ago revised the anachronistic Greek oath which invokes the god Apollo and assumes that no women work as physicians. Like oaths at other medical schools, Weill Cornell's no longer contains explicit commitments not to have sexual relations with patients, not to carry out abortions and not to administer euthanasia -- although admittedly these might be implicit in a more general commitment to "serve the highest interests of my patients". ~ Weill Cornell press release, blog.bioethics.net
IN BRIEF: cloning; depression; Australia; fakes
Stem cells: Scientists at the Whitehead Institute for BioMedical Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts, claim that stem cells from cloned embryos are likely to be safe when they are used for human therapies. Their study found that mouse embryonic stem cells did not contain genetic abnormalities which could cause cancer. However, what actually goes wrong when animals are cloned is still unknown. ~ HealthDayNews, Jan 16
Depression in docs: One in five American medical researchers reports signs of clinical depression, according to a survey conducted by Drexel University College of Medicine. This is about double the rate of the general population and a steep rise on a similar study from 1984. Younger researchers are more depressed than older ones and basic researchers feel less stress than those who also have clinical work. ~ Nature, Jan 19
IVF: A leading IVF doctor has been appointed governor of the Australian state of Victoria. Dr David de Kretser has an international reputation in male infertility and helped to set up the Monash Institute of Reproduction and Development with stem cell scientist Alan Trounson. ~ Age, Jan 20
More fraud: A large Norwegian study published in The Lancet which claimed that anti-inflammatory drugs reduced the risk of oral cancer was based on fabricated data. The author, Jon Sudbo, a cancer researcher at the Norwegian Radium Hospital in Oslo, apparently received US$10.5 million from the National Cancer Institute in the US for the project. ~ New York Times, Jan 19
Legislators in California are preparing for a debate over assisted suicide, following last week's Supreme Court ruling which supported Oregon's 9-year-old statute. However, neither supporters nor opponents of assisted suicide feel confident of victory. Although polls show that 70% of Californians support the idea that "incurably ill patients have the right to ask for and get life-ending medication", previous initiatives have failed -- in 1992 at the ballot box and in 1999 in the State Legislature.
Australian euthanasia activist Dr Philip Nitschke recently mused that euthanasia could become the "last frontier in prison reform". This is far from likely, but California's ballooning budget for geriatric prison inmates shows that it might seem plausible to some people. Of California's 168,000 prison inmates, one in six, or 28,470, are in for life, mostly as a result of tough sentencing laws.
Here's the ultimate in organ donation kitsch: a kidney stone passed by the commander of the Starship Enterprise has been sold to an on-line gaming casino. The money will be given to a charity. Actor William Shatner, looking a bit plumper and more relaxed than when he played the legendary Captain Kirk, mused that this takes organ donors to a new height, to a new low, maybe". GoldenPalace.com originally offered $15,000 but Shatner, a man who knows what he is worth, held out for $25,000.