Fetuses cannot feel pain, therefore U.S. legislation requiring doctors to tell women that the fetus will feel pain, or to provide pain relief during abortions, has no scientific basis and may harm the women involved, a leading expert contends. ‘This is an unwarranted piece of legislation because there is good evidence that the fetus cannot feel pain at any stage of gestation,’ said Stuart Derbyshire, senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Birmingham, U.K. He authored an review of the available data on the subject in the April 15 issue of the British Medical Journal. ‘I don’t think the question of pain resolves the argument about abortion,’ said Derbyshire, who said abortion remains a social, moral and political question. However, he said that, based on the evidence, ‘it’s illegitimate to use the possibility of pain as a way of trying to prevent abortion from occurring, because the possibility of pain doesn’t exist.’ Some other experts agreed. ‘No one wants to inflict pain in fetuses unnecessarily, nor do physicians want to put the mother at risk by the unnecessary administration of analgesics to treat her fetus, not her,’ said Dr. Henry J. Ralston, a professor […]
Recent media buzz has suggested that people looking to buy a hybrid car to save money would be better off putting change in their piggybanks. But what these pundits don’t seem to understand is that it’s not their purse-strings that motivate the hybrid buyer; it’s their heartstrings. In the world of marketing, hybrid cars appeal to a specific demographic category known as LOHAS: Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability. A more trendy term for this group of Whole Foods-shopping, Prius-driving, tea-drinking, yoga-practicing men and women is ‘metrospiritual.’ It’s a $227 billion market segment that strives to make sure its buying habits jibe with its values-and it’s growing. Car manufacturers recognize the buying power of this group, as evidenced by the increasing number of hybrid models being launched or planned. Toyota alone says it will introduce 10 new models in the next five years, and J.D. Power and Associates predicts that there will be as many as 52 hybrid models on sale in the next six years. The insurance industry is taking notice, too. Travelers personal lines offers a 10% discount on auto insurance for hybrid car drivers and has launched http://www.hybridtravelers.com to give hybrid […]
In a grim warning on climate change, the British government’s chief scientist said the world must immediately put into place measures to address global warming, even if they take decades to produce results. Sir David King said that, even by the most optimistic forecasts, carbon dioxide levels are set to rise to double what they were at the time of the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century. That will lead to a three-degree centigrade rise in temperature, King said, adding that if nothing is done to manage such change, few eco-systems on Earth will be able to adapt. Even worse, said King in an interview on BBC radio, up to 400 million people around the world would find themselves at risk of hunger, because 20 million to 400 million tonnes of cereal production will be lost. In Britain, the main threat will be flooding and ‘coastal attack’ as a result of rising sea levels. ‘If you ask me where do we feel the temperature is likely to end up if move to a level of carbon dioxide of 500 parts per million — which is roughly twice the pre-industrial (revolution) level and the level at […]
When her hairdresser asked her last fall whether she would continue wearing her hair long, Elizabeth Sloan broke down crying. Unbeknown to the hairstylist, Ms. Sloan had recently had a breast tumor removed and was expecting to begin chemotherapy, which would probably mean losing her hair. But later that day, Ms. Sloan received the results of a new $3,500 genetic test, which indicated that her cancer probably would not come back even if she skipped chemotherapy. ‘It was a huge relief,’ said Ms. Sloan, 40, a mother of two young boys who lives in Manhattan. ‘I did not want to napalm-bomb my body with chemicals.’ The test taken by Ms. Sloan, known as Oncotype DX and offered by a company called Genomic Health, is part of a new wave of sophisticated genetic or protein tests that are starting to remake the diagnostics business, both for the technology they use and the way they are developed and sold. Traditionally regarded as a low-profit, poor cousin of prescription drugs, diagnostic tests are emerging as high-profit products in their own right. Test developers are ‘trying to do what pharmaceutical companies have done with their drugs,’ said Jondavid Klipp, managing […]
Medical schools in Israel have come to the conclusion that in addition to a high psychometric score, it is important for a doctor to feel compassion. To this end, the schools recently decided to alter their admissions procedures to start examining qualities such as sensitivity, integrity and interpersonal communication. The new test was developed by the National Institute for Testing and Evaluation (NITE), the body responsible for psychometric testing, and the National Center for Medical Simulation, which charge NIS 600 to administer the test. The medical schools have not given up on the psychometric test, which is still the decisive factor in acceptance, but have now added interviews, personal questionnaires and situation simulation games involving dilemmas faced by doctors. This method is not perfect. It turns out that it works to the detriment of Arab applicants (see box). In addition, it raises fundamental questions, including whether stressing the human side of the physician has filtered down to the curriculum and training sessions, or whether it stops with the admission exams; and whether it is even possible to predict who will be a good doctor. Taking initiative Tel Aviv University has been using the new evaluation method […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
