News - Announcements

Nuffield Council on Bioethics
The ethics of prolonging life in fetuses and the newborn:
Response to recent media coverage of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics consultation

Nuffield Council on Bioethics: Ethics body confronts animal research debate
Research involving animals has been the subject of intense debate in the UK and elsewhere. Too often this debate is presented in a polarised manner, differentiating only between those 'for' or those 'against' all animal research. This is overly simplistic: there is a continuum of views between these two ends of the spectrum.
Report: The Ethics of Research Involving Animals

US: NewsroomPatient safety legislation passes House (27.7.2005)
WASHINGTON - The American Medical Association (AMA) congratulates the United States House of Representatives for passing crucial patient safety legislation today. The overwhelming bipartisan passage of patient safety legislation (S. 544) in the House is a critical vote for improved safety and quality of health care for America's patients.

UK: Abortion Rate Continues to Rise (27.7.2005)
The number of women having abortions has continued to rise in Wales and England, latest figures show.

Embryonic stem cell public research starts in Spain; therapeutic cloning expected to follow suit (22.7.2005)
Barcelona's Research Regenerative Medicine Centre (CIMRB) has started to unfreeze the first embryos from a bank that will provide the cells necessary to generate embryonic stem cell lines and analyse their transformation in different tissues, namely cardiac and bone cells, in mice. The use of embryos in the research was approved by the parents of the embryos.

Patents: Commission adopts a second report on biotechnological inventions,
covering gene patents and stem cells (18.7.2005)
The European Commission has adopted a second report (COM(2005)312) to the Council and European Parliament covering developments and implications of patent law in the field of biotechnology and genetic engineering. It focuses on issues in the area of patents relating to gene sequences and the patentability of inventions relating to stem cells. It also reports on the implementation of the Directive.

Vatican : les catholiques ne peuvent soutenir l'avortement (11.7.2005)
Le Vatican a rendu public jeudi 7 juillet un document préparatoire au prochain synode des évêques qui doit avoir lieu du 2 au 23 octobre au Vatican sur le thème de l'eucharistie.

Longest Frozen Embryo Baby Born (6.7.2005)
A healthy baby girl has been born in the US after spending the last 13 years in frozen suspension as an embryo.

French ethics committees should tackle publication bias (4.7.2005)
Many research studies approved by French research ethics committees do not get completed or published. Decullier and colleagues followed up 649 research protocols approved by 25 committees.