Archive for July, 2008
Is it Ethical to Pay for Organs?
Technological developments in medicine are making organ transplants fairly routine. When I first entered medical school in the 1970s, a kidney transplant was a major intervention. There were significant side effects to the drugs used to prevent rejection, and the mortality and morbidity rates were high.
Today, however, kidney transplants are routine, as are transplants of [...]Medical Tourism - It’s No Vacation (14)
Our July podcast is all about medical tourism. This is a growing trend in the United States, where some patients are going to other countries for their medical care. The idea is perhaps understandable in a medical system overburdened with waiting lists, third-party payer denials, and high costs. But there are serious risks along with [...]
Eugenics Redux
The word “eugenics” comes from the Greek “eugenes,” meaning “good birth,” and the underlying ideas are quite ancient in origin. Plato argued that human baby production should be limited to people selected for certain desirable qualities, and certainly most mothers would like their sons and daughters to “marry well.”
The term eugenics was actually coined in [...]
