
blogs


Scientists make nerve cells directly from human skin bypassing stem cells altogether
Researchers have come up with a recipe for making functional neurons directly from human skin cells,…

Another poll from the Voluntary Euthanasia Society (aka DID) to grab headlines
The Voluntary Euthanasia Society, which renamed itself ‘Dignity in Dying’ in 2006 to disguise its…

Nitschke announces his latest scheme to help more Australians kill themselves
I previously commented on a You Tube video of the assisted suicide of a British couple in their 80s who…

Surrogacy raises complex ethical issues
A recent BBC News report, ‘Womb for rent: A tale of two mothers’, highlights the fact that the high…

Medical Defence Union finally publishes full version of new guidance on praying for patients
I recently blogged about new guidance from the Medical Defence Union which endorses tactful prayer with…

£200k of lottery money spent on Reiki like therapy in West Midlands Hospital a waste of time and money
Back in February I reported on a BBC story claiming that ‘a third of NHS trusts still offer homeopathy…

Three exciting news stories about ethical stem cell treatments this month
Three exciting news stories about stem cell therapies – none of which involves the destruction of human…

Two women in their 50s with serious brain damage whose relatives want them dead. One judge has said ‘yes’ but the other is still thinking. Why?
Two cases of women in their 50s with serious brain damage went before the courts this week.
Neither…

Animal-human hybrid embryos – now the government doesn’t even know how many there are
A fascinating article by Philippa Taylor on the official CMF Blog highlights an apparently straightforward…

One baby adoption in the UK for every 2,235 abortions – seven times worse than the US
Bill Reichart is a pastor and area director with CMDA, CMF’s US sister organization. He writes a blog…

What is the true cost of IVF?
For most people thinking about having IVF, the answer will be thousands of pounds. Some may also…
‘Suicide tourism’ gets public backing in Switzerland – but what for British laws?
Voters in Zurich, Switzerland, have rejected proposed bans on assisted suicide and ‘suicide tourism’. A proposal to restrict access for foreigners to assisted suicide only to those living at least one year in the canton was rejected by 78.4 per cent of voters. A second popular initiative launched by fringe conservative parties the Federal Democratic […]
HIV & AIDS treatment as the new prevention Tool: new findings should be treated with caution
News broke in the morning of Friday 13th May 2011 of the results of a ten year study by the United States National Institutes for Health (NIH) into the impact of early antiretroviral treatment (ART) for people living with HIV infection on reducing their risk of transmitting the virus to their sexual partners. Setting up two […]
Gerald’s final breath – a review of the BBC’s ‘Inside the Human Body’
Watching Inside the Human Body tonight was certainly a fascinating experience, looking at how the human body regulates its own function from birth to death, by way of various unusual examples, including a woman who only eats crisps and a man who swims in glacial lakes in conditions that would kill you or I. But […]
HPV vaccine Goes global
A year or so ago my twelve year old daughter was told that all her class were to be given the vaccination against the sexually transmitted HPV virus, assuming they consented to it. All her peers went ahead, probably with little thought on it. However we did stop to think about it, and discussed it […]
Disabled people fear change in assisted suicide law
Changing the law on assisted suicide would put pressure on disabled people to commit suicide, according to new research. The new ComRes poll found that 70 per cent of disabled people were concerned that such a change would lead to ‘pressure being placed on disabled people to end their lives prematurely’ The survey, commissioned by […]
Highlighting disparities in maternal care on International Midwives Day
Today is International Midwives Day, and many organisations are using this to highlight the awful disparities in maternal care, and maternal and infant mortality around the globe. As we blogged yesterday, there is the additional, largely overlooked tragedy of still births. And all of these issues could be addressed, in large part at least, by […]
How could anyone object to teaching schoolgirls to say ‘no to sex’?
MPs have voted 67-61 in favour of a bill introduced by Conservative MP Nadine Dorries, which wants schools to ensure that sex education for girls includes ‘information and advice on the benefits of abstinence from sexual activity’. The ten minute rule bill proceeds to a second reading next January but is unlikely to become law […]
Stillbirths: tragedy and controversy
New figures from The Lancet reveal the tragedy of the scale of stillbirths, estimated at around 3 million worldwide, every year; or more than 8,200 stillborn babies a day. This vast number eclipses deaths from AIDS/HIV and many other diseases that get far more money. Perhaps not surprisingly, 98% of these are in low- and […]
YouTube video of assisted suicide could sway vulnerable people
The Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail have both reported on the tragic story of a British couple in their 80s who died in a suicide pact at their home in Victoria Australia last Thursday. Don Flounders, 81, suffered from mesothelioma, which is an incurable form of lung cancer and his 88-year-old wife Iris, who was not suffering […]
The health risks of obesity – a challenge to Christians
Having just returned from a Christian medical conference where large (especially male) abdomens were very much in evidence I was interested to see that the two lead stories on the BBC health pages this morning deal with the health consequences of obesity. The first story, published yesterday, reports on a study from the Mayo Clinic […]
Russia leads the way in dealing with demographic time-bomb
I warned recently that unless something is done to reverse current demographic trends, economic necessity, together with the ‘culture of death’ ideology which is becoming more openly accepted, may well mean that the generation that killed its children will in turn be killed by its own children. In other words legalised abortion will lead to legalised […]
More fiction and hype about embryonic stem cells as scientists fear withdrawal of funding in patent scrap
Stem cell scientists are kicking up an enormous fuss over a ruling expected very soon from the European Court of Justice about patents for embryonic stem cells. They are up to their usual tricks hyping up the therapeutic potential of these cells for a variety of degenerative diseases and the BBC is obliging in its […]