Based on 173 deaths in the Harvard Medical Practice study, and extrapolating to the entire U.S. population, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) has been claiming for almost a decade that as many as 98,000 Americans are killed by medical errors every year.
Just at the deadline for responding to the AAPS action to intervene in lawsuits challenging the Provider Conscience Clause, the Obama Administration started rulemaking to rescind the Clause completely. This signals the intention of the Administration to refuse to enforce laws duly passed by Congress to protect medical professionals against discrimination for refusing to participate […]
Hospital-acquired methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) should never happen, if only hospital workers practiced rigorous hygiene, writes former New York lieutenant governor Betsy McCaughey. In fact, “for most infections, the only acceptable rate is zero.” Litigation over such infections, she predicts, “will cause the next wave of class-action lawsuits, bigger than the litigation over asbestos.” In […]
The Bush Administration has proposed a rule that would deny federal funding to medical facilities that discriminate against employees who choose not to provide services they deem to be morally wrong—such as performing abortions or making abortion referrals. Unlike rules that ban discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual preferences, this one […]
At Children’s Hospital in Denver, three babies recently had successful heart transplants from neurologically damaged donors who were not brain dead. The donors were removed from the ventilator in the operating suite, and their hearts were harvested within minutes after asystole. In 2007, there were 793 cardiac-death donors (“non-heart-beating donors”), about 10 percent of all […]
On June 19, a physician caught in the act of performing a sex-selection abortion was arrested in a town near New Delhi and remanded into judicial custody for 14 days, along with the woman’s husband. They were charged with violating the Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques and Medical Termination of Pregnancy Acts. Because of frequent female infanticide […]
Many highly regarded hospitals in the U.S. routinely diagnose brain death without following the guidelines promulgated in 1995 by the American Academy of Neurology (AAN), according to a survey presented at the American Neurological Association (ANA) annual meeting (Kurt Samson, Neurology Today 11/6/07).Researchers at the Massachusetts General Hospital surveyed the top 50 neurology and neurosurgery […]
There’s a new kind of brokerage firm in our brave new world: agencies that assemble databases of young women and market their eggs to customers who want a baby and can’t produce one themselves. Some offer photographs and information about hobbies, education, and religion, along with health screening, so customers can pick the “donor.” Some […]
60th Annual MeetingAssociation of American Physicians and SurgeonsPoint Clear, Alabama, September 17-19, 2003 WHEREAS: the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons stands on the principles of the Hippocratic Oath, which oath clearly opposes abortion of a developing human child; WHEREAS: teachings of the major religions of the world have opposed abortion of a developing human […]