Archive for 2010

Seeking medical record privacy? Try renting a movie instead In debates over health privacy proposals, it was often said that video rental records had better privacy protection than medical records. Unfortunately, now that the final privacy rules have been issued under HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, it is still true that video rental records have better protections from marketing ... Full story

The appearance in 1998 of a new medicine for an intractable and especially savage form of breast cancer was a medical milestone for two reasons. For one, the drug, called Herceptin, shrank tumors and prolonged lives. What received much less attention, however, was the unique way in which ... Full story

It is no secret that the discoveries of the science of biotechnology are, in the words of Eric Lander at a GeneMedia forum ,Director of the Whitehead Institute/MIT Center for Genome Research, "transforming events." They challenge the notion of race, so deeply imbedded in our culture. They will change the nature of the fight against disease. They ... Full story

Although there is a growing literature on ethics and genetics, surprisingly little of it deals directly with how ordinary people have fit this new knowledge and ethics into their lives. How culture influences the use of genetic services is only rarely taken into account. An anthropologist might ask: How much do ... Full story

In the limelight: The genes of cancer The "war against cancer" is, in actuality, a battle against a large group of sometimes very different conditions caused by differing agents. Generally, cancer results from an altered balance between cell proliferation - growth and division - and cell death. A number of factors, including certain genes, viruses, chemicals or exposure to radiation, have been ... Full story

With the work of Guthrie and others allowing the inexpensive, reliable assessment of small dried blood spots for biochemicals linked to genetic disorders, mass screening of newborns became technically feasible. Since specific treatments or preventives for some of these conditions were also available, outcomes like catastrophic illness or chronic mental retardation could be avoided. In the 1960s, the US Congress, under ... Full story