The news is full of debates today about whether or not new research techniques should be used to create children who do not have mitochondrial disease. New research, known as mitochondria replacement, could enable women to avoid passing debilitating and sometimes fatal mitochondrial diseases on […]
National Secular Society gets its knickers in a twist over male circumcision
The National Secular Society (NSS) is currently waging a campaign against male circumcision which plumbed astonishing depths in July when they made the following outrageous claim on their website. ‘Why MGM and FGM are not considered equally reprehensible defies compassionate reason’. This is a truly […]
Junior Doctors – top tips on surviving your first week on the wards
As I write, Twitter is buzzing with doctors and other healthcare professionals imparting their knowledge and advice to the new Junior Doctors who will be arriving on the wards next week (#tipsfornewdocs). Some of their tweets are included below. I was asked to offer […]
BMA Ethics Debate – great results on both abortion and euthanasia
This morning the British Medical Association Annual Representative Meeting debated two motions on abortion and one on euthanasia. Motion 328 called for the meeting to support the universal availability of non-directive counselling for women considering abortion. It said that the counselling should be in accordance […]
Is the NHS really killing 130,000 patients a year with the Liverpool Care Pathway?
The Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph this week have run a story claiming that the NHS ‘kills off a 130,000 elderly patients every year’ through use of a ‘death pathway’. The story has been picked up relatively uncritically by many news outlets around the world, […]