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Harvard’s stem cell misstep

Michael Cook | 29 June 2006 | 2

Harvard University has given the cause of therapeutic cloning the backing of its immense prestige. A stem cell scientist tells MercatorNet that this is based on inflated hopes and bad science.

No more business as usual for stem cell research

Michael Cook | 12 January 2006

Revelations of fraud and unethical conduct in the world’s leading embryonic stem cell lab could lead to a rethink of stem cell ethics.

60 years after Nuremberg, how much have we learned?

Cason Cheely | 10 January 2006 | 1

The trial of German doctors who used prisoners for ghastly experiments during World War II is still relevant today.

Forgetting the Holocaust

Michael Cook | 23 September 2005

The death this month of Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal reminds us that we are still in danger of forgetting about the lessons of the Holocaust.

Why the UN banned human cloning

Michael Cook | 26 August 2005 | 1

Earlier this year, Costa Rica was at the forefront of a campaign in the United Nations to ban both reproductive and "therapeutic" cloning. In this exclusive interview MercatorNet speaks to a diplomat who handled the negotiations.

Cuomo cuts through ethical knot with a committee

Michael Cook | 24 June 2005

Former New York governor Mario Cuomo has proposed that an expert committee guide Congress in deciding whether human embryos are human beings. We asked former researcher and medical ethicist Dianne Irving for her comments.

Truth or consequences

Michael Cook | 17 June 2005

What philosophy can justify the abuse of enemy combatants in Guantanamo Bay? The same one which justifies stem cell research and euthanasia.

False dawn for stem cell cures

Michael Cook | 27 May 2005

The sick and the scientists are rejoicing over two different visions of the future after the cloning of human embryos by Korean scientists.

Stem cell research

Amin Abboud | 12 May 2005

Regenerative medicine is an exciting new field with enormous potential for repairing damaged organs and body parts with human stem cells. But if their source is human embryos, there is a serious ethical difficulty. The destruction of human beings for the sake of their stem cells is ethically unacceptable. The author of this backgrounder is Dr Amin Abboud, a medical doctor and bioethicist who teaches at the University of New South Wales in Sydney.

Is the biotech revolution a myth?

Michael Cook | 10 December 2004

All over the world governments are staking the future of their economies on biotechnology, especially stem cell research. Have they been sold a pig in a poke?

Beyond Britain’s fox-hunting ban

Michael Cook | 26 November 2004

In an impressive display of its growing political clout, the animal rights movement helped bring about significant legal changes across the English-speaking world in the last two weeks.

Science and bioethics at a crossroads

Martin Clynes | 26 November 2004

This is a very exciting time for biotechnology, the science of using living organisms and their products to make useful products and to cure human diseases. In the past few years, all the genes that make up the human DNA have been sequenced (ie completely described chemically). There is great hope that we will, as a result, discover many new gene products that can act as targets in the body for new pharmaceuticals to help cure disease.

OBITUARY: Christopher Reeve

Michael Cook | 26 November 2004

Why are we rushing to canonize Christopher Reeve? To presidential hopeful John Kerry, the quadriplegic actor was "truly America's hero". As far away as Australia, he was "the most impressive person I have ever met" for one of that country's leading politicians. Even President Bush paid tribute to his "personal courage, optimism, and self-determination".

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