Explore the vast range of titles available.

The announcement of He Jiankui's germline editing of human embryos has been followed by a torrent of almost universal criticism of the claim on scientific and ethical grounds. That criticism is warranted. There is little room for anything other than vociferous condemnation of He's announcement. Presenting the results of groundbreaking work by press conference and YouTube is not science. The issue now is not whether the work supporting the claims reported from China was done in an ethical manner. It was not. What is required to move forward is a justification for doing germline editing in humans. Many think there is none, and prohibitions abound. If such work is justifiable, a serious, rigorous framework must be imposed that insures that such research is done following the highest ethical standards that both protect human subjects and insure public trust and support.

Recent efforts by a private company to modify modern species with ancient DNA in the name of ‘de-extinction’ are both scientifically and morally suspect. A bright line requiring more than press releases as well as independent ethical oversight must be drawn before they are extended to distant human and hominid ancestors.

Using a dataset consisting of daily vehicle trips, PM2.5 concentrations, and a host of climactic control variables, we test the hypothesis that “yellow air day advisories” issued by the Utah Division of Air Quality resulted in subsequent reductions in vehicle trips taken during northern Utah’s winter-inversion seasons in the early 2000 s. Winter inversions occur in northern Utah when PM2.5 concentrations (derived mainly from vehicle emissions) become trapped in the lower atmosphere, leading to unhealthy air quality over a span of time known colloquially as “red air day episodes”. When concentrations rise above 15 μg/m3 toward the National Ambient Air Quality Standard average daily threshold of 35 μg/m3, residents are informed via different media sources and road signage that the region is experiencing a yellow air day, and are urged to reduce their vehicle usage during the day. Our results suggest that the advisories have provided at best weak, at worst perverse, incentives for reducing vehicle usage on yellow air days and ultimately for mitigating the occurrence of red air day episodes during northern Utah’s winter inversion seasons.

While it is well known that the homogeneity of clinical trial participants often threatens the goal of attaining generalizable knowledge, researchers often cite issues with recruitment, including a lack of interest from participants, shortages of resources, or difficulty accessing particular populations, to explain the lack of diversity within sampling. It is proposed that social media might provide an opportunity to overcome these obstacles through affordable, targeted recruitment advertisements or messages. Recruiters are warned, however, to be cautious using these means, since risks related to privacy and transparency can take on a new hue.

The typical Western diet, high in processed and animal-based foods, is nutritionally and ethically problematic. Beyond the well-documented cruelty to animals that characterizes the practices of the factory-farming industry, current patterns of meat consumption contribute to medical and moral harm in humans on both an individual level and a public health scale. We aim to deconstruct, by highlighting their fallacies, the common positive and normative arguments that are used to defend current nutritional patterns. Animal-based foods promote the mechanisms that underlie chronic cardiometabolic disease, whereas whole-food plant-based nutrition can reverse them. Factory farming of animals also contributes to climate change, antibiotic resistance, and the spread of infectious diseases. Finally, the current allocation of nutritional resources in the United States is unjust. A societal shift toward more whole-food plant-based patterns of eating stands to provide significant health benefits and ethical advantages, and the medical profession has a duty to advocate accordingly. Although it remains important for individuals to make better food choices to promote their own health, personal responsibility is predicated on sound advice and on resource equity, including the availability of healthy options. Nutrition equity is a moral imperative and should be a top priority in the promotion of public health.

Yet another idea is to broaden the pool of potential cadaver donors. Some argue that brain death is too restrictive a requirement and that donor eligibility should be expanded to include a \"persistent vegetative state\" or a decision by a potential donor who is soon to die - death by donation.7 But adjusting the criteria for brain death is exceedingly risky. For decades, public support for donation has hinged on honouring the dead donor rule - no donation before determination of death. Patients in a persistent vegetative state or who have consented to death by donation are not dead according to cardiopulmonary criteria. Letting people serve as donors who are choosing their own way to die or moving the line on the criteria for brain death is likely to stoke public fears and distrust. Even with the advent of physician-assisted death, linking death to organ donation is unlikely to be permitted. Rather than attempt to secure permission for organ donation from shocked and emotionally distraught family and friends, a two-step approach that exhibits appropriate respect for family and next of kin of the newly deceased might greatly expand the potential donor pool.1 The requests to preserve organs for possible donation could be made without actually requesting consent to organ donation. That consent could be made later at a hospital, following usual protocols. Relatives, family, partners or even friends could give permission, not for donation, but solely to preserve organs after cardiac death. This would be important if family and friends knew of the deceased's intent to donate or if a donor card was found. The goal of expanding the pool of donors must be respectful of the psychological vulnerability of family and friends after an unexpected death.9 No pressure or coercion should be used; at any sign of a negative response, attempts to secure the opportunity to consider organ donation at a later time must end. In the case of cardiac death, cessation of circulation and ischemic injury to organs are the main reasons that organ donation is impossible. By continuing cardiac resuscitation, organs may be protected. Studies show that kidneys can be successfully used for transplantation if in-situ organ \"resuscitation\" perfusion is carried out quickly after death.10,11 At arrival, first responders would attempt cardiopulmonary resuscitation until they declare it futile, in accordance with regional policies. Permission to preserve would then be sought from family or friends. If granted, the deceased would be transported to a hospital while chest compressions, mechanical ventilation, cannulation and administration of intravenous fluids continued. The results of follow-up with such kidneys meet generally accepted criteria for graftsurvival and function. However, developing screening criteria using age, comorbidity, weight and other factors in initiating requests to preserve could improve graftsuccess rates.12

Just about everything related to health care in America costs too much. The validity of that claim rests on what other economically advanced nations pay for the same health services and treatments. The prices of a hospital bed per night, physician salaries, medical devices, surgeries, lab tests, ambulances, and nursing home stays all are more per capita in the US than they are in Europe, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, or Canada. Despite the across-the-board price disparities, nothing commands the outrage or the political rhetoric in the US more than the price of prescription drugs. There are many reasons why drug costs dominate current health policy discussions. Patients know that their counterparts in Canada and other nations pay less for drugs, whereas reduced health care costs for other expenses are less widely known. Entrepreneurial vultures have been in the news for their predatory behavior in buying cheap drugs and using monopoly control to extract ridiculously high prices for them.