The Washington Post last week highlighted a new ethical dilemma for physicians: What to do when a patient with a surgically implanted pump is feeling so ill that they no longer wish to go on, and ask to have the device disabled? Such cases are occurring more frequently, the Post reports. Although most requests to [Sign in to read the full article...]

Although Timothy Garon’s liver has been ravaged by hepatitis C, and is failing, doctors at the University of Washington Medical Center have refused him a spot on the transplant list because he has used marijuana, even though it was legally approved for medical reasons. With the scarcity of donated organs, transplant committees like the one [Sign in to read the full article...]

A judge on Monday convicted Chris Aldorasi of secretly cutting up corpses as part of Biomedical Tissue Services’ multimillion-dollar body parts scheme, the Associated Press reports. Aldorasi was found guilty of enterprise corruption and other criminal counts at a trial in Brooklyn. He chose to have a judge hear his case instead of a jury, [Sign in to read the full article...]

The Philippine health authority on Tuesday announced a ban on kidney transplants to foreigners in an effort to curb organ trafficking, Xinhua news agency reports. The ban prohibits foreigners from receiving donated kidneys unless they can prove that a donor is related to them by blood. Kidney donations among Filipinos will continue but will be [Sign in to read the full article...]

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Ophthalmic Devices Panel decided at a meeting last week that the agency should more clearly warn people about the risks of the increasingly popular surgery, the Associated Press reports, including eye pain, dry eyes, blurred or double vision, or other problems. According to a task force formed by the [Sign in to read the full article...]