The 5 most popular Bioethics News stories from the week of March 10
Here are the most popular Bioethics News items from last week based on average clicks per day:
1. Parents of Ashley X: intervention has been successful
(CNN) Parents say their daughter, now 10, appears to have stopped growing at 4 feet 5 inches and 63 pounds.
2. Debate over cognitive enhancement in academia
(NYT) A recent Nature article about the use of cognitive enhancers among faculty has prompted heated discussions that are starting to mirror debates about doping in sports.
3. Study: one in four teenage women has STD
(NYT) Researchers from the CDC reported that almost half of the African-American teens in the survey were infected with an STD. The most common infection among all the women was HPV.
(blog.bioethics.net post about this story)
4. Surrogacy business grows in India
(NYT) Among the reasons India is becoming a center for international surrogacy: talented medical professionals, little regulation, and lower prices.
5. Jack Kevorkian plans run for Congress
(AP) "Dr. Death" plans to run in a Michigan district just outside Detroit. He says Washington needs "some honesty and sincerity." Kevorkian is still on parole after serving more than eight years in prison for second-degree murder.
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From the article about STDs among teenage girls: “The national policy of promoting abstinence-only programs is a $1.5 billion failure,” Ms. Richards said, “and teenage girls are paying the real price.”
How about, "The moving away of society from frowning upon teenage promiscuity (when's the last time you read that word?) is a national tragedy and teenage girls are paying the real price." That genie is out of the bottle, though. If AIDS didn't put it back in, nothing will. Due to our enlightened view of appropriate or inevitable behavior among young people, our teenage population is now a giant petri dish for any microorganism that wants to take advantage of it. All we can do is manage it (and talk sternly to our own teens about waiting for marriage). I hope the epidemiologists are up for it.
Also, WHY IS THE STUDY ABOUT GIRLS ONLY? Like the HPV vaccine that came out and was to be mandated FOR GIRLS ONLY. With all our enlightened attitudes, girls still are the focus of attention when it comes to the downside of sex among teenagers. Do boys not get STDs? Of course they do! Where are the studies about them? Does it not take two to tango? I've often thought that the way females are treated in countries like Saudi Arabia - that they have to cover their bodies, that they are punished if they are raped - indicates that their society places the entire burden of sexual purity on women. Are we not seeing echoes of that attitude here?
- by Laura(southernxyl) on Mar 18, 2008 at 8:20 AM | link
I see that I should have scrolled down just a bit before posting.
Glad somebody else is bothered by the sexism.
- by Laura(southernxyl) on Mar 18, 2008 at 6:51 PM | link