And Now, Michael Moore on Drugs

Wait - we didn't mean it that way. It's just that the "Fahrenheit 9/11" guy is doing his next documentary on the health-care industry, and six American pharmaceutical companies, including GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer, are telling their employees to watch out for what a Pfizer spokesman called "a scruffy guy in a baseball cap." If he approaches you, you're supposed to tell him to peddle his papers over at corporate communications. (How about just dosing him with Vioxx?) "Being screwed by your HMO and ill served by pharmaceutical companies is the shared American experience," Moore has said. When his film, to be called "Sicko," comes out a couple of years from now, it ought to spread the pain around more equitably.

The rumors have started already. Moore sightings have been reported at multiple locations*at the same time*and he's having to deny paying doctors to help set up hidden cameras. ("I didn't need to. So many doctors have offered to help, for free.") As a flack for AstraZeneca puts it, "Michael Moore is becoming an urban legend." - Armand Antommaria (Utah)

The Best Euthanasia Movie?

I vote for The Sea Inside, reviewed here by Time Magazine.

New York HIV Experiments on Children (Updated)

It appears that vulnerable children in some of New York's poorest districts are being forced to take part in HIV drug trials. [thanks Jim Coyne] Paul Root Wolpe pointed out that the story has actually been around for a while. UPDATE: Glaxo Smith Kline responds. [thanks Andrew Rosenthal]

"Motorcyle Diaries" a Medical Ethics Flick

Unbeknownst to young Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, he was both a political revolutionary and a medical ethicist. The latter led to the former. On his journey, Che noticed the direct relationship between how a society treats its sick and its poor & the ethics (or lack thereof) of said society. What might this relationship tell us about a nation complacent in the face of 45 million uninsured and millions more left without adequate health care? -Dominic Sisti

Scientists Highlight Bad Science in (Often Bad) Movies

Science news reports that scientists are trying to teach the public about bad science by using the science found in popular movies. The American public is notoriously ill-informed about science and medicine. Why not use their love affair with the movies to try and educate them? That is exactly what some scientists are trying to do, using popular movies as a vehicle to illustrate what science can and cannot do, what is good science and what is bad. While most of the examples in the article are about physics and geology, bioethical issues are commonly portrayed on television and the in cinema, and movies can sometimes be the best vehicle for raising discussion -- as Jurrasic Park did for genetic engineering of endangered and extinct species.

GATTACA Bioethics Edition

Sony Pictures has recently produced a high resolution version of GATTACA, the ubiquitous reprogenetics movie. But we now know that next week they go into the mixing booth to produce a "bioethics version" - yep - of the DVD, which will include a bioethics documentary and possibly a bioethics commentary dub.