Wesley J. Smith

The New York Times Magazine published an important article today about pain control and the fear put into doctors by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) that treating patients too aggressively with opioids (narcotics) could be dangerous to one’s freedom.The story, byline Tina Rosenberg, . . . . Continue Reading »

I don’t really care what bioethicist Ronald M. Green thinks (and, I am sure, he doesn’t care about my opinions). I bring Green up because he is the head of the Advanced Cell Technology bioethics advisory committee, and a professor at Dartmouth, who has just published an opinion piece in . . . . Continue Reading »

This is an ugly story: Children are being enslaved as brick makers in China. From the London Times report: More than 1,000 children may have been kidnapped and sold into slave labour in a brutal human trafficking ring that has shocked and outraged China. The children, some as young as 8, worked in . . . . Continue Reading »

Governor Mitt Romney, who is running for the Republican presidential nomination, has a piece in today’s NRO promoting “alternatives” to embryonic stem cell research. Skipping over his partisan arguments, here is the crux of his column:I studied the issue for many months, and . . . . Continue Reading »

New York Times columnist David Brooks weighs in on human genetic engineering with some pithy points and a disturbing passivity. (No link available.) First, the pithy points:[A]Harris poll suggested that more than 40 percent of Americans would use genetic engineering to upgrade their children . . . . Continue Reading »

We have yet to ensure equal rights for humans, some demand “rights” for animals, and now we have a group dedicated to ensuring equal rights for robots—when they exist, that is. What rights would those be? After all, robots would not be alive:Existence, Independence, and the Pursuit . . . . Continue Reading »

This story is really a tragic tale of how rejecting human exceptionalism leads to the deaths of those deemed inferior—in this case girls—mostly in Asia. According to the United Nations, 60 million female fetuses or baby girls are “missing”—meaning they were killed via . . . . Continue Reading »

Well, lo and behold: Just as a study was released showing that neural stem cells may be efficacious in treating Parkinson’s, another report shows that a drug used for high blood pressure may also provide relief. From the Scientific American story:A team at Northwestern University’s . . . . Continue Reading »

I hope this is as big a deal as it seems. Adult neural stem cells taken from cadaver fetuses—remember adult stem cells is a popular term—have dramatically reduced the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, according to a report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. From . . . . Continue Reading »

I grow weary: Science journalists should report science matters accurately, without spin and the usual hype seen in the ESCR/human cloning debates. Alas, we don’t see much of that in this report, byline Dave Mosher of LiveScience. The story is about Ian Wilmut, the veterinarian who supervised . . . . Continue Reading »