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Archive for the ‘Bioethics’ Category

The Personal is Political: Angelina Jolie Edition

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In a New York Times op-ed today, Angelina Jolie publicized her recent decision to surgically remove her ovaries after learning she was at a heightened cancer risk.   Jolie discovered in a blood test two years ago that she carried a mutation in the BRCA1 gene that brought with it an 87 percent risk of [...]

An open letter to Kristin Cavallari

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Dear Kristin, You recently announced that you do not intend to vaccinate your child because you have been listening to the rumors linking vaccination to autism.   I have some words for you:   Stop.  Just stop.   You are actively contributing to the spread of pseudoscientific bullshit that is threatening to set the country [...]

Common consent: The latest in the HeLa cell saga

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The Polio Vaccine. Chemotherapy. Genetic mapping.   We owe these and countless other scientific innovations to Henrietta Lacks, a poor tobacco farmer from Virginia whose tumor cells were harvested unbeknownst to her while she was a cancer patient at Johns Hopkins University in 1951. This week, for the first time, an NIH committee comprising scientists [...]