The New England Journal of Medicine (Volume 366, Issue 19, May 10, 2012) is now available on-line and by subscription only.

Articles include:

• “Reproductive Technologies and the Risk of Birth Defects” by M.J. Davies et al, 1803-1813.

The New England Journal of Medicine (Volume 366, Issue 18, May 3, 2012) is now available on-line and by subscription only.

Articles include:

• “From an Ethics of Rationing to an Ethics of Waste Avoidance” by Howard Brody, available on-line.
• “Becoming a Physician: Freedom from the Tyranny of Choice — Teaching the End-of-Life Conversation”  by D. Lamas and L. Rosenbaum, 1655-1657.

A small Catholic college in Ohio said Tuesday it was dropping health insurance coverage for students rather than comply with a federal mandate that the plan provide free birth control.  (Reuters)

Moscow calls for “…a full investigation into the crimes alleged to have been committed in Kosovo, including illegal human organ trafficking.” This was stated at a meeting of the UN Security Council by Russia’s permanent representative to the UN Vitaly Churkin.  (The Voice of Russia)

When Martha and Matt Merrill tried in-vitro fertilization at UW Health’s Generations Fertility Care, doctors implanted only one embryo. Daughter Harper was born in April 2011.  (Wisconsin State Journal)

In a study identifying the risk of major birth defects associated with different types of assisted reproductive technology, Australian researchers have reported a significantly higher risk of birth defects involving intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) compared to in vitro fertilization (IVF).  (Modern Medicine)

Vejthani Hospital Bangkok recommends a gender selection procedure for a couple who desire to choose a child’s gender at Vejthani ART Center.  (Business Wire)

ALMOST half of South Australians believe embryos left over from fertility treatment should be used for research, a survey has found.  (The Advertiser)

Sex reassignment is an intricate and sensitive physiological, psychological, and social process that usually entails the loss of reproductive capacity. Reproductive technology can prevent this loss, but should it be used for that purpose? A recent case in Israel raises this question.  (BioNews)

A new study has indicated that people who suffer from morbid obesity may be contributing to a shortage of organs for donation and may actually be decreasing the amount of living kidney donors available to give to others.  (The Inquisitr)

A Food and Drug Administration advisory panel on Tuesday asked the agency to let an HIV test be sold in retail stores so consumers don’t have to go to a health facility to get tested for the virus.  (The Wall Street Journal)

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is considering a move that would allow patients to obtain prescription medications without ever seeing a doctor. Instead, patients would use technology to evaluate their needs.  (amednews)

Kansas Governor Sam Brownback [official website] has signed a bill [SB 62 materials] allowing pharmacists to refuse to dispense drugs that they “reasonably believe” might result in the termination of a pregnancy, his office announced [press release] Monday. Critics of the legislation claim that it will allow pharmacists to refuse to distribute emergency contraception [Kansas City Star report], but supporters claim that the bill was aimed at the abortion drug RU-486 and is only a narrow amendment to a 1969 Kansas law which says that no one should be required to participate in performing an abortion procedure. Four states—Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi and South Dakota—have laws allowing pharmacists to refuse to dispense emergency contraceptives, and three others—Florida, Maine and Tennessee—have refusal measures that do not specifically mention pharmacists. The law will take effect in July.  (Jurist)

Several states, including Kansas and New Jersey, are debating so-called “wrongful birth” laws that would prevent parents from suing a doctor who fails to warn them about fetal problems.  (NPR News)

Shannon Brownlee’s recent post, “Don’t discard shared decision making on the basis of PSA testing,” couldn’t ring more true. The crux of shared decision making is that the patient must decide, with his or her physician, which tests or procedures make sense, given the various risks, tradeoffs and outcomes. Discarding the construct on the basis of one test (PSA testing) is not only poor form in that it is a sample of one, but also what might not seem like much of a choice to some may be the biggest choice of all to someone else.  (MedPageToday)

Patients see potential benefits from direct-to-consumer genetic testing, but are also concerned about how the test results will be used, and generally are unwilling to pay more than $10 or $20 for them, according to focus groups conducted by researchers at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine.  (Medical News Today)

The Journal of the American Medical Association (Volume 307, Issue 16, April 2012) is now available by subscription only.

Articles include:

• “Sharing Clinical Data Electronically: A Critical Challenge for Fixing the Health Care System” by Julia Adler-Milstein and Ashish K. Jha, 1695-1696.
• “New Physicians, the Affordable Care Act, and the Changing Practice of Medicine” by Benjamin D. Sommers and Andrew B. Bindman, 1697-1698.

Camilla Grondahl asked genetics researcher Gholson Lyon a simple, heartbreaking question: Was she carrying a lethal gene that might kill her unborn baby?  Grondahl, 29, didn’t want to terminate her pregnancy, which began in 2010. She just wanted to know what the scientist knew.  (Bloomberg)

A 2011 law that put restrictions on drugs used to induce abortions has been tossed out in Oklahoma County District Court.  The court found that House Bill 1970 is “an unconstitutional law in violation of the fundamental rights of women to privacy and bodily integrity” guaranteed by the Oklahoma Constitution, according to an order issued Friday. (Tulsa World)

While a great deal of the potential for nanotechnology to improve cancer therapy lies with the ability of nanoparticles to deliver drug payloads directly to tumors, an equally important consideration is whether nanoparticles can then get their drug payload to their intended target inside tumor cells. Now, a team of investigators from the Northwestern University Center for Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence (Northwestern CCNE) has developed star-shaped nanoparticle that can deliver a drug directly to a cancer cell’s nucleus—an important feature for many potential anticancer therapies.  (Nanotechnology Now)