A senior White House adviser said on Sunday that President Barack Obama would get the votes necessary to pass a sweeping overhaul of the healthcare system. (Reuters)

One year after President Obama announced he was lifting his predecessor’s controversial restrictions on federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research, some scientists are complaining that so far the new policy is — ironically — more of a burden than a boon to their work. (Washington Post)

In the hope of expanding a controversial form of organ donation into emergency rooms around the United States, a federally funded project has begun trying to obtain kidneys, livers and possibly other body parts from car-accident victims, heart-attack fatalities and other urgent-care patients. (Washington Post)

A British fertility clinic said Sunday it was raffling off a human egg this week to promote its “baby profiling” service, which it insists is legal under UK law. (AFP)

An artificial substitute for human blood – the Holy Grail for A&E departments and battlefield surgeons – could soon be a reality, thanks to the pioneering work of Scottish laboratories. (Herald Scotland)

When the human genome was first sequenced back in 2001, certainly we all hoped that it might lead to a transformation in healthcare. Actually, what it’s really led to is shopping: Close’s celebrity endorsement is the latest mutation in an industry that is already worryingly commercialised. (Times Online)

IVF clinics are facing an official clampdown on creating test-tube twins and triplets because of growing fears about their health and the cost to the NHS of caring for them. (Telegraph)

Respect for intrinsic human dignity encompasses an acknowledgment that while we human beings are of inestimable value, we are not of infinite value. We are worth more than sparrows but less than the angels. We are made in the image of God, but we are not gods. As the psalmist says, we are made “a little lower than God.” (PBS)

Cell Stem Cell (Volume 6, Issue 3, March 2010) is now available by subscription only.

Articles include:

• “NOTCHing an Arrow at Cord Blood: Translating Stem Cell Knowledge into Clinical Practice” by Trista E. North and Wolfram Goessling, 186.
• “Stem Cell Research in South America Coming of Age” by Osvaldo L. Podhajcer and Santiago Miriuka, 209.

The thick scar on Mohammad Salim’s side is a permanent reminder of the kidney stolen from his body. But deeper wounds show in his eyes. Salim, a poor labourer from the northern Indian town of Meerut, was lured to Delhi on the promise of work two years ago. Instead, his kidney was removed at gunpoint. (The Age)

Synthetic biology is ushering in a new era of biology that is no longer contained within the walls of laboratories in universities and private companies. This movement is known as do-it-yourself bio (DIYbio) and has been compared with models familiar in the cybertech tech world such as commons-based peer production and open source innovation. (Nanotechnology Now)

In the United States, “missing girls” usually refers to runaways or kidnap victims. In the Asia-Pacific region - especially China and India - the phrase takes on a different meaning. There, tens of millions of girls have died as young children due to neglect, have been killed as infants, or were never born due to sex-selective abortions. (Psychology Today)

Two separate scientific teams announced this week that they had successfully sequenced individual genomes to pinpoint precise genetic causes of illness — breakthroughs that open the door to a future of individualized, genomics-based medicine. (US News and World Report)

Free fertility treatments for Quebecers who want a test-tube baby are to be delivered just in time for this year’s St. Jean Baptiste celebrations. (Montreal Gazette)

The emergency department is always noisy, but sudden screams from a staffer still get attention. The triage nurse is yelling, “Not breathing, had vitals at triage and just croaked,” as she runs toward us pushing a wheelchair. In it, a pale, thin man is slumped over and looking gray. I’m the attending physician in charge. Amid the usual strokes, heart attacks and bleeding ulcers, my day just became interesting. (Washington Post)

Is it time for all community-based doctors to turn to e-prescribing to cut down on the number of medication errors? According to Rainu Kaushal and colleagues from the Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, electronic prescriptions can dramatically reduce prescribing errors - up to seven-fold. Their study of the benefits of e-prescribing in primary care practices appears online in the Journal of General Internal Medicine. (PhysOrg)

The doctors’ union claims that England’s medical records database is being pushed through too fast, with details sometimes being uploaded without patients’ knowledge. But those behind the new system say many patients are astonished that hospital doctors still do not have access to basic information, and the process to opt out is very straightforward. What are the issues? (BBC News)

The State Duma has renewed a temporary ban on human cloning in Russia, Interfax reported Wednesday. The bill, approved in a third and final reading Wednesday, sets a ban on cloning until a federal law can be enacted to regulate the cloning of humans, the report said. (The Moscow Times)

A provincial network that has helped patients, health-care workers and health regions with difficult medical ethics questions could fold because of funding cuts. Supporters say Alberta Health should reinstate funding to the Provincial Health Ethics Network. They say the loss will lessen the province’s ability to thoughtfully deal with ethical dilemmas likely to increase with an aging population, new technologies, more experimental drugs and growing chronic health problems. (Edmonton Journal)

Healthy elderly people who are simply “tired of living” could be allowed to end their lives with a lethal injection under new euthanasia laws being debated by the Dutch parliament. (Telegraph)