By Hyeongsu Park and Kathy Wang
- In England, a High Court judge ruled that a profoundly brain damaged 3-year-old boy in foster care should not be given life support when his condition deteriorates, despite the wishes of his birth mother.
- The lower house of the Swiss parliament declined to tighten controls on assisted suicide, which has been allowed in Switzerland since 1941 on a conditional basis.
- Health officials are warning that more people may be at risk from contaminated drugs made by the New England Compounding Center (NECC), a Massachusetts company linked to a growing meningitis outbreak. The FDA reported on October 15 that the company’s products used for open heart surgery and eye operations may have also caused other types of infection. The FDA’s reports regarding the meningitis outbreak can be found here.
- Health organizations wrote a letter to the president of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, urging him to support developing countries that want to introduce universal healthcare coverage.
- The Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues released a report last week that set down principles for regulation and legislation in the whole genome sequencing field. The report pointed out that the regulatory safeguards are necessary in order to protect the patients’ privacy. The report is available online.
