Recently, I accompanied my sister to a pediatrician’s office — for the first (of many) vaccination appointment for her twin 8-week old girls. Fortunately for my sister, the nightmare ended after a few pokes of the needle and a few throaty bawls of protest. Sadly, not every parent’s ordeal ends the same way. Each day, parents around the world take their children on this routine with faith that this will protect their children against deadly and potentially life threatening infections. But what if this very tool that is intended to protect becomes a lethal source of disability? Read more →

Perry Cross, a ventilator-dependent quadriplegic, traveled to India to receive daily injections of stem cells. He claims that, owing to the stem cell treatment, he is now able to breathe on his own for the first time since a rugby injury made him a quadriplegic 14 years ago. The breakthrough is likely to fire up the stem cell debate once again.

There are no approved treatments or human trials in the U.S. using embryonic stem cells, thus the need for Cross and his team of care workers to travel to India, where the controversial Dr. Geeta Shroff operates two hospitals. In India, embryonic stem cell treatment is allowed for patients who are terminal or who have incurable conditions. Perry Cross is not her first international patient. Patients come to Dr. Shroff from countries where embryonic stem cell research is strictly controlled, countries such as the U.S., Australia, and Britain. Read more →

Since I started my series about Medicine and the Law, I’ve been thinking a lot about a debate I used to have with my friends when I was younger. Some of my friends wanted to be lawyers, others wanted to be doctors. At that time, doctors were paid more than lawyers. Since that time, lawyers are paid more than doctors.

At the heart of this debate were a few simple questions: Read more →

Do larger brains correlate with higher intelligence? Or does higher intelligence run parallel with the more diverse environmental experiences encountered? This research of nature versus nurture in intelligence, in humans especially, has been a complex and a persistent debate. This article about the brain’s rate of development in children provides yet another face to this multifaceted speculation. Read more →