Philosophy & Ethics

https://www.sciencecodex.com/study-finds-collaborating-business-contribu... nteraction between universities and companies in Brazil has societal, economic and environmental impacts, as well as positive effects on academic productivity. Researchers and research groups who collaborate with business organizations are scientifically more productive. The intellectual and scientific impacts of the partnership are positive. This is the main finding of a study conducted by Renato de Castro Garcia, a professor at the University of Campinas Economics Institute (IE-UNICAMP), and presented to the 8th…

After California realized that their coastal counties not only led the country in vaccine denial for personal preference, they actually had more than the rest of the U.S. combined, the legislature passed a law eliminating exemptions for all but medical reasons. Sure enough, those same counties where rich white people believed vaccines cause autism suddenly had a surge in medical exemptions. Wealthy people found doctors willing to agree that their child needed a medical exemption even if they were not immune compromised. Prior to that there was a wave of New York City families who got their…

Around the world thousands of people are on organ donor waiting lists. While some of those people will receive the organ transplants they need in time, the sad reality is that many will die waiting. But controversial new research may provide a way to address this crisis. Japan has recently overturned its ban on the creation of human-animal hybrids, or “chimeras”, and approved a request by researchers from the University of Tokyo to create a human-mouse hybrid. Scientists will attempt to grow a human pancreas inside a mouse, using a certain kind of stem cell known as “induced pluripotent stem…

We've all offered an excuse for a poor reaction or any behavior we recognize we should not have engaged in; many have rationalized it to mitigate consequences or even make it socially acceptable.  Stress, headaches, even ignorance can be proffered, but what makes an excuse plausible? In law, things are a little more clear, duress and coercion and psychological maladies have all been successful, but to families and friends it might not be as easy as convincing a jury of strangers. Especially if you do it often. What separates a good excuse from a bad one is what a philosopher calls the…

Though the U.S. government and its hand-picked panel are claiming that the "opioid epidemic" is legitimate pain patients getting hooked on drugs because of lazy doctors and greedy pharmaceutical companies, the reality is much different. Only a small number of people considered addicted to opiods are not instead recreational users. Since the majority are young recreational users, often getting drugs illegally, their risky lifestyles are also evident in numerous other ways, making them seem less than "perfect" donors for transplant - you don't want to give a transplant patient hepatitis C,…

US Stem Cell Clinic LLC, of Weston, Florida, and US Stem Cell Inc., of Sunrise, Florida, and their Chief Scientific Officer Kristin Comella, Ph.D. have adulterated and misbranded a stem cell drug product made from a patient’s adipose tissue, U.S. District Judge Ursula Ungaro of the Southern District of Florida declared in a summary judgment against the defendants. On behalf of FDA, The U.S. Department of Justice filed for a permanent injunction against the defendants in May 2018, after several attempts to provide the clinic and the individual defendants the opportunity to work with the…

Glyphosate, a common weedkiller, doesn't have a mechanism that acts on the biology of humans, at least without falling into a tub full of it and drowning, but trial lawyers know science does not matter to a jury, emotion does. And emotionally an agriculture company can come off stiff compared to a couple who used the product for 35 years and then both got non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Then mix in California, where anti-vaccine sentiment leads the nation and the only science we accept is global warming, and it becomes so easy to see why lawyers want to file suit here. And hundreds have been filed…

For a recent paper, researchers examined monthly data on U.S. background checks for gun purchases and permits from November 1998 through April 2016, looking for purchasing trends after shootings during that time.  When media coverage highlighted shootings, they found there were increases in handgun purchases. Only after high-fatality shootings were there decreases. The authors segmented results by the shooter’s race/ethnicity, the region where the shooting occurred, if a shooting was school related, fatalities, if it was a handgun or rifle, automatic or semiautomatic, the extent of media…

FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, M.D., has requested a meeting with the management of Walgreens, the top violator among pharmacies that sell tobacco products to kids. But they are not alone, 15 others were also called out, including Walmart, Kroger, 7-Eleven, Family Dollar, BP and Citgo. These were not one-offs, the companies were found to have been selling tobacco products to minors more than 15 percent of the time since the FDA started conducting inspections 2010. Walgreens was at 22 percent illegal sales in the more than 6,350 stores that they inspected. FDA sent a letter to…

Friends of the Earth, social justice warriors, 1960s-era anti-science activists, occasional lobbyists, and current Political Action Committee (PAC) for Democrats (including Green New Deal darling Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY) (1) teased us in a media kit with the promise of a science study about finding various weedkillers in all kinds of food, but then this week they announced...another media kit. Plus a methodology document for the still-unpublished study so shoddy it is impossible for the science community, who very much care about food safety and chemicals as anyone, to…