Body Parts for Sale

Summary: Michigan State University Professor Monir Moniruzzaman attempts to uncover the dreadful blackmarket trade of organs. He discovers that poor people who sell their organs hardly ever come up with the proposed money. In fact, 80% of the donors did not receive any money at all. Most of the operations are taking place in India, where refutable doctors are performing surgeries eight at a time.

Questions: Do you believe organ donations would become a required thing in the future, similar to Never Let Me Go? How would you regulate the spread of black market organs?

Source:  http://www.upnorthlive.com/news/story.aspx?id=754295#.T7rf-r_2m11

Facebook encourages organ donation

Facebook promotes  organ donation on its page and inform 900 million people to sign up to donate organs. Its is one of the biggest capaigns of hits especially of the scaricity of donation of organs. This help gain more organ donation through a social network to promote people to donate.This social networking promotion gives potential of more possible donations. The idea was taken by the natural disaster relief in Japan because of the big hit of donation that facebook has promoted. It just seems more and more that the best way to promote is through social networking.

Questions:

Do you think promoting things like organ donation or fund reliefs for natural disaster in social networking is a good idea?

Is it more effective then verbally and stands promotion ?

How do you feel about promoting all these things on facebook or should faceboo just remain aplace to socialize?

Old Men Still Screened for Prostate Cancer

In a recent article in the New York Times, writer Tara Parker-Pope outlines the recent debate regarding the need for Prostate tests in old men. 2008 saw the end of men older than 75 being tested for Prostate cancer, according to the United States Preventive Services Task Force. The usual test would be a prostate specific antigen, or P.S.A. The task force had mentioned that the procedure and test would further disrupt, cause harm, and pain for many elderly. Although this was decided, very few doctors and patients have decided to obey and follow this. In reality, P.S.A screening was more common in men ages 75 and older, than any other years.

Source: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/24/older-men-still-being-screened-for-prostate-cancer/?ref=health

Questions: According to the article, doctors and physicians choose to carry out the test because talking about life expectancy with patients is an extremely touchy subject. Should our future medical schools and colleges offer classes that deal with certain scenarios? Other sources believe that doctors are constantly over diagnosing when it comes to prostate cancer, is there such a thing as over diagnosing?

SAVE YOUR HIDE-SKIP THE TANNING BOOTH

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25378496/ns/health-health_care/

This article discusses how tanning, whether in the tanning booth or in the natural sun is actually very bad for your skin and health. The media has shaped tanning to become the new "fashion trend". In actuality, the human skin becomes darker in order to protect itself from the harmful rays. Soon, skin basically can burn like charcoal. Yet because of this "fashion trend", the number one cancer which kills many lives is skin cancer-from tanning!

QUESTION: If people know that tanning in general cause cancer, why do they willingly risk their lives? Also, does this mean that people care more about their image then actual health?

5 Hawaii doctors offer assisted suicide to terminally ill patients

http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2012/04/16/prsd0417.htm

Summary:
Hawaii currently has no law authorizing assisted suicides, however, I group of physicians recently offered to write lethal prescriptions for terminally ill patients in order to test if doctor-assisted suicide is allowed under state law.  After hearing of this, the physicians discovered that they could be charged for manslaughter for writing up lethal prescriptions.

Questions:
Do you think that physician-assisted suicide is a moral thing? Why or why not?

Should patients have the option to choose physician-assisted suicide or should it be banned everywhere across the United States?

Study Sheds Light on How Birds Navigate by Magnetic Field - Rachel Lee

Birds have been known to be great navigators. For years, scientists have been trying to figure out how they are able to navigate from one place to another. They have found that their ability to detect variations in the earth's magnetic field contributes to their great navigational skills. After doing some research, scientists have discovered cells in the pigeon's brain that could record detailed information about the earth's magnetic field. It is compared to a biological compass. Researchers have also discovered a group of cells in the brain stem of pigeons that can both record both the direction and the strength of the magnetic field. They believe these cells are within the inner ear of the pigeon.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/27/science/study-sheds-light-on-how-pigeons-navigate-by-magnetic-field.html?ref=science

Do you think scientists should be doing more studies like this one?

Heavy Backpacks Can Spell Chronic Back Pain for Children

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/23/heavy-backpacks-can-spell-chronic-back-pain-for-children/?ref=science

Summary: In this article, the effects of children carrying heavy backpacks are revealed.  Not only does it drain their energy, but it can result in serious back problems when they are older, such as stress fractures, inflammation of growth cartilage, back and neck strain, and nerve damage to neck and shoulders.  These children have been compared to pack animals who carry 10-15% of their own body weight on their backs.

Question:  Is it the school's responsibility to take care of their students when it comes to backpacks?  If yes or no, what are some reasonable solutions to fix this problem?