Faculty Bibliography

I trudged toward the fridge to grab some milk. We only keep skim in the house so this dimension of breakfast stirs no controversy. But I found myself wondering, what is going to happen in the Caplan household when, beginning next February, milk obtained from cows that have been given bovine somatotropin (BST) starts appearing in the dairy case at the supermarket? If I insist on mixing milk from cows revved up on BST with my marshmallow-flavored Sunlight Crunchberries, will I wind up dining alone in the basement?

BST occurs naturally in cows. The hormone stimulates milk production. Food companies, scientists and some dairy farmers reasoned that milk production could be increased if cows could be given BST supplements

With the advent of medical technology, the day is coming when parents and doctors can create the perfect baby in a laboratory. The ethical considerations of such a development are discussed

Finding a vaccine to combat AIDS is no easy task. The virus that causes AIDS is small, hard to work with and capable of evolving into different strains. This means vaccine research is slow and frustrating. It also means vaccine development is expensive

If the good nurse were to suddenly be transported into the average U.S. hospital, clinic or group practice of today, she would be amazed to find that her 130-year-old lament still rings true. Medical record-keeping is still in the dark ages in the United States

Because of a shortage of transplantable livers and hearts, the transplant community has had to decide--by who gets an organ--who lives or dies. Despite this shortage, whether one has previously received a transplant is not used as a criterion to distribute organs. The existing allocation system distributes 10% to 20% of available hearts and livers to retransplant patients. This article examines three differences between primary transplantation and retransplantation that may affect the priority that retransplant candidates should receive in vying for organs: (1) the special obligations that transplant teams have not to abandon patients on whom they have already performed a transplant, (2) the fairness of allowing individuals to get multiple transplants while some die awaiting their first, and (3) the difference in efficacy between primary transplantation and retransplantation. Only this last difference holds up to critical analysis. Our moral duty to direct scarce, lifesaving resources to those likely to benefit from them, suggests that, all other things equal, primary transplant candidates should receive priority because their mortality after transplantation is lower. Consistency also demands that previous transplant history be taken into account, as we already allocate organs according to ABO blood group matching, a factor that affects transplant outcome approximately the same amount as a previous transplantation. We therefore conclude that the system should be revised so that primary transplant candidates have a better chance of receiving organs than retransplant candidates.

Finding a vaccine to combat AIDS is no easy task. The virus that causes AIDS is small, hard to work with and capable of evolving into different strains. This means that vaccine research is slow and frustrating. It also means that vaccine development is expensive

If the good nurse were to suddenly be transported into the average U.S. hospital, clinic or group practice of today, she would be amazed to find that her 130-year-old lament still rings true. Medical record-keeping is still in the dark ages in the United States

If the good nurse were to suddenly be transported into the average U.S. hospital, clinic or group practice of today, she would be amazed to find that her 130-year-old lament still rings true. Medical record-keeping is still in the dark ages in the United States