Faculty Bibliography

The report debunks the idea that violent crime is the work of violent career criminals. Only a few individuals commit violent crimes frequently. Most violent crime is committed by offenders who have some non-violent criminal violations on their record, but no previous history of violent crime

PIP: Researchers believe fetal tissue can be easily transplanted into and cure people with incurable debilitating diseases such as Parkinson's disease. In 1988, the Reagan Administration stopped funding transplantation research of fetal tissue from induced abortions. An advisory panel later decided that it is an acceptable public policy as long as certain conditions a re met. Yet the Bush Administration continued the ban. In 1992, it erroneously claimed that transplantation research could use alternative sources of fetal tissue. 1 alternative is fetal tissue obtained from ectopic pregnancies. Yet spontaneously aborted ectopic pregnancies tend not to produce recognizable or viable in culture fetal tissue and if they do the tissue has been ischemic for days. Ectopic pregnancies requiring surgical sterilization tend to be morphologically abnormal. The only likelihood of viable fetal tissue form ectopic pregnancies is a fetus with myocardial contractility before surgery. The administration also recommended use of fetal tissue from spontaneous abortions but these fetuses often have a major chromosomal or other fatal defect. Researchers cannot use chromosomally abnormal fetal tissue since it growth, development, and function are unreliable. Expulsion of the necrotic fetus tends to occur a couple of weeks after death. The Bush Administration also proposed use of tissue from stillbirths but their tissue tends to be nonviable and the tissue, even if it were viable, is generally not at the developmental stage needed for transplantation. The placenta and yolk sac were other suggested alternatives, but the placenta is likely to be less immunogenic than embryonic tissue. It can help develop certain cell lines which produce insulin or neurotransmitters like dopamine, however. The yolk sac could replace fetal liver cells in transplantation. Nevertheless the only advantage of using the suggested alternatives is the perception of them raising less ethical concern than fetal tissue from an induced abortion.

Mary Shearing and her 32-year-old husband, Don, created the twins using eggs donated by a woman in her 20s. The eggs were then fertilized using a process known as in-vitro fertilization

A 53-year-old California woman gave birth Nov. 11 to twins. Giving birth at 53 is remarkable enough, but even more remarkably, the woman had the babies even though she had lost the ability to make eggs

Mary Shearing and her 32-year-old husband, Don, created the twins using eggs donated by a woman in her 20s. The eggs were then fertilized using a process known as in vitro fertilization

While no appearance took place, other persons have in recent years reported sightings of Mary, Jesus and various angels in places as disparate as Hamilton and Sault Ste. Marie in Canada; Arizona, Queens, New Jersey, and New York in the U.S.; and Mexico and Croatia. Many, including a former U.S. presidential candidate, say they have received messages directly from God

No one knows that better than the family and friends of John McGann. Four years ago, John McGann was working at H&H Music Company in Houston. In July 1988, the company told McGann and its other employees that it was going to drop its health-care insurance coverage

By the time [Susan Fowler] was considered for a pig liver transplant, she had become comatose. Consent for the procedure was obtained from her family and the hospital's ethics committee. But the transplant team must have known for some time that they might try to use a pig liver to hold over a dying patient. The idea of trying a pig transplant as a bridge did not suddenly occur to them. While Fowler's emergency was all too real, it was an emergency that is easy to anticipate. People die every day because there are no human livers to give them. If the thing to do is tide some or all of them over with a pig's liver, then these plans ought be made known to the medical community and to the patient long before they become comatose