The pentagon is getting more psychopathic all the time!!!
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/02/pentagon-looks-to-breed-immortal-synthetic-organisms-molecular-kill-switch-included/
By Katie Drummond
February 5, 2010
The Pentagon’s mad science arm may have come up with its most radical project yet. Darpa is looking to re-write the laws of evolution to the military’s advantage, creating “synthetic organisms” that can live forever — or can be killed with the flick of a molecular switch.
As part of its budget for the next year, Darpa is investing $6 million into a project called BioDesign, with the goal of eliminating “the randomness of natural evolutionary advancement.” The plan would assemble the latest bio-tech knowledge to come up with living, breathing creatures that are genetically engineered to “produce the intended biological effect.” Darpa wants the organisms to be fortified with molecules that bolster cell resistance to death, so that the lab-monsters can “ultimately be programmed to live indefinitely.”
Of course, Darpa’s got to prevent the super-species from being swayed to do enemy work — so they’ll encode loyalty right into DNA, by developing genetically programmed locks to create “tamper proof” cells. Plus, the synthetic organism will be traceable, using some kind of DNA manipulation, “similar to a serial number on a handgun.” And if that doesn’t work, don’t worry. In case Darpa’s plan somehow goes horribly awry, they’re also tossing in a last-resort, genetically-coded kill switch:
Develop strategies to create a synthetic organism “self-destruct” option to be implemented upon nefarious removal of organism.
The project comes as Darpa also plans to throw $20 million into a new synthetic biology program, and $7.5 million into “increasing by several decades the speed with which we sequence, analyze and functionally edit cellular genomes.”
Of course, Darpa’s up against some vexing, fundamental laws of nature — not to mention bioethics — as they embark on the lab beast program. First, they might want to rethink the idea of evolution as a random series of events, says NYU biology professor David Fitch. “Evolution by selection is nota random process at all, and is actually a hugely efficient design algorithm used extensively in computation and engineering,” he e-mails Danger Room.
Even if Darpa manages to overcome the inherent intelligence of evolutionary processes, overcoming inevitable death can be tricky. Just ask all the other research teams who’ve made stabs at it, trying everything from cell starvation to hormone treatments. Gene therapy, where artificial genes are inserted into an organism to boost cell life, are the latest and greatest in life-extension science, but they’ve only been proven to extend lifespan by 20 percent in rats.
But suppose gene therapy makes major strides, and Darpa does manage to get the evolutionary science right. They’ll also have a major ethical hurdle to jump. Synthetic biology researchers are already facing the same questions, as a 2009 summary from the Synthetic Biology Project reports:
The concern that humans might be overreaching when we create organisms that never before existed can be a safety concern, but it also returns us to disagreements about what is our proper role in the natural world (a debate largely about non-physical harms or harms to well-being).
Even expert molecular geneticists don’t know what to make of the project. Either that, or they’re scared Darpa might sic a bio-bot on them. “I would love to comment, but unfortunately Darpa has installed a kill switch in me,” one unnamed expert tells Danger Room.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
American Era Of “Techno-Slavery” Warned Has Begun
http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index1333.htm
February 6, 2010
By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers
A most intriguing report authored by Minister Alina Levitskaya, who heads the Department of State Policy Concerning Youth, Education and the Social Protection of Children of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, warns that the Motherland should not adopt (in any form) the educational polices of the United States as they pertain to computer and digital education of children as new research is showing that young American adults and children are in “grave danger” of becoming “techno-slaves” who will soon be unable to “fully function” in any “normal world” interaction with other human beings.
The greatest danger posed by this rising class of “techno-slaves” in America, this report states, is their having been deliberately cut-off from the knowledge of the ancients contained in our World’s oldest religious manuscripts that warned of a time when “no man might buy or sell save he that had the mark”, that refers to what is commonly called the “Mark of the Beast”.
[Note: The Greek word used for “mark” (as in Mark of the Beast) is “charagma” and was the seal stamped with the name and date of the emperor and attached to commercial documents used by the Roman Empire.]
So insidious has the indoctrination of these “techno-slaves” become in the United States that for the past 30 years virtually all knowledge of the ancients has been wiped from their memory and the teaching to them of any religious subject has been outlawed, including a US Supreme Court ruling this past month that forbade a mother from reading a Bible verse in her son’s kindergarten class during “show and tell” time.
Important to note is that during the creation of these American “techno-slaves” over these past 30 years the wealth of the United States has shifted from its once admired, and staunchly Christian, middle classes to the top 1% of its elite classes leaving this once great nation on the verge of moral and economic collapse.
Equally important to note is that while the United States has embarked upon this path of self destruction, the Motherland, after having broken free from the bonds of Communist rule, and in seeing the deliberate annihilation of American children by their elite rulers, has made it mandatory for all Russian students to study the ancient religion and by Presidential decree ordered Orthodox priests to serve in all army units.
This move by Russia to protect its children and young adults from succumbing to the false moral doctrines of the West was (of course) condemned by American rights group who warned that religious minorities might be prosecuted, with the irony being lost upon them that just 30 years ago these same groups were condemning the Soviet Union for not allowing any religion at all to be taught to the masses and have nothing to say at all about the destruction of religious teaching in their country at all.
The most frightful part of this report, however, is contained in the section headed by the words “Nightmare Scenario” warning that with the Internet giant Google’s announcement this week of their “partnership” with the United States National Security Agency (NSA), and when combined with the coming US police forces new Internet system allowing “backdoor access” to American citizens private data (email, phone calls, websites visited, Internet purchases, etc.), their entire population will soon come under a “white space digital blanket” so pervasive that nothing these “techno-slaves” can do will escape the notice of their new masters.
[Note: The term “white space” refers to the analog television airwaves the American people were forced by their government to abandon for it to be used to saturate their country with high-speed wireless Internet signals able to penetrate into their most rural regions and which (according to this report) when combined with the World's fastest graphene transistor created by IBM for the U.S. Defense Department's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) will allow the tagging and monitoring of every single American citizen.]
To the need of the elite classes in the United States to create these “techno-slaves” is evidenced by their entire national economy nearing its final collapse, and has become so dire that new reports are now showing that aside from the 20 million middle class Americans who have lost their homes, another 18 million are warned are nearing default this year.
Even worse for these Americans is their also being warned that a complete national bankruptcy is upon them as during this coming year they must finance over $3.5 Trillion of short-term government debt (equal to nearly 30% of their entire Gross Domestic Product) that no other country in the World will buy and leading them to default and causing a catastrophic devaluing of their currency.
To if the American people can awaken in time to avert their destruction there continues to be no evidence seen as they continue to remain enslaved to their propaganda media sources for information and which has essentially rendered them all incapable of understanding true things.
It was instructional though, for us this past week to read the rants of the US economist and New York University Professor Nouriel Roubini, who during an interview on the CNBC News Service stated that a “crisis” would be needed to change Russia's economic system for the long term, and which gives a clear insight into how these Americans deal with complex issues rather than being honest with their peoples and working towards honest solutions….just create a crisis.
And to the great crisis coming for these Americans they can never say that they weren’t warned, only that they didn’t believe.
© February 6, 2010 EU and US all rights reserved
February 6, 2010
By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers
A most intriguing report authored by Minister Alina Levitskaya, who heads the Department of State Policy Concerning Youth, Education and the Social Protection of Children of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, warns that the Motherland should not adopt (in any form) the educational polices of the United States as they pertain to computer and digital education of children as new research is showing that young American adults and children are in “grave danger” of becoming “techno-slaves” who will soon be unable to “fully function” in any “normal world” interaction with other human beings.
The greatest danger posed by this rising class of “techno-slaves” in America, this report states, is their having been deliberately cut-off from the knowledge of the ancients contained in our World’s oldest religious manuscripts that warned of a time when “no man might buy or sell save he that had the mark”, that refers to what is commonly called the “Mark of the Beast”.
[Note: The Greek word used for “mark” (as in Mark of the Beast) is “charagma” and was the seal stamped with the name and date of the emperor and attached to commercial documents used by the Roman Empire.]
So insidious has the indoctrination of these “techno-slaves” become in the United States that for the past 30 years virtually all knowledge of the ancients has been wiped from their memory and the teaching to them of any religious subject has been outlawed, including a US Supreme Court ruling this past month that forbade a mother from reading a Bible verse in her son’s kindergarten class during “show and tell” time.
Important to note is that during the creation of these American “techno-slaves” over these past 30 years the wealth of the United States has shifted from its once admired, and staunchly Christian, middle classes to the top 1% of its elite classes leaving this once great nation on the verge of moral and economic collapse.
Equally important to note is that while the United States has embarked upon this path of self destruction, the Motherland, after having broken free from the bonds of Communist rule, and in seeing the deliberate annihilation of American children by their elite rulers, has made it mandatory for all Russian students to study the ancient religion and by Presidential decree ordered Orthodox priests to serve in all army units.
This move by Russia to protect its children and young adults from succumbing to the false moral doctrines of the West was (of course) condemned by American rights group who warned that religious minorities might be prosecuted, with the irony being lost upon them that just 30 years ago these same groups were condemning the Soviet Union for not allowing any religion at all to be taught to the masses and have nothing to say at all about the destruction of religious teaching in their country at all.
The most frightful part of this report, however, is contained in the section headed by the words “Nightmare Scenario” warning that with the Internet giant Google’s announcement this week of their “partnership” with the United States National Security Agency (NSA), and when combined with the coming US police forces new Internet system allowing “backdoor access” to American citizens private data (email, phone calls, websites visited, Internet purchases, etc.), their entire population will soon come under a “white space digital blanket” so pervasive that nothing these “techno-slaves” can do will escape the notice of their new masters.
[Note: The term “white space” refers to the analog television airwaves the American people were forced by their government to abandon for it to be used to saturate their country with high-speed wireless Internet signals able to penetrate into their most rural regions and which (according to this report) when combined with the World's fastest graphene transistor created by IBM for the U.S. Defense Department's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) will allow the tagging and monitoring of every single American citizen.]
To the need of the elite classes in the United States to create these “techno-slaves” is evidenced by their entire national economy nearing its final collapse, and has become so dire that new reports are now showing that aside from the 20 million middle class Americans who have lost their homes, another 18 million are warned are nearing default this year.
Even worse for these Americans is their also being warned that a complete national bankruptcy is upon them as during this coming year they must finance over $3.5 Trillion of short-term government debt (equal to nearly 30% of their entire Gross Domestic Product) that no other country in the World will buy and leading them to default and causing a catastrophic devaluing of their currency.
To if the American people can awaken in time to avert their destruction there continues to be no evidence seen as they continue to remain enslaved to their propaganda media sources for information and which has essentially rendered them all incapable of understanding true things.
It was instructional though, for us this past week to read the rants of the US economist and New York University Professor Nouriel Roubini, who during an interview on the CNBC News Service stated that a “crisis” would be needed to change Russia's economic system for the long term, and which gives a clear insight into how these Americans deal with complex issues rather than being honest with their peoples and working towards honest solutions….just create a crisis.
And to the great crisis coming for these Americans they can never say that they weren’t warned, only that they didn’t believe.
© February 6, 2010 EU and US all rights reserved
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Inventor unveils $7,000 talking sex robot
Of course an article like this would be on CNN!
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/02/01/sex.robot/index.html?hpt=Sbin
Inventor unveils $7,000 talking sex robot
By Brandon Griggs, CNN
February 1, 2010
Las Vegas, Nevada (CNN) -- To some men, she might seem like the perfect woman: She's a willowy 5 feet 7 and 120 pounds. She'll chat with you endlessly about your interests. And she'll have sex whenever you please -- as long as her battery doesn't run out.
Meet Roxxxy, who may be the world's most sophisticated talking female sex robot. For $7,000, she's all yours.
"She doesn't vacuum or cook, but she does almost everything else," said her inventor, Douglas Hines, who unveiled Roxxxy last month at the Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Lifelike dolls, artificial sex organs and sex-chat phone lines have been keeping the lonely company for decades. But Roxxxy takes virtual companionship to a new level.
Powered by a computer under her soft silicone "skin," she employs voice-recognition and speech-synthesis software to answer questions and carry on conversations. She even comes loaded with five distinct "personalities," from Frigid Farrah to Wild Wendy, that can be programmed to suit customers' preferences.
"There's a tremendous need for this kind of product," said Hines, a computer scientist and former Bell Labs engineer.
Roxxxy won't be available for delivery for several months, but Hines is taking pre-orders through his Web site, TrueCompanion.com, where thousands of men have signed up.
"They're like, 'I can't wait to meet her,' " Hines said. "It's almost like the anticipation of a first date."
Women have inquired about ordering a sex robot, too. Hines says a female sex therapist even contacted him about buying one for her patients.
Roxxxy has been like catnip to talk-show hosts since her debut at AEE, the largest porn-industry convention in the country. In a recent monologue, Jay Leno expressed amazement that a sex robot could carry on lifelike conversations and express realistic emotions.
"Luckily, guys," he joked, "there's a button that turns that off."
Curious conventioneers packed Hines' AEE booth last month in Las Vegas, asking questions and stroking Roxxxy's skin as she sat on a couch in a black negligee.
"Roxxxy generated a lot of buzz at AEE," said Grace Lee, spokeswoman for the porn-industry convention. "The prevailing sentiment of everyone I talked to about Roxxxy is 'version 1.0,' but people were fascinated by the concept, and it caused them to rethink the possibilities of 'sex toys.' "
Hines, a self-professed happily married man from Lincoln Park, New Jersey, says he spent more than three years developing the robot after trying to find a marketable application for his artificial-intelligence technology.
Roxxxy's body is made from hypoallergenic silicone -- the kind of stuff in prosthetic limbs -- molded over a rigid skeleton. She cannot move on her own but can be contorted into almost any natural position. To create her shape, a female model spent a week posing for a series of molds.
The robot runs on a self-contained battery that lasts about three hours on one charge, Hines says. Customers can recharge Roxxxy with an electrical cord that plugs into her back.
A motor in her chest pumps heated air through a tube that winds through the robot's body, which Hines says keeps her warm to the touch. Roxxxy also has sensors in her hands and genital areas -- yes, she is anatomically correct -- that will trigger vocal responses from her when touched. She even shudders to simulate orgasm.
When someone speaks to Roxxxy, her computer converts the words to text and then uses pattern-recognition software to match them against a database containing hundreds of appropriate responses. The robot then answers aloud -- her prerecorded "voice" is supplied by an unnamed radio host -- through a loudspeaker hidden under her wig.
"Everything you say to her is processed. It's very near real time, almost without delay," Hines said of the dynamics of human-Roxxxy conversation. "To make it as realistic as possible, she has different dialogue at different times. She talks in her sleep. She even snores." (The snoring feature can be turned off, he says.)
Roxxxy understands and speaks only English for now, but Hines' True Companion company is developing Japanese and Spanish versions. For an extra fee, he'll also record customizable dialogue and phrases for each client, which means Roxxxy could talk to you about NASCAR, say, or the intricacies of politics in the Middle East.
Hines believes that Roxxxy is a step above other love dolls -- the similar but mute RealDoll costs about $5,500 -- because her conversational abilities provide something close to emotional companionship. His customer base? Shy, awkward or older men who "have trouble meeting girls," he says.
In an industry known for pushing the technological envelope, observers are curious about how Roxxxy will fare in the marketplace.
"Is this a viable product? Yes," said Sherri Shaulis, an editor at Adult Video News, a trade magazine for the pornographic industry. "There's a market for it. Granted, it's a very small market."
Maybe not. TrueCompanion claims that more than 4,000 men have placed pre-orders for Roxxxy robots, and another 20,000 or so have requested information about the product. TrueCompanion also is developing a male sex robot, named Rocky.
"There's really nothing like this on the market," said Hines, who speaks of his unique creation with what seems like genuine affection. "Whenever she's out in public, everyone wants to talk to her and pose for pictures. It's so cute."
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/02/01/sex.robot/index.html?hpt=Sbin
Inventor unveils $7,000 talking sex robot
By Brandon Griggs, CNN
February 1, 2010
Las Vegas, Nevada (CNN) -- To some men, she might seem like the perfect woman: She's a willowy 5 feet 7 and 120 pounds. She'll chat with you endlessly about your interests. And she'll have sex whenever you please -- as long as her battery doesn't run out.
Meet Roxxxy, who may be the world's most sophisticated talking female sex robot. For $7,000, she's all yours.
"She doesn't vacuum or cook, but she does almost everything else," said her inventor, Douglas Hines, who unveiled Roxxxy last month at the Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Lifelike dolls, artificial sex organs and sex-chat phone lines have been keeping the lonely company for decades. But Roxxxy takes virtual companionship to a new level.
Powered by a computer under her soft silicone "skin," she employs voice-recognition and speech-synthesis software to answer questions and carry on conversations. She even comes loaded with five distinct "personalities," from Frigid Farrah to Wild Wendy, that can be programmed to suit customers' preferences.
"There's a tremendous need for this kind of product," said Hines, a computer scientist and former Bell Labs engineer.
Roxxxy won't be available for delivery for several months, but Hines is taking pre-orders through his Web site, TrueCompanion.com, where thousands of men have signed up.
"They're like, 'I can't wait to meet her,' " Hines said. "It's almost like the anticipation of a first date."
Women have inquired about ordering a sex robot, too. Hines says a female sex therapist even contacted him about buying one for her patients.
Roxxxy has been like catnip to talk-show hosts since her debut at AEE, the largest porn-industry convention in the country. In a recent monologue, Jay Leno expressed amazement that a sex robot could carry on lifelike conversations and express realistic emotions.
"Luckily, guys," he joked, "there's a button that turns that off."
Curious conventioneers packed Hines' AEE booth last month in Las Vegas, asking questions and stroking Roxxxy's skin as she sat on a couch in a black negligee.
"Roxxxy generated a lot of buzz at AEE," said Grace Lee, spokeswoman for the porn-industry convention. "The prevailing sentiment of everyone I talked to about Roxxxy is 'version 1.0,' but people were fascinated by the concept, and it caused them to rethink the possibilities of 'sex toys.' "
Hines, a self-professed happily married man from Lincoln Park, New Jersey, says he spent more than three years developing the robot after trying to find a marketable application for his artificial-intelligence technology.
Roxxxy's body is made from hypoallergenic silicone -- the kind of stuff in prosthetic limbs -- molded over a rigid skeleton. She cannot move on her own but can be contorted into almost any natural position. To create her shape, a female model spent a week posing for a series of molds.
The robot runs on a self-contained battery that lasts about three hours on one charge, Hines says. Customers can recharge Roxxxy with an electrical cord that plugs into her back.
A motor in her chest pumps heated air through a tube that winds through the robot's body, which Hines says keeps her warm to the touch. Roxxxy also has sensors in her hands and genital areas -- yes, she is anatomically correct -- that will trigger vocal responses from her when touched. She even shudders to simulate orgasm.
When someone speaks to Roxxxy, her computer converts the words to text and then uses pattern-recognition software to match them against a database containing hundreds of appropriate responses. The robot then answers aloud -- her prerecorded "voice" is supplied by an unnamed radio host -- through a loudspeaker hidden under her wig.
"Everything you say to her is processed. It's very near real time, almost without delay," Hines said of the dynamics of human-Roxxxy conversation. "To make it as realistic as possible, she has different dialogue at different times. She talks in her sleep. She even snores." (The snoring feature can be turned off, he says.)
Roxxxy understands and speaks only English for now, but Hines' True Companion company is developing Japanese and Spanish versions. For an extra fee, he'll also record customizable dialogue and phrases for each client, which means Roxxxy could talk to you about NASCAR, say, or the intricacies of politics in the Middle East.
Hines believes that Roxxxy is a step above other love dolls -- the similar but mute RealDoll costs about $5,500 -- because her conversational abilities provide something close to emotional companionship. His customer base? Shy, awkward or older men who "have trouble meeting girls," he says.
In an industry known for pushing the technological envelope, observers are curious about how Roxxxy will fare in the marketplace.
"Is this a viable product? Yes," said Sherri Shaulis, an editor at Adult Video News, a trade magazine for the pornographic industry. "There's a market for it. Granted, it's a very small market."
Maybe not. TrueCompanion claims that more than 4,000 men have placed pre-orders for Roxxxy robots, and another 20,000 or so have requested information about the product. TrueCompanion also is developing a male sex robot, named Rocky.
"There's really nothing like this on the market," said Hines, who speaks of his unique creation with what seems like genuine affection. "Whenever she's out in public, everyone wants to talk to her and pose for pictures. It's so cute."
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Treating Depression by Stimulating Brain's Pleasure Center
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100126084057.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Latest+Science+News%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
ScienceDaily
Tue, 26 Jan 2010 00:00 EST
Even with the best of available treatments, over a third of patients with depression may not achieve a satisfactory antidepressant response. Deep brain stimulation (DBS), a form of targeted electrical stimulation in the brain via implanted electrodes, is now undergoing careful testing to determine whether it could play a role in the treatment of patients who have not sufficiently improved during more traditional forms of treatment.
A major challenge of this work is determining the best region of the brain to stimulate. Some researchers stimulate the subgenual prefrontal cortex, a brain region implicated in depressed mood states, while others stimulate a region called the "anterior limb of the internal capsule," a nerve pathway that passes through the basal ganglia, a lower brain region.
Physicians publishing a new report in Biological Psychiatry now describe findings related to the stimulation of the nucleus accumbens, a brain region the size of a hazelnut associated with reward and motivation that is implicated in processing pleasurable stimuli, sometimes referred to as the "pleasure center" of the brain. The inability to experience pleasure is a key symptom of depression and previous studies have shown that functioning of the nucleus accumbens is impaired in depressed individuals.
Bewernick and colleagues administered DBS treatment in ten patients with severe long-term depression who had not responded to multiple other antidepressant treatments, including psychotherapy, drug treatments and electroconvulsive treatment. After one year of DBS, all patients showed some improvement, and half of them experienced significant improvement in their symptoms of depression, astonishing considering they had not responded to any prior antidepressant treatment. In addition, the patients showed reduced ratings of anxiety and had only minor side effects. Importantly, none of their overall brain functioning was impaired by the DBS treatment.
"The nucleus accumbens is a brain region that animals will seek to stimulate even if they do not appear depressed and this is one reason that it is sometimes referred to as a reward center. It is interesting to note that the patients in this study did not simply feel stimulated or euphoric; instead, there appeared to be reductions in depressed mood that paralleled an increase in the capacity for pleasure," commented Dr. John Krystal, Editor of Biological Psychiatry. "This finding will stimulate further study on the role of the nucleus accumbens in depression and its treatment."
The authors caution that because they studied only a small number of people, further research is necessary before DBS could be considered a clinically useful treatment for treatment-resistant depression. There are also important ethical considerations, since DBS treatment first requires potentially risky brain surgery. However, these preliminary findings are promising that DBS may provide relief to individuals with severe treatment-resistant depression.
Journal Reference:
Bewernick et al. "Nucleus Accumbens Deep Brain Stimulation Decreases Ratings of Depression and Anxiety in Treatment-Resistant Depression." Biological Psychiatry, 2010; 67 (2): 110 DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2009.09.013
ScienceDaily
Tue, 26 Jan 2010 00:00 EST
Even with the best of available treatments, over a third of patients with depression may not achieve a satisfactory antidepressant response. Deep brain stimulation (DBS), a form of targeted electrical stimulation in the brain via implanted electrodes, is now undergoing careful testing to determine whether it could play a role in the treatment of patients who have not sufficiently improved during more traditional forms of treatment.
A major challenge of this work is determining the best region of the brain to stimulate. Some researchers stimulate the subgenual prefrontal cortex, a brain region implicated in depressed mood states, while others stimulate a region called the "anterior limb of the internal capsule," a nerve pathway that passes through the basal ganglia, a lower brain region.
Physicians publishing a new report in Biological Psychiatry now describe findings related to the stimulation of the nucleus accumbens, a brain region the size of a hazelnut associated with reward and motivation that is implicated in processing pleasurable stimuli, sometimes referred to as the "pleasure center" of the brain. The inability to experience pleasure is a key symptom of depression and previous studies have shown that functioning of the nucleus accumbens is impaired in depressed individuals.
Bewernick and colleagues administered DBS treatment in ten patients with severe long-term depression who had not responded to multiple other antidepressant treatments, including psychotherapy, drug treatments and electroconvulsive treatment. After one year of DBS, all patients showed some improvement, and half of them experienced significant improvement in their symptoms of depression, astonishing considering they had not responded to any prior antidepressant treatment. In addition, the patients showed reduced ratings of anxiety and had only minor side effects. Importantly, none of their overall brain functioning was impaired by the DBS treatment.
"The nucleus accumbens is a brain region that animals will seek to stimulate even if they do not appear depressed and this is one reason that it is sometimes referred to as a reward center. It is interesting to note that the patients in this study did not simply feel stimulated or euphoric; instead, there appeared to be reductions in depressed mood that paralleled an increase in the capacity for pleasure," commented Dr. John Krystal, Editor of Biological Psychiatry. "This finding will stimulate further study on the role of the nucleus accumbens in depression and its treatment."
The authors caution that because they studied only a small number of people, further research is necessary before DBS could be considered a clinically useful treatment for treatment-resistant depression. There are also important ethical considerations, since DBS treatment first requires potentially risky brain surgery. However, these preliminary findings are promising that DBS may provide relief to individuals with severe treatment-resistant depression.
Journal Reference:
Bewernick et al. "Nucleus Accumbens Deep Brain Stimulation Decreases Ratings of Depression and Anxiety in Treatment-Resistant Depression." Biological Psychiatry, 2010; 67 (2): 110 DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2009.09.013
Friday, January 15, 2010
Is death better than disability?
http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/is_death_better_than_disability/
Michael Cook | Monday, 11 January 2010
Whom better to ask than the disabled? They give some surprising answers.
When assisted suicide is legalised most of the people who will die are disabled. And American disability advocates take a very dim view of it. This is the theme of a hard-hitting series of articles in the latest issue of the Disability and Health Journal.
The editor, Suzanne McDermott, of the University of South Carolina School of Medicine, writes that she changed her own mind after studying the issue. At first she believed that assisted suicide was solely a personal autonomy issue. But eventually she was persuaded that it is at the heart of the movement for disability rights: "Almost all people at the end of life can be included in the definition of ‘disability’. Thus, the practice of assisted suicide results in death for people with disabilities."
The special issue is a response to a controversial 2008 decision by the American Public Health Association (APHA) to back "aid in dying" (ie, assisted suicide). This slipped almost completely under the media’s radar, but it means that the official policy of the "oldest, largest and most diverse organization of public health professionals in the world" – 30,000 of them – is to support assisted suicide to the hilt. Or, as they prefer to call it in Oregon, "patient-directed dying" or "physician aid-in-dying".
Rather than worrying about some ambiguous language in the Obama administration’s health reform legislation or scrutinising the publications of his health advisors for a few indiscreet phrases, the elderly and their relatives ought to be worried about the 30,000 members of the APHA. They are the ones who could be sitting on the "death panels". The authors of the articles in the Disability and Health Journal certainly are worried.
Several themes emerge from the articles.
First, the very existence of legalised assisted suicide leads to an expectation that the disabled, elderly and infirm should shuffle off their mortal coil a bit early to relieve the burden on their carers.
This fear has been ridiculed by supporters, who contend that all they want is choice at the end of life and that a lifelong experience of disability is different from the pain of seeing one’s life ebb away. They think that disability advocates are demonising euthanasia lobby groups and exaggerating their own vulnerability
Nonsense, says Diane Coleman, of the lobby group Not Dead Yet. She points out – quite eloquently -- that pity can be more dangerous than a mad doctor in a nursing home. We are, she says, "more frightened by the doctors who are out to help us but who see our lives as burdensome and who know little about options that make life with disability valuable."
Why should valuable resources be wasted on them, anyway? "Every week, I hear another person with a disability recount a disturbing interaction with a physician, nurse, or other health professional who clearly transmitted the view that life with a disability is inherently burdensome," she writes. "It does not feel safe to have one's life in the hands of someone who views that life as unfortunate, maybe even tragic or unfair."
Second, advocates of assisted suicide and euthanasia ignore the experience of the disabled because they think that a dying 80-year-old is radically different from someone who has spent a lifetime in a wheelchair. Show me the evidence for this, Ms Coleman demands. Anyone, at any age, can learn to cope with disability. "To dismiss these efforts as futile because the individual is near the end of life has no empirical foundation and raises questions about the commitment of assisted suicide proponents to the genuine self-determination of people with terminal illnesses."
What these articles convey strongly is that supporters of assisted suicide simply do not care how much collateral damage their campaign for "dying with dignity" will do to people who have lived with their disability for years. Ms Coleman savagely comments: "Proponents of legalized assisted suicide are willing to treat lives ended through abuses of the practice as ‘acceptable losses’ when balanced against their wish for a pleasant way out and their unwillingness to accept disability, or responsibility for their own suicide."
Third, the danger is not mandated euthanasia, as in Nazi Germany. Rather, it is a subtle and widespread expectation that death is better than disability. "If the legalization of assisted suicide continues, I believe the rank and file will some day see nothing wrong with hastening the deaths of many people," writes Dr Carol J. Gill , director of the Chicago Center for Disability Research. "They will stand by and do nothing to stop it and will endorse the policies and institutions that advance it – not because they are evil people but because it will no longer be evil in our culture to do so. It will be compassionate, respectful, routine."
Fourth, several authors argue forcefully that Oregon's Death with Dignity Act, which is the model for assisted suicide in the US, is deeply flawed. After about 15 years, several intractable problems have emerged. The authors claim that there is very little patient control; that statistics are incomplete; that oversight is minimal and secretive; that safeguards are easily circumvented; and that negligent doctors cannot be prosecuted. Allegations that in Oregon and in the neighbouring state of Washington, which has also legalised assisted suicide, the circumstances of deaths are routinely falsified are especially disturbing. In fact, Washington actually requires that doctors falsify the death certificate by listing the terminal disease as the cause of death rather than the lethal dose of barbiturates.
Nearly always the debate over assisted suicide focuses on disabled people who want to choose death. Why not ask disabled people who want to choose life? They are the biggest stakeholders. Like most academic publications, the Disability and Health Journal normally offers obscure and specialised reading. But this month’s issue is a must-read for anyone interested in the future of "death with dignity".
Michael Cook is editor of MercatorNet.
Michael Cook | Monday, 11 January 2010
Whom better to ask than the disabled? They give some surprising answers.
When assisted suicide is legalised most of the people who will die are disabled. And American disability advocates take a very dim view of it. This is the theme of a hard-hitting series of articles in the latest issue of the Disability and Health Journal.
The editor, Suzanne McDermott, of the University of South Carolina School of Medicine, writes that she changed her own mind after studying the issue. At first she believed that assisted suicide was solely a personal autonomy issue. But eventually she was persuaded that it is at the heart of the movement for disability rights: "Almost all people at the end of life can be included in the definition of ‘disability’. Thus, the practice of assisted suicide results in death for people with disabilities."
The special issue is a response to a controversial 2008 decision by the American Public Health Association (APHA) to back "aid in dying" (ie, assisted suicide). This slipped almost completely under the media’s radar, but it means that the official policy of the "oldest, largest and most diverse organization of public health professionals in the world" – 30,000 of them – is to support assisted suicide to the hilt. Or, as they prefer to call it in Oregon, "patient-directed dying" or "physician aid-in-dying".
Rather than worrying about some ambiguous language in the Obama administration’s health reform legislation or scrutinising the publications of his health advisors for a few indiscreet phrases, the elderly and their relatives ought to be worried about the 30,000 members of the APHA. They are the ones who could be sitting on the "death panels". The authors of the articles in the Disability and Health Journal certainly are worried.
Several themes emerge from the articles.
First, the very existence of legalised assisted suicide leads to an expectation that the disabled, elderly and infirm should shuffle off their mortal coil a bit early to relieve the burden on their carers.
This fear has been ridiculed by supporters, who contend that all they want is choice at the end of life and that a lifelong experience of disability is different from the pain of seeing one’s life ebb away. They think that disability advocates are demonising euthanasia lobby groups and exaggerating their own vulnerability
Nonsense, says Diane Coleman, of the lobby group Not Dead Yet. She points out – quite eloquently -- that pity can be more dangerous than a mad doctor in a nursing home. We are, she says, "more frightened by the doctors who are out to help us but who see our lives as burdensome and who know little about options that make life with disability valuable."
Why should valuable resources be wasted on them, anyway? "Every week, I hear another person with a disability recount a disturbing interaction with a physician, nurse, or other health professional who clearly transmitted the view that life with a disability is inherently burdensome," she writes. "It does not feel safe to have one's life in the hands of someone who views that life as unfortunate, maybe even tragic or unfair."
Second, advocates of assisted suicide and euthanasia ignore the experience of the disabled because they think that a dying 80-year-old is radically different from someone who has spent a lifetime in a wheelchair. Show me the evidence for this, Ms Coleman demands. Anyone, at any age, can learn to cope with disability. "To dismiss these efforts as futile because the individual is near the end of life has no empirical foundation and raises questions about the commitment of assisted suicide proponents to the genuine self-determination of people with terminal illnesses."
What these articles convey strongly is that supporters of assisted suicide simply do not care how much collateral damage their campaign for "dying with dignity" will do to people who have lived with their disability for years. Ms Coleman savagely comments: "Proponents of legalized assisted suicide are willing to treat lives ended through abuses of the practice as ‘acceptable losses’ when balanced against their wish for a pleasant way out and their unwillingness to accept disability, or responsibility for their own suicide."
Third, the danger is not mandated euthanasia, as in Nazi Germany. Rather, it is a subtle and widespread expectation that death is better than disability. "If the legalization of assisted suicide continues, I believe the rank and file will some day see nothing wrong with hastening the deaths of many people," writes Dr Carol J. Gill , director of the Chicago Center for Disability Research. "They will stand by and do nothing to stop it and will endorse the policies and institutions that advance it – not because they are evil people but because it will no longer be evil in our culture to do so. It will be compassionate, respectful, routine."
Fourth, several authors argue forcefully that Oregon's Death with Dignity Act, which is the model for assisted suicide in the US, is deeply flawed. After about 15 years, several intractable problems have emerged. The authors claim that there is very little patient control; that statistics are incomplete; that oversight is minimal and secretive; that safeguards are easily circumvented; and that negligent doctors cannot be prosecuted. Allegations that in Oregon and in the neighbouring state of Washington, which has also legalised assisted suicide, the circumstances of deaths are routinely falsified are especially disturbing. In fact, Washington actually requires that doctors falsify the death certificate by listing the terminal disease as the cause of death rather than the lethal dose of barbiturates.
Nearly always the debate over assisted suicide focuses on disabled people who want to choose death. Why not ask disabled people who want to choose life? They are the biggest stakeholders. Like most academic publications, the Disability and Health Journal normally offers obscure and specialised reading. But this month’s issue is a must-read for anyone interested in the future of "death with dignity".
Michael Cook is editor of MercatorNet.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
The Meat Market
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703481004574646233272990474.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_RIGHTTopCarousel
JANUARY 8, 2010
The Meat Market
In a race to prevent thousands of needless deaths a year, countries from Singapore to Israel are launching innovative new programs to boost organ donation. Alex Tabarrok on paying donors for kidneys, favoritism on waiting lists and the shifting line between life and death.
By ALEX TABARROK
(See Correction and Amplification below .)
Harvesting human organs for sale! The idea suggests the lurid world of horror movies and 19th-century graverobbers. Yet right now, Singapore is preparing to pay donors as much as 50,000 Singapore dollars (almost US$36,000) for their organs. Iran has eliminated waiting lists for kidneys entirely by paying its citizens to donate. Israel is implementing a "no give, no take" system that puts people who opt out of the donor system at the bottom of the transplant waiting list should they ever need an organ.
Millions of people suffer from kidney disease, but in 2007 there were just 64,606 kidney-transplant operations in the entire world. In the U.S. alone, 83,000 people wait on the official kidney-transplant list. But just 16,500 people received a kidney transplant in 2008, while almost 5,000 died waiting for one.
To combat yet another shortfall, some American doctors are routinely removing pieces of tissue from deceased patients for transplant without their, or their families', prior consent. And the practice is perfectly legal. In a number of U.S. states, medical examiners conducting autopsies may and do harvest corneas with little or no family notification. (By the time of autopsy, it is too late to harvest organs such as kidneys.) Few people know about routine removal statutes and perhaps because of this, these laws have effectively increased cornea transplants.
Routine removal is perhaps the most extreme response to the devastating shortage of organs world-wide. That shortage is leading some countries to try unusual new methods to increase donation. Innovation has occurred in the U.S. as well, but progress has been slow and not without cost or controversy.
Organs can be taken from deceased donors only after they have been declared dead, but where is the line between life and death? Philosophers have been debating the dividing line between baldness and nonbaldness for over 2,000 years, so there is little hope that the dividing line between life and death will ever be agreed upon. Indeed, the great paradox of deceased donation is that we must draw the line between life and death precisely where we cannot be sure of the answer, because the line must lie where the donor is dead but the donor's organs are not.
In 1968 the Journal of the American Medical Association published its criteria for brain death. But reduced crime and better automobile safety have led to fewer potential brain-dead donors than in the past. Now, greater attention is being given to donation after cardiac death: no heart beat for two to five minutes (protocols differ) after the heart stops beating spontaneously. Both standards are controversial—the surgeon who performed the first heart transplant from a brain-dead donor in 1968 was threatened with prosecution, as have been some surgeons using donation after cardiac death. Despite the controversy, donation after cardiac death more than tripled between 2002 and 2006, when it accounted for about 8% of all deceased donors nationwide. In some regions, that figure is up to 20%.
The shortage of organs has increased the use of so-called expanded-criteria organs, or organs that used to be considered unsuitable for transplant. Kidneys donated from people over the age of 60 or from people who had various medical problems are more likely to fail than organs from younger, healthier donors, but they are now being used under the pressure. At the University of Maryland's School of Medicine five patients recently received transplants of kidneys that had either cancerous or benign tumors removed from them. Why would anyone risk cancer? Head surgeon Dr. Michael Phelan explained, "the ongoing shortage of organs from deceased donors, and the high risk of dying while waiting for a transplant, prompted five donors and recipients to push ahead with surgery." Expanded-criteria organs are a useful response to the shortage, but their use also means that the shortage is even worse than it appears because as the waiting list lengthens, the quality of transplants is falling.
Routine removal has been used for corneas but is unlikely to ever become standard for kidneys, livers or lungs. Nevertheless more countries are moving toward presumed consent. Under that standard, everyone is considered to be a potential organ donor unless they have affirmatively opted out, say, by signing a non-organ-donor card. Presumed consent is common in Europe and appears to raise donation rates modestly, especially when combined, as it is in Spain, with readily available transplant coordinators, trained organ-procurement specialists, round-the-clock laboratory facilities and other investments in transplant infrastructure.
The British Medical Association has called for a presumed consent system in the U.K., and Wales plans to move to such a system this year. India is also beginning a presumed consent program that will start this year with corneas and later expand to other organs. Presumed consent has less support in the U.S. but experiments at the state level would make for a useful test.
Rabbis selling organs in New Jersey? Organ sales from poor Indian, Thai and Philippine donors? Transplant tourism? It's all part of the growing black market in transplants. Already, the black market may account for 5% to 10% of transplants world-wide. If organ sales are voluntary, it's hard to fault either the buyer or the seller. But as long as the market remains underground the donors may not receive adequate postoperative care, and that puts a black mark on all proposals to legalize financial compensation.
Only one country, Iran, has eliminated the shortage of transplant organs—and only Iran has a working and legal payment system for organ donation. In this system, organs are not bought and sold at the bazaar. Patients who cannot be assigned a kidney from a deceased donor and who cannot find a related living donor may apply to the nonprofit, volunteer-run Dialysis and Transplant Patients Association (Datpa). Datpa identifies potential donors from a pool of applicants. Those donors are medically evaluated by transplant physicians, who have no connection to Datpa, in just the same way as are uncompensated donors. The government pays donors $1,200 and provides one year of limited health-insurance coverage. In addition, working through Datpa, kidney recipients pay donors between $2,300 and $4,500. Charitable organizations provide remuneration to donors for recipients who cannot afford to pay, thus demonstrating that Iran has something to teach the world about charity as well as about markets.
The Iranian system and the black market demonstrate one important fact: The organ shortage can be solved by paying living donors. The Iranian system began in 1988 and eliminated the shortage of kidneys by 1999. Writing in the Journal of Economic Perspectives in 2007, Nobel Laureate economist Gary Becker and Julio Elias estimated that a payment of $15,000 for living donors would alleviate the shortage of kidneys in the U.S. Payment could be made by the federal government to avoid any hint of inequality in kidney allocation. Moreover, this proposal would save the government money since even with a significant payment, transplant is cheaper than the dialysis that is now paid for by Medicare's End Stage Renal Disease program.
In March 2009 Singapore legalized a government plan for paying organ donors. Although it's not clear yet when this will be implemented, the amounts being discussed for payment, around $50,000, suggest the possibility of a significant donor incentive. So far, the U.S. has lagged other countries in addressing the shortage, but last year, Sen. Arlen Specter circulated a draft bill that would allow U.S. government entities to test compensation programs for organ donation. These programs would only offer noncash compensation such as funeral expenses for deceased donors and health and life insurance or tax credits for living donors.
Bloomberg News Source: Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network
World-wide we will soon harvest more kidneys from living donors than from deceased donors. In one sense, this is a great success—the body can function perfectly well with one kidney so with proper care, kidney donation is a low-risk procedure. In another sense, it's an ugly failure. Why must we harvest kidneys from the living, when kidneys that could save lives are routinely being buried and burned? A payment of funeral expenses for the gift of life or a discount on driver's license fees for those who sign their organ donor card could increase the supply of organs from deceased donors, saving lives and also alleviating some of the necessity for living donors.
Two countries, Singapore and Israel, have pioneered nonmonetary incentives systems for potential organ donors. In Singapore anyone may opt out of its presumed consent system. However, those who opt out are assigned a lower priority on the transplant waiting list should they one day need an organ, a system I have called "no give, no take."
Many people find the idea of paying for organs repugnant but they do accept the ethical foundation of no give, no take—that those who are willing to give should be the first to receive. In addition to satisfying ethical constraints, no give, no take increases the incentive to sign one's organ donor card thereby reducing the shortage. In the U.S., Lifesharers.org, a nonprofit network of potential organ donors (for which I am an adviser), is working to implement a similar system.
In Israel a more flexible version of no give, no take will be phased into place beginning this year. In the Israeli system, people who sign their organ donor cards are given points pushing them up the transplant list should they one day need a transplant. Points will also be given to transplant candidates whose first-degree relatives have signed their organ donor cards or whose first-degree relatives were organ donors. In the case of kidneys, for example, two points (on a 0- to 18-point scale) will be given if the candidate had three or more years previous to being listed signed their organ card. One point will be given if a first-degree relative has signed and 3.5 points if a first-degree relative has previously donated an organ.
The world-wide shortage of organs is going to get worse before it gets better, but we do have options. Presumed consent, financial compensation for living and deceased donors and point systems would all increase the supply of transplant organs. Too many people have died already but pressure is mounting for innovation that will save lives.
—Alex Tabarrok is a professor of economics at George Mason University and director of research for the Independent Institute.
Correction & Amplification
Surgeons from the University of Maryland's School of Medicine have performed five transplants using kidneys that had either cancerous or benign tumors removed from them. Also, Singapore is preparing to pay donors as much as 50,000 Singapore dollars (almost US$36,000) for their organs. A previous version of this article incorrectly said that five patients received transplants of kidneys that had cancerous masses, and failed to note that the 50,000 figure was in Singapore, not U.S., dollars.
JANUARY 8, 2010
The Meat Market
In a race to prevent thousands of needless deaths a year, countries from Singapore to Israel are launching innovative new programs to boost organ donation. Alex Tabarrok on paying donors for kidneys, favoritism on waiting lists and the shifting line between life and death.
By ALEX TABARROK
(See Correction and Amplification below .)
Harvesting human organs for sale! The idea suggests the lurid world of horror movies and 19th-century graverobbers. Yet right now, Singapore is preparing to pay donors as much as 50,000 Singapore dollars (almost US$36,000) for their organs. Iran has eliminated waiting lists for kidneys entirely by paying its citizens to donate. Israel is implementing a "no give, no take" system that puts people who opt out of the donor system at the bottom of the transplant waiting list should they ever need an organ.
Millions of people suffer from kidney disease, but in 2007 there were just 64,606 kidney-transplant operations in the entire world. In the U.S. alone, 83,000 people wait on the official kidney-transplant list. But just 16,500 people received a kidney transplant in 2008, while almost 5,000 died waiting for one.
To combat yet another shortfall, some American doctors are routinely removing pieces of tissue from deceased patients for transplant without their, or their families', prior consent. And the practice is perfectly legal. In a number of U.S. states, medical examiners conducting autopsies may and do harvest corneas with little or no family notification. (By the time of autopsy, it is too late to harvest organs such as kidneys.) Few people know about routine removal statutes and perhaps because of this, these laws have effectively increased cornea transplants.
Routine removal is perhaps the most extreme response to the devastating shortage of organs world-wide. That shortage is leading some countries to try unusual new methods to increase donation. Innovation has occurred in the U.S. as well, but progress has been slow and not without cost or controversy.
Organs can be taken from deceased donors only after they have been declared dead, but where is the line between life and death? Philosophers have been debating the dividing line between baldness and nonbaldness for over 2,000 years, so there is little hope that the dividing line between life and death will ever be agreed upon. Indeed, the great paradox of deceased donation is that we must draw the line between life and death precisely where we cannot be sure of the answer, because the line must lie where the donor is dead but the donor's organs are not.
In 1968 the Journal of the American Medical Association published its criteria for brain death. But reduced crime and better automobile safety have led to fewer potential brain-dead donors than in the past. Now, greater attention is being given to donation after cardiac death: no heart beat for two to five minutes (protocols differ) after the heart stops beating spontaneously. Both standards are controversial—the surgeon who performed the first heart transplant from a brain-dead donor in 1968 was threatened with prosecution, as have been some surgeons using donation after cardiac death. Despite the controversy, donation after cardiac death more than tripled between 2002 and 2006, when it accounted for about 8% of all deceased donors nationwide. In some regions, that figure is up to 20%.
The shortage of organs has increased the use of so-called expanded-criteria organs, or organs that used to be considered unsuitable for transplant. Kidneys donated from people over the age of 60 or from people who had various medical problems are more likely to fail than organs from younger, healthier donors, but they are now being used under the pressure. At the University of Maryland's School of Medicine five patients recently received transplants of kidneys that had either cancerous or benign tumors removed from them. Why would anyone risk cancer? Head surgeon Dr. Michael Phelan explained, "the ongoing shortage of organs from deceased donors, and the high risk of dying while waiting for a transplant, prompted five donors and recipients to push ahead with surgery." Expanded-criteria organs are a useful response to the shortage, but their use also means that the shortage is even worse than it appears because as the waiting list lengthens, the quality of transplants is falling.
Routine removal has been used for corneas but is unlikely to ever become standard for kidneys, livers or lungs. Nevertheless more countries are moving toward presumed consent. Under that standard, everyone is considered to be a potential organ donor unless they have affirmatively opted out, say, by signing a non-organ-donor card. Presumed consent is common in Europe and appears to raise donation rates modestly, especially when combined, as it is in Spain, with readily available transplant coordinators, trained organ-procurement specialists, round-the-clock laboratory facilities and other investments in transplant infrastructure.
The British Medical Association has called for a presumed consent system in the U.K., and Wales plans to move to such a system this year. India is also beginning a presumed consent program that will start this year with corneas and later expand to other organs. Presumed consent has less support in the U.S. but experiments at the state level would make for a useful test.
Rabbis selling organs in New Jersey? Organ sales from poor Indian, Thai and Philippine donors? Transplant tourism? It's all part of the growing black market in transplants. Already, the black market may account for 5% to 10% of transplants world-wide. If organ sales are voluntary, it's hard to fault either the buyer or the seller. But as long as the market remains underground the donors may not receive adequate postoperative care, and that puts a black mark on all proposals to legalize financial compensation.
Only one country, Iran, has eliminated the shortage of transplant organs—and only Iran has a working and legal payment system for organ donation. In this system, organs are not bought and sold at the bazaar. Patients who cannot be assigned a kidney from a deceased donor and who cannot find a related living donor may apply to the nonprofit, volunteer-run Dialysis and Transplant Patients Association (Datpa). Datpa identifies potential donors from a pool of applicants. Those donors are medically evaluated by transplant physicians, who have no connection to Datpa, in just the same way as are uncompensated donors. The government pays donors $1,200 and provides one year of limited health-insurance coverage. In addition, working through Datpa, kidney recipients pay donors between $2,300 and $4,500. Charitable organizations provide remuneration to donors for recipients who cannot afford to pay, thus demonstrating that Iran has something to teach the world about charity as well as about markets.
The Iranian system and the black market demonstrate one important fact: The organ shortage can be solved by paying living donors. The Iranian system began in 1988 and eliminated the shortage of kidneys by 1999. Writing in the Journal of Economic Perspectives in 2007, Nobel Laureate economist Gary Becker and Julio Elias estimated that a payment of $15,000 for living donors would alleviate the shortage of kidneys in the U.S. Payment could be made by the federal government to avoid any hint of inequality in kidney allocation. Moreover, this proposal would save the government money since even with a significant payment, transplant is cheaper than the dialysis that is now paid for by Medicare's End Stage Renal Disease program.
In March 2009 Singapore legalized a government plan for paying organ donors. Although it's not clear yet when this will be implemented, the amounts being discussed for payment, around $50,000, suggest the possibility of a significant donor incentive. So far, the U.S. has lagged other countries in addressing the shortage, but last year, Sen. Arlen Specter circulated a draft bill that would allow U.S. government entities to test compensation programs for organ donation. These programs would only offer noncash compensation such as funeral expenses for deceased donors and health and life insurance or tax credits for living donors.
Bloomberg News Source: Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network
World-wide we will soon harvest more kidneys from living donors than from deceased donors. In one sense, this is a great success—the body can function perfectly well with one kidney so with proper care, kidney donation is a low-risk procedure. In another sense, it's an ugly failure. Why must we harvest kidneys from the living, when kidneys that could save lives are routinely being buried and burned? A payment of funeral expenses for the gift of life or a discount on driver's license fees for those who sign their organ donor card could increase the supply of organs from deceased donors, saving lives and also alleviating some of the necessity for living donors.
Two countries, Singapore and Israel, have pioneered nonmonetary incentives systems for potential organ donors. In Singapore anyone may opt out of its presumed consent system. However, those who opt out are assigned a lower priority on the transplant waiting list should they one day need an organ, a system I have called "no give, no take."
Many people find the idea of paying for organs repugnant but they do accept the ethical foundation of no give, no take—that those who are willing to give should be the first to receive. In addition to satisfying ethical constraints, no give, no take increases the incentive to sign one's organ donor card thereby reducing the shortage. In the U.S., Lifesharers.org, a nonprofit network of potential organ donors (for which I am an adviser), is working to implement a similar system.
In Israel a more flexible version of no give, no take will be phased into place beginning this year. In the Israeli system, people who sign their organ donor cards are given points pushing them up the transplant list should they one day need a transplant. Points will also be given to transplant candidates whose first-degree relatives have signed their organ donor cards or whose first-degree relatives were organ donors. In the case of kidneys, for example, two points (on a 0- to 18-point scale) will be given if the candidate had three or more years previous to being listed signed their organ card. One point will be given if a first-degree relative has signed and 3.5 points if a first-degree relative has previously donated an organ.
The world-wide shortage of organs is going to get worse before it gets better, but we do have options. Presumed consent, financial compensation for living and deceased donors and point systems would all increase the supply of transplant organs. Too many people have died already but pressure is mounting for innovation that will save lives.
—Alex Tabarrok is a professor of economics at George Mason University and director of research for the Independent Institute.
Correction & Amplification
Surgeons from the University of Maryland's School of Medicine have performed five transplants using kidneys that had either cancerous or benign tumors removed from them. Also, Singapore is preparing to pay donors as much as 50,000 Singapore dollars (almost US$36,000) for their organs. A previous version of this article incorrectly said that five patients received transplants of kidneys that had cancerous masses, and failed to note that the 50,000 figure was in Singapore, not U.S., dollars.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Inventor spends Christmas with his perfect woman - a £30,000 custom-made fembot
Do you think he has sex with her, too?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1238324/Robot-Romance-Inventor-Le-Trung-takes-fembot-girlfriend-Christmas-dinner.html#
By Mail Foreign Service
26th December 2009
Inventor Le Trung spent Christmas Day with the most important woman in his life - his robot Aiko.
The science genius enjoyed a festive dinner with his mum, dad and his £30,000 fembot which he designed and built by hand.
Le, 34, from Brampton, Ontario, Canada, even bought gifts for his dream girl, who is so lifelike she speaks fluent English and Japanese, helped cook the turkey and hang up decorations.
'Aiko is like any woman, she enjoys getting new clothes,' he said.
'I loved buying them for her too.'
I, Robot: Le Trung celebrates Christmas with his robot Aiko, who is so lifelike she speaks fluent English and Japanese
Le, who built his first robot when he was four, has dedicated his life to creating the perfect humanoid and his success so far with Aiko has won him worldwide attention.
Aiko, whose name is Japanese for 'love-child' has an amazing artificial intelligence and can speak 13,000 different sentences in two languages
'Aiko can recognise faces and says hello to anyone she has met,' he said.
'She helps me pick what to have for dinner and knows what drinks I like.'
After Christmas dinner and opening her presents, Aiko joined in the festive tradition of quizzes and board games with the family.
But Le still has one thing on his Christmas wish list for Aiko - mastering the problem of how to make her walk.
He said: 'It is the most difficult thing for any inventor to do.
'The problem is finding a way for Aiko to walk that looks human-like without impacting on any of her other abilities.
'I have spent the last six months taking her apart and trying out lots of different systems, but I haven't been able to get it right yet.
'I'm working on some new software at the moment. It will be my New Year's resolution to do this for Aiko.'
Love machine: Trung is so serious about Aiko he bought her Christmas presents
Le has built up huge debts working on his fembot and is still trying to find a technology company to sponsor his research.
But in the meantime he has had to move back in with his parents and they will all be spending the festive period and New Year together.
'My family found it a bit odd at first, but now they all love Aiko,' said Le.
'My mum and dad chat away to her. It helps by talking to her, as it improves her vocabulary.'
Le suffered a heart attack two years ago caused by stress after working long hours on Aiko.
As he recovered he vowed to complete her so he could market the prototype as a home-help for the elderly or people recovering from hospital treatment.
Le has made his fembot as womanly as possible, in order to make a human-like companion.
Aiko, whose age is 'in her early 20's', is 5ft tall and has a perfect 32, 23, 33 figure.
She has real silicone skin and a real-hair wig made by a Japanese doll company. Her touch sensitive body knows the difference between being stroked gently or tickled.
'Like a real female she will react to being touched in certain ways,'said Le.
'If you grab or squeeze too hard she will try to slap you. She has all senses except for smell.
'But Aiko is always helpful and never complains. She is the perfect woman to have around at Christmas.'
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1238324/Robot-Romance-Inventor-Le-Trung-takes-fembot-girlfriend-Christmas-dinner.html#
By Mail Foreign Service
26th December 2009
Inventor Le Trung spent Christmas Day with the most important woman in his life - his robot Aiko.
The science genius enjoyed a festive dinner with his mum, dad and his £30,000 fembot which he designed and built by hand.
Le, 34, from Brampton, Ontario, Canada, even bought gifts for his dream girl, who is so lifelike she speaks fluent English and Japanese, helped cook the turkey and hang up decorations.
'Aiko is like any woman, she enjoys getting new clothes,' he said.
'I loved buying them for her too.'
I, Robot: Le Trung celebrates Christmas with his robot Aiko, who is so lifelike she speaks fluent English and JapaneseLe, who built his first robot when he was four, has dedicated his life to creating the perfect humanoid and his success so far with Aiko has won him worldwide attention.
Aiko, whose name is Japanese for 'love-child' has an amazing artificial intelligence and can speak 13,000 different sentences in two languages
'Aiko can recognise faces and says hello to anyone she has met,' he said.
'She helps me pick what to have for dinner and knows what drinks I like.'
After Christmas dinner and opening her presents, Aiko joined in the festive tradition of quizzes and board games with the family.
But Le still has one thing on his Christmas wish list for Aiko - mastering the problem of how to make her walk.
He said: 'It is the most difficult thing for any inventor to do.
'The problem is finding a way for Aiko to walk that looks human-like without impacting on any of her other abilities.
'I have spent the last six months taking her apart and trying out lots of different systems, but I haven't been able to get it right yet.
'I'm working on some new software at the moment. It will be my New Year's resolution to do this for Aiko.'
Love machine: Trung is so serious about Aiko he bought her Christmas presentsLe has built up huge debts working on his fembot and is still trying to find a technology company to sponsor his research.
But in the meantime he has had to move back in with his parents and they will all be spending the festive period and New Year together.
'My family found it a bit odd at first, but now they all love Aiko,' said Le.
'My mum and dad chat away to her. It helps by talking to her, as it improves her vocabulary.'
Le suffered a heart attack two years ago caused by stress after working long hours on Aiko.
As he recovered he vowed to complete her so he could market the prototype as a home-help for the elderly or people recovering from hospital treatment.
Le has made his fembot as womanly as possible, in order to make a human-like companion.
Aiko, whose age is 'in her early 20's', is 5ft tall and has a perfect 32, 23, 33 figure.
She has real silicone skin and a real-hair wig made by a Japanese doll company. Her touch sensitive body knows the difference between being stroked gently or tickled.
'Like a real female she will react to being touched in certain ways,'said Le.
'If you grab or squeeze too hard she will try to slap you. She has all senses except for smell.
'But Aiko is always helpful and never complains. She is the perfect woman to have around at Christmas.'
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