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TMA, AMA, and state medical societies across the country support the Obama administration's plan to rescind a federal rule that prohibits recipients of federal funds from forcing physicians and other health care professionals to participate in actions they find religiously or morally objectionable. In a letter to Acting Health and Human Services (HHS) Administrator Charles E. Johnson, the groups said the Conscience Rights of Health Care Providers regulation, adopted by the Bush administration in December, is unnecessary and could have far-reaching implications. They said it "could undermine patients' access to vital medical care and information, impede advances in biomedical research,...

A new rule from the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has emerged as the latest battleground in the health care conscience wars. Promulgated during the waning months of the Bush administration, the rule became effective in January. Heralded as a "provider conscience regulation" by its supporters and derided as a "midnight regulation" by its detractors, the rule could alter the landscape of federal conscience law. The regulation, as explained in its text (see the Supplementary Appendix, available with the full text of this article at NEJM.org), aims to raise awareness of and ensure compliance with federal health care...

At the Federal Register on Monday, March 9 to be published on the 10th, go down to the Health and Human Services. Then, click on the A href="Rescission of the Regulation entitled "Ensuring That Department of Health and Human Services Funds Do Not Support Coercive or Discriminatory Policies or Practices in Violation of Federal Law"> pdf titled, Rescission of the Regulation entitled "Ensuring That Department of Health and Human Services Funds Do Not Support Coercive or Discriminatory Policies or Practices in Violation of Federal Law Here's some of the law and regulations that the Obama Administration can't stand. The Department...

Just days after we hear about functioning induced Pluripotent stem cells from adult skin cells, cells that can produce dopamine, the proteins missing in Parkinson's disease, we read that President Obama is going to overturn the limits on funding for embryonic stem cell research. Despite the fact that these cells match the patient because they come from the patient, that they will be cheaper, more accessible and we believe have less risk of causing cancer, this Monday morning, the 9th of March, 2009, the White House plans a quiet ceremony to sign the Executive Order. Follow the Yellow Brick Road,...

Imagine that it is 2016, and you are a 65 year old boomer. You have been admitted to your local community hospital with malaise, fatigue, vomiting and cloudy mental status. You have had blood pressure problems and diabetes for a few years, and have just been diagnosed with renal failure. As you drift in and out of consciousness, you are vaguely aware your old family practice physician, who had taken care of you for 20 years, is not around. A religious man, he quietly retired from medical practice in 2014, after the full force of the Obama administration‘s removal of...

Where is the outrage over the destruction of (what is left of) Medicare and the debt we owe to veterans? I'm afraid that we're not talking about "Medicare for all," or even "Medicaid for all." We're talking about County Clinic for all. For a look at the proposed cuts in cost for Medicare, take a look a this table. Consider that plan to "reduce costs for re-admissions" and the "bundling" of hospital and outpatient costs after a hospitalization. That means that Medicare will only pay a flat fee to the hospital for any hospitalization and follow up care after the...

Why? YOU make equality happen. Rallies and protests may get 15 to 20 seconds on the nightly news. Sadly, they don't often change policy and they don't often change laws. The single most powerful force in changing public policy is the collective voice of an engaged electorate. When lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Texans have face-to-face conversations with State Representatives, State Senators, and their staffs, hearts and minds are changed. Suddenly, LGBT people are more than stereotypes and generalizations. They become real people who are deeply affected by existing policy, or the lack of policy. When straight allies have face-to-face...

My husband, two friends and I went to DC for the National March for Life, arriving the day after the Inauguration and staying until Saturday. On Friday we toured the Capitol, the Capitol Visitors' Center ("CVC") and the House Gallery. We were treated to repeated metal detectors at the CVC and at the Rayburn House offices when we visited our Congressman's office. However, there were several additional levels of security when we were being escorted to the Gallery. My purse was searched we went through a couple of more metal detectors, and all of our phones, cameras, and other "electronics"...

The Stem Cell Debate at Dartmouth Sunday, November 16, 2008 Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk, Ph.D. was recently invited to give a lecture entitled “Stem Cells and Cloning: Understanding the Scientific Issues and the Moral Objections” at Aquinas House, in observance of the Feast of St. Luke, the patron saint of medical professionals. Pacholczyk, or Father Tad as he encourages his audience members to call him, is the Director of Education for the National Catholic Bioethics Center. He arrived at this position after receiving degrees in philosophy, biochemistry, molecular cell biology, and chemistry, a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Yale University, and years...

After lots of 'Net speculation on science and medicine advisory councils and committees in addition to mine of this morning, we find out that the Obama leader for the transition team on the President's Council on Bioethics Review Team will be Jonathan Moreno the associate at the bioethics arms of the Center for American Progress, founded by co-chair of the Obama "office of the President-Elect" transitionist John Podesta. And Moreno and Podesta are not the only "Progressives" on the transition team. Note the names Tom Perez (that's a Word document), Anthony Brown, Pam Gilbert ( a .pdf from the Center...

The Texas Democrats lost the presidential election in Texas. They failed to knock Republican U.S. Sen. John Cornyn out of his seat. They didn’t capture any of the six slots on the state’s top two appellate courts. They lost one seat in Congress. But exuberant Democrats were still pinching themselves Wednesday morning at the gains they had made. “I’ve got a real problem today,” said state Rep. Jim Dunnam, D-Waco, sporting a huge grin. “I can’t stop smiling.” Dunnam, leader of the Democratic Caucus in the House, said his party had picked up a net of three seats in the...

"The Wicker-Dickey Amendment cannot be changed by Presidential sleight of hand or wave of pen."R. Alta Charo, World Stem Cell Summit, Madison Wisconsin, September, 2008 See video, at time marker 11:18/01:01:29. John Podesta, the founder of the Center for American Progress and the leader of the transitional team for the newly invented "Office of the President Elect," told Chris Matthews of Fox News Sunday (transcript here) that Barack Obama intends to do what he can to change the US policy on "stem cells" by the use of the Presidential Executive Order (EO). In light of current law (the Dickey Amendment)...

When you buy a Lottery ticket, do you buy the "Cash Option" or go for the 20 equal payments from the Lottery over 20 years? At first, I called this my Conservative test. But then I realized that true conservatives probably wouldn't buy a lottery ticket. Now I call it the self-reliance versus government test. The question is a good one to use to help undecided voters and men and women that you believe would vote Republican if they thought the issues through. Compare the payout on Lottery winnings with Social Security, Medicare, and government health insurance. It's amazing and...

Lawmakers Reach Accord on Huge Financial Rescue Vote is Imminent on $700 Billion Bailout Plan Congressional leaders and the Bush administration this morning said they had struck an accord to insert the government deeply into the nation's financial markets, agreeing to spend up to $700 billion to relieve Wall Street of troubled assets backed by faltering home mortgages.

Birth Control Fears Addressed HHS Chief Says Draft Rule Is Not Redefining Abortion Mike Leavitt blogged on the issue. Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt has denied that a controversial draft regulation would redefine common birth control methods as abortion and protect the rights of doctors and other health-care workers who refuse to provide them.

Five indicted FLDS members have turned themselves in. The men, sought since they were indicted Tuesday on a series of charges relating to alleged sexual abuse at the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints' Schleicher County ranch, turned themselves in to the Schleicher County Sheriff's Office about noon today, said Texas Ranger Capt. L.C. Wilson. According to the Texas Attorney General's Office, the five men are: * Raymond Merril Jessop, 36, the alleged husband of a 16-year-old daughter of Warren Jeffs, is charged with one count of sexual assault of a child. * Allan Eugene Keate, 56, is...

A hotel owner’s $125,000 donation to support a ballot initiative banning same-sex marriage in the state has become a flashpoint, with opponents calling for a boycott of two of his hotels and supporters highlighting the donation in a fund-raising letter. The hotelier, Doug Manchester, donated the money to support the collection of signatures to qualify the initiative, which would amend the state’s Constitution to prohibit same-sex marriage, for the November ballot.

Harris County Court-at-Law Judge Roberta Lloyd today dissolved a court order restricting how the Texas Republican Party should run its convention under state law this week in Houston. Lloyd said the order, issued last week by retired substitute judge Tom Sullivan, was improper because her court lacks jurisdiction over such a case. She suggested the group of Republican delegates and activists who asked for the order take the case to the Court of Appeals in Houston — and that's where the group headed late this afternoon. The group, headed by Wharton County GOP Chairman Debra Medina and represented in court...

ELDORADO, Texas -- Hours after signing an order releasing FLDS children from state custody, 51st District Judge Barbara Walther arrived at the Schleicher County Courthouse in Eldorado to swear in a grand jury that may be considering indictments related to the polygamous sect. By the end of the day, 18 indictments had been issued, although no details were immediately available. The number was more than the usual; it is more typical for five to 15 indictments to be returned, a court clerk said. Walther arrived at at the Eldorado courthouse at 12:30 p.m., accompanied by two bailiffs and her court...

By Cho Jin-seo Staff Reporter Researchers found a way to clone pet cats five years ago. Now they can play a trick on their genes to change their color. A Gyeongsang National University team said they have succeeded in cloning cats after modifying a gene to change their skin color. Because of the red fluorescence protein in their skin cells, the three Turkish Angola kittens look reddish under ultraviolet light, the researchers said. The red cloned cat research is expected to be utilized in dealing with certain genetic diseases in animals and humans. It will also help reproduce rare animals,...