Articles and Commentary

Recently, Jose Canseco and I were guests on a talk show to discuss gene doping, the genetic equivalent to anabolic steroids - a way to "juice up" to gain a competitive edge. It is possible that in the next few...

Baseball fans around the nation have been conducting their own straw poll about human enhancement, and they don't like it. Rafael Palmeiro has practically been driven out of the game, Mark McGwire is now seen as more cartoon than hero...

It's a boy! It's a girl! Until the 1970s, these words welcomed virtually every child into the world. In less than one generation, however, new reproductive technologies have shifted this announcement from the delivery room to the obstetricians' office; ultrasounds...

Recent developments—both technical and political —have once again brought stem cell research to the front pages of newspapers across the country. Sens. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and Arlen Specter, R-Pa., are the sponsors of a bill in the Senate that would...

NitroMed's BiDil recently received FDA approval as the first drug targeted exclusively for a racial group -- African Americans with heart failure. Although this condition affects Americans by the hundreds of thousands, BiDil's label will effectively read that Whites, Latinos...

The authors of last November's successful Proposition 71, the stem- cell research initiative, asked California voters to trust them in two distinct ways.

First, they convinced voters -- in some cases with shamelessly exaggerated promises about the imminence and likelihood...

Support for stem cell research is sweeping the country. Legislators in New York, Massachusetts, Illinois, Florida, Washington and perhaps a dozen other states are looking to approve several billions of dollars for research on stem cells. The House and Senate...

December 29, 2004 to January 4, 2005 issue

The biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries are no strangers to the revolving door between government and the industries it supposedly regulates. Just this year two prominent Congress members who had authored legislation governing...