News

More Americans are turning to surrogacy to build their families, as the practice becomes more common and more publicly discussed.

Why it matters: As surrogacy becomes more visible and accessible, ethical, legal and cultural tensions become harder to ignore...

This is the first part of the 14th installment in the Legacies of Eugenics series, which features essays by leading thinkers devoted to exploring the history of eugenics and the ways it shapes our present. The series is organized by...

Without a federal law, surrogacy in the U.S. is governed by a patchwork of state regulations/

Why it matters: Confusing...

"MC0_8230" via Wikimedia Commons licensed under CC by 2.0 

This report documents a deliberate assault on disabled people in...

Logo of German Institute of Medical Documentation and Information (DIMDI) in Cologne.
By Ben Knight, Deutsche Welle | 11.03.2016

Germany is planning a central sperm donor database to make it easier for children to use their legal right to

...
Food display of fruits, vegetables, nuts, breads, and meats.
By Julia Belluz, Vox | 11.02.2016

Yet another Bay Area startup is promising to revolutionize health. In the tradition of Theranos, which tried to democratize...

Doctor in white coat, with stethoscope and pens in pockets.
By Casey Ross, STAT News | 11.02.2016

We hear a lot about the wonders of genetic testing, how it can revolutionize medicine and find cures for fatal...

Blue-stained molecular photo of DNA strands.
By Sarah Buhr, Tech Crunch | 11.01.2016

The first whole human genome sequencing cost a whopping $2.7 billion. That didn’t bode well for making any breakthroughs on...

Portrait photo of Dorothy Roberts widely smiling with her arms lightly crossed.
By Brett Milano, Harvard Gazette | 11.01.2016

Professor Dorothy E. Roberts of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, a leading scholar on legal and biosocial theory, will...

Syringe with needle
By Susan Scutti, CNN | 11.01.2016

Both men and women are responsible for pregnancy, yet the burden of preventing it often falls on one gender. Women...

A dart on a dart board largely misses the bull's-eye  target.
By Sharon Begley, STAT | 10.31.2016

Enthusiasm for precision medicinefrom the White House down to everyday physicians, is at an all-time high. But serious...

Mary Mallon, foreground, became known as Typhoid Mary and died after being quarantined for 23 years. (Wikimedia)
By Donald G. McNeil, Jr., The New York Times | 10.29.2016

The alleged “Patient Zero” of the American AIDS epidemic — a French Canadian flight attendant named Gaétan Dugas, who died...