Policy & Ethics

IVF, and the Havoc Created by Unborn People

One month after the Alabama Supreme Court declared that frozen embryos are legally considered children – and two weeks after the state’s Legislature undid the major impacts of that decision by protecting IVF facilities – the same issue was faced by several state legislatures. They punted.

Harm reduction strategies have been used for decades in many developed countries to reduce diseases and overdoses from using drugs obtained on the black market. It's a major reason why those countries have lower drug-related illness and fatality rates than the U.S. In recent years, many state and local jurisdictions have begun adopting these strategies. Idaho, however, recently decided to go in an ill-advised direction.

On February 16, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that embryos destroyed at an IVF facility were children subject to the state’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act, opening the door to civil and criminal liability. The state’s largest fertilization centers immediately “froze” their services. Two weeks later, now aware of the implications of this ruling, the Alabama legislature undid (some of) the court’s damage, providing legal immunity for IVF providers and receivers. But fear remains.

The national newspaper recently published a guest essay that finally got the opioid story straight – something it previously has been unwilling, or unable, to do. The chilling essay was written by a pain management specialist who was unable to get pain meds for her dying mother-in-law, because of the takeover of medicine by the runaway DEA. The Times may have finally gotten it right (but it's worth noting that here at ACSH, we've been doing so for more than a decade).

Unlike previous public health emergencies, the COVID-19 pandemic had unmistakably partisan overtones. Politics exerted an unhealthy influence on how governments, scientists, reporters and ordinary Americans responded as SARS-CoV-2 swept across the world and upended our lives for the better part of four years. What went wrong and what can we learn from it?

The EPA is moving farther and farther away from producing science-driven outcomes. Its final rule for regulating ethylene oxide emissions from commercial sterilizers demonstrates how EPA is ignoring best scientific practices in its quest to advance the Administration’s dual agenda of “cancer moonshot” and environmental justice.

On March 26th, the Supreme Court will convene to determine the availability of the abortion drug mifepristone. The cases also challenge the state’s right to regulate the health and safety of its constituents (its ‘police power’). But that’s not all that’s at stake.

We spend 85% of our time indoors, and air conditioning can provide relief when and where we need it. Nevertheless, regulatory agencies continue to press for tighter outdoor emission controls. Their mantra is that lives can be shortened by long-term (years) exposure, no matter how trivial. This is the linear, no-threshold hypothesis currently promulgated by EPA.

Medicare Advantage (MA) seems to be the belle of the healthcare ball, attracting more seniors than ever. A recent Commonwealth Fund survey aimed to unveil the supposed "value-added" services of MA over traditional Medicare, but is the MA magic more of a sleight of hand than a genuine healthcare marvel?

The Bible of science – the body of peer-reviewed literature – is increasingly filled with dubious and even fraudulent research. Most academics openly recognize the threat this poses to scientific progress, though viable solutions to academic fraud are sorely lacking. How do we address this critical problem?

Bubonic Plague first invaded American shores in early 1900, launching political and scientific warfare, invoking quarantines and forced vaccines, triggering social upheaval and racial justice concerns, and inflaming competing social agendas, much akin to the COVID controversies. The courts got involved there, but then, government powers were crimped.