Background-Identification of predictors of hyporesponsiveness to erythropoietin-stimulating agents (ESA) in hemodialysis (HD) patients may help improve anemia management and reduce hemoglobin variability.

No abstract

The scarcity of vital organs has prompted several calls to either modify the dead donor rule or interpret it more broadly. Given its symbolic importance, however, the rule should be changed only cautiously.

The purpose of this report is to offer investigators and members of SCRO and animal research committees well-grounded ethical standards for evaluating research involving the transfer of multipotent and pluripotent human stem cells and their direct derivatives into animal systems. This report is deliberately written in general terms so that its recommendations can apply to diverse institutions and international settings. Thus, investigators and reviewers should aspire to these proposed ethical standards while exercising appropriate judgment in individual situations.

The use of preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) to screen embryos for aneuploidy and genetic disease is growing. New uses of PGD have been reported in the past year for screening embryos for susceptibility to cancer, for late-onset diseases, for HLA-matching for existing children, and for gender. These extensions have raised questions about their ethical acceptability and the adequacy of regulatory structures to review new uses. This article describes current and likely future uses of PGD, and then analyses the ethical issues posed by new uses of PGD to screen embryos for susceptibility and late-onset conditions, for HLA-matching for tissue donation to an existing child, and for gender selection. It also addresses ethical issues that would arise in more speculative scenarios of selecting embryos for hearing ability or sexual orientation. The article concludes that except for sex selection of the first child, most current extensions of PGD are ethically acceptable, and provides a framework for evaluating future extensions for nonmedical purposes that are still speculative.