The international scientific body governing stem cell research is abandoning the absolute 14-day limit on culturing human embryos in the laboratory, putting pressure on Canada’s law prohibiting the practice.

Published in Canada

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops objected to a U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) proposal to authorize federally funded research on part-human, part-animal embryos in comments submitted to the agency Sept. 2.

Published in International

PICKERING, ONT. - Angela Kirby believes in living life to its fullest and won’t let the challenges of multiple sclerosis get in her way. Diagnosed with MS at the age of 50, she never felt deterred from hiking up mountains and travelling the world.

Published in Canada

Adult stem cells, easily harvested from human bone marrow, umbilical cord blood and fat tissue, have a successful track record in treatments for more than 90 medical conditions and diseases, including sickle cell anemia, multiple myeloma cancer and damaged heart tissue.

Published in International

MANCHESTER, England - Britain has become the first country in the world to legalize the genetic modification of the human germ line in an attempt to fight inherited diseases, but Catholic officials oppose the procedures.

Published in International

OTTAWA - An Ottawa Catholic husband and father whose wife suffers a rare, early onset form of dementia is calling on Canada’s bishops to help advance a national dementia strategy. 

Published in Canada

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Supreme Court Jan. 7 let stand a lower court order allowing government funding of research involving certain embryonic stem-cell lines.

Published in International

WASHINGTON - Harvard public policy professor Robert D. Putnam has a tongue-in-cheek suggestion for pastors: "Spend less time on the sermons, and more time arranging the church suppers."

That's because research by Putnam and Chaeyoon Lim, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, shows that the more church friends a person has, the happier he or she is.

"Church friends are super-charged friends, but we have no idea why," Putnam told a Feb. 16 summit on religion, well-being and health at Gallup world headquarters in Washington. "We have some hypotheses, but we don't know for sure."

Published in Features