http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. Eminent Belgian scientist Christian de Duve, a winner of the Nobel prize for medicine, died Saturday aged 95 after committing euthanasia, which is legal in Belgium, his family said. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-belgian-nobel-winner-commits-euthanasia.html Other Mon, 06 May 2013 09:15:02 EST news287050491 Fears that legalising euthanasia for very sick newborns would prompt the start of a "slippery slope" and lead to abuse of the option have proved groundless, says the architect of a dedicated protocol used by doctors in The Netherlands, in a special issue of the Journal of Medical Ethics. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-slippery-slope-legal-euthanasia-sick.html Other Wed, 01 May 2013 18:30:02 EST news286645537 Assisted death should be available to people with incurable and terminal illness who persistently request it. This is a key recommendation of a report from leading academics released today. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-04-australians-dying-groundbreaking.html Other Fri, 26 Apr 2013 07:30:35 EST news286180228 (HealthDay)—In Belgium, between 1998 and 2007, euthanasia was legalized and palliative care was intensified, which led to an increase in end-of-life decisions (ELDs) and fewer life-ending acts without the patient's explicit request, according to research published online March 11 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-04-belgium-tracks-trends-end-of-life-decision.html Health Wed, 03 Apr 2013 14:00:01 EST news284215385 An overwhelming majority of Albertans believe dying adults should have the right to request to end their life, according to new research from the University of Alberta. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-majority-albertans-suicide.html Other Thu, 07 Mar 2013 12:32:07 EST news281881921 Belgian legislators opened a debate Wednesday on whether to amend a decade-old law on euthanasia to cover minors, being told by experts that it was already taking place in practice without any set guidelines. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-02-belgium-debates-euthanasia-minors.html Health Wed, 20 Feb 2013 12:30:02 EST news280584967 France's medical ethics council said Thursday that assisted suicide should be allowed in exceptional cases when suffering patients make "persistent and lucid requests" in a step forward to legalising euthanasia. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-02-french-medical-body-euthanasia-exceptional.html Other Thu, 14 Feb 2013 12:10:05 EST news280065002 Belgium is considering a significant change to its decade-old euthanasia law that would allow minors and Alzheimer's sufferers to seek permission to die. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-belgium-euthanasia-minors-alzheimer.html Health Tue, 18 Dec 2012 10:42:54 EST news275049768 France should allow doctors to "accelerate the coming of death" for terminally ill patients, a report to President Francois Hollande recommended Tuesday. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-france-legalise-deaths.html Health Tue, 18 Dec 2012 10:42:28 EST news275049742 (AP)—The number of doctor-assisted suicide cases reported in the Netherlands grew by 559 between the years of 2010 and 2011, a commission says. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-dutch-euthanasia-cases.html Other Wed, 26 Sep 2012 11:30:08 EST news267877776 A gravelly ill prisoner serving a long jail sentence has become the first inmate to die under Belgian euthanasia laws introduced 10 years ago, press reports said Thursday. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-belgian-euthanasia-law-death-prisoner.html Other Thu, 13 Sep 2012 12:25:16 EST news266757910 (AP) — Tony Nicklinson, paralyzed and unable to speak, found life so unbearable he wanted to die. On Wednesday, the 58-year-old Briton got his wish. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-08-uk-overturn-euthanasia-law-dies.html Other Wed, 22 Aug 2012 14:30:02 EST news264863991 (AP) — Britain's High Court on Thursday rejected an attempt by a man who has locked-in syndrome to overturn the country's euthanasia law by refusing to legally allow doctors to end his life. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-08-uk-denies-right-to-die-legal.html Other Thu, 16 Aug 2012 10:02:39 EST news264330147 After legalisation of euthanasia and assisted suicide by the Dutch government in 2002, the number of cases was found to have decreased in 2005. Although the frequency of euthanasia and assisted suicide in the Netherlands appears to have risen between 2005 and 2010 (largely due to the increase in the number of patient requests for euthanasia or assisted suicide), the fall in rates seen in 2005 means that levels of euthanasia and assisted suicide in 2010 were comparable to those before the Dutch euthanasia act was implemented in 2002. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-07-netherlands-euthanasia-suicide-legalization.html Other Tue, 10 Jul 2012 18:30:02 EST news261157646 A new report from the province of Quebec that recommends medical assistance to die will reignite the debate over euthanasia in Canada, states an editorial published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-die-ready-therapeutic-homicide.html Other Mon, 25 Jun 2012 12:59:33 EST news259847942 Groups supporting the right to hasten dying will meet in Zurich this week for a global conference on assisted suicide, reigniting the debate on dignified death. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-zurich-hosts-dignity-death-debate.html Other Tue, 12 Jun 2012 09:53:14 EST news258713589 With a deadly dose of barbiturates stashed in his home in a small eastern Dutch town, pensioner Hans Hillebrand is a "self-determinist": he alone wants to decide when it's time to die with dignity. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-dutch-pensioner-decision-die-dignity.html Other Sat, 31 Mar 2012 05:55:12 EST news252392102 Ten years after they became the first countries to legalise euthanasia, the Netherlands and Belgium now provide assisted suicide to 4,000 people a year. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-dutch-belgians-decade-mercy.html Health Fri, 30 Mar 2012 08:10:02 EST news252313066 Six specialised teams, each with a doctor, will criss-cross the Netherlands as of Thursday to carry out euthanasia on patients at home whose own doctors refused to do so, a pro-mercy killing group said. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-dutch-mobile-mercy-teams.html Other Wed, 29 Feb 2012 18:13:34 EST news249761606 A report commissioned by the Royal Society of Canada, and published today in the journal Bioethics, claims that assisted suicide should be legally permitted for competent individuals who make a free and informed decision, while on both a personal and a national level insufficient plans and policies are made for the end of life. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-11-decriminalization-dying-canada.html Other Tue, 15 Nov 2011 11:07:21 EST news240577634 Attitudes toward end-of-life care for cancer patients vary, but most patients, family members, oncologists and members of the public are receptive to withdrawing futile life-sustaining treatments in people who are dying, found a Korean study in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-05-attitudes-end-of-life-survey-cancer-patients.html Cancer Mon, 30 May 2011 14:48:24 EST news225985692