Displaying items by tag: new technology

As the first Covid-19 vaccines are rolled out, many people are asking what Christians should think about the safety of vaccines developed and tested so quickly. There are questions around the equitable distribution of vaccines both in the UK and to the global community, plus the ethical issues surrounding a false rumour of their connection with tissue derived from an aborted foetus. The media are full of false vaccine claims - everything from alleged plots to put microchips into people to the supposed re-engineering of our genetic code. At a webinar hosted by the Evangelical Alliance NI two renowned speakers, Prof John Wyatt and Dr Mary Neal, addressed some of these issues and gave believers guidance on how to make up their own minds about what to do when their turn comes.

A UK hospital is investigating a patient's death after the UK's first robot-assisted heart valve surgery. The pioneering robot-assisted operation ended in catastrophe, with a cascade of failures causing the death of retired conductor Stephen Pettitt at Freeman Hospital in Newcastle. Lead surgeon Sukumaran Nair and his assistant could hardly hear each other due to a ‘tinny’ sound emanating from the robot console Nair was operating. He had to shout to warn his colleague that the robot was stitching up the valve incorrectly - and then shout again when he saw the robot knock one of the surgical assistants' arms. The patient's aorta was damaged. As events spiralled out of control, the two robotics experts who should have been on hand to take over in a crisis could not be found, having already gone home. The surgeons abandoned the robot and began open chest surgery, but by this point the patient’s heart was functioning ‘very poorly’. He died days later of multiple organ failure. The coroner said it was ‘more likely than not’ that the patient would have survived conventional open-heart surgery.