UN warns of dangers of drugs sold on internet

In March 2004, The British Medical Journal reported on the International Narcotics Control Board statement on the sale of drugs over the Internet. They highlight popular drugs such as sildenafil (viagra) and fluoxetine (Prozac) - who hasn't received email about these substances!? It is interesting that some of these drugs are associated with so-called 'lifestyle' enhancements. While the lack of regulation over online drugs is significant, I wonder how much of their concern is about how these drugs reflect a shift in the way people use and perceive medicine. One of the difficulties facing the medical profession is how to curb the tide on lifestyle medicine. There seem to be a number of legal and moral questions arising from the development of online pharmacies and, even if the current regulations offer a structure through which action could be taken against a dodgy company, we need to take into account how online pharmacies are different social spaces, compared with high-street retail outlets. For example, how does a physician take a history of their patient through the Internet? What relationship between the physician and patient is possible?

There also seem to be difficult boundary issues facing regulation. Even if the legal issues are similar to the importation of substances from one place to another, the manner in which people transcend these boundaries is radically different - it is much easier to click on a website of a company in a country far away, than it is to go there or connnect with a supplier in that country.

World's first robot doctor

A few months ago, the University of California Davis Medical Center began testing its robot, Rudy, as a way of dveloping greater flexibility for physicians and more personal care for patients. At first sight, this looks like such a bad idea - there is no escaping the technological face of this charcater, it is surely better than a 'Hal' like camera, which might surely have been an alternative. It just reminds me of one of the Daleks from Doctor Who. (Let's hope there's no 'exterminate' facility, unless, of course, assisted suicide becomes more acceptable!)

Ethics of cybermedicine

Gregory Pence is keen on digital technology applied to medical encounters. He describes cases where patients use the Internet to develop shared communities, where they can talk about the illnesses thy suffer in open spaces. He is also concerned that technology often gets a rough deal in the media, where genetics is characterised as Frakenstein science and IT separates people from each other. In Chapter 2 of his book 'Re-Creating Medicine' , he discusses the Doctor-Patient role specifically, suggesting that doctors can use WebMD to find out about conditions they know little about and encourages a dialogue between patients and doctors about these discoveries. As he states: "Moral informational exchanges, ones that help and empower patients, rather than keep them in the position of passive children, do occure in cybermedicine. Such exchanges humanize both parties involved"

Hybrid Identities in Digital Media

Call for papers... Hybrid Identities in Digital Media Vol 11, no 4, Winter 2005

Digital bodies, virtual characters, man-machine hybrids, simulated 'humans', androids, and cyborgs

Guest-edited by Kerstin Mey and Yvonne Spielmann

The focus of the special issue:

While digitally constructed identities have entered the popular media environment through fiction film, television, and computer games, where they have homogenising effects on the viewer/user that do not encourage them to question or critically look at the cultural concept of 'hybridity', we find that in experimental fields of creative practices (arts, youth cultures, and other groups) the challenge lies in the articulation of individual features that are appropriate to specific needs and express – through diversity – reflections on the hybrid, increasingly interactive and virtual production in digital media. The common interest here seems to lie in the expression of virtual selves that abandon the pre-fabricated products of cinema, television, computer games, and so on.

We encourage a discussion of the following: In what way does the construction of hybrid identities in digital media arts and cultural practices have an effect on:

* new role models (of behaviour, action) * innovative ways of identification (participation, interaction, communication) * new ways of collaborative experience (through multiple user interfaces, MUDs) * novel ways of self-reflection (of role models, ethic/gender/social patterns) * new ways of self-representation (public/private spaces).

Copy deadline for refereed research articles: 1 April 2005

All proposals, inquiries and submissions for this special issue to:

Yvonne Spielmann Braunschweig School of Art Institute of Media Research Johannes-Selenka-Platz 1 38118 Braunschweig Germany tel: +49 (0)531 2810728 fax: +49 (0)531 2810713 email: spielmann@medien-peb.uni-siegen.de

Kerstin Mey School of Art and Design University of Belfast York Street Belfast BT15 1ED Northern Ireland, UK tel: +44 (0)28 9026 7258 fax: +44 (0)28 9026 7310 email: k.mey@ulster.ac.uk

Submission details: Two hard copies and one electronic copy (Macintosh Word compatible) of all articles should be sent to the guest editors with the following information attached separately: name, institution and address for correspondence, telephone, fax and email address. Papers should be typed on one side of the sheet with endnotes in accordance with the MLA style sheet. Authors should also enclose a 50 word biography and an abstract.

Cyberfeminism and Artificial Life

Kember, S. (2003). Cyberfeminism and Artificial Life. London and New York, Routledge. Kember's work marks a new relationship between the study and theory of technological cultures. ALife signals a shift towards a fresh way of conceptualising the salient characteristics of humanness.

Visible Human Project

Waldby, C. (1997). "Revenants: The Visible Human Project and the Digital Uncanny." Body and Society 3(1): 1-16. Waldby, C. (2000). "Virtual Anatomy: From the Body in the Text to the Body on the Screen." Journal of Medical Humanities 21(2): 85-107.

Waldby, C. (2000). The Visible Human Project: Informatic Bodies and Posthuman Medicine. London and New York, Routledge.

Catherine Waldby's work on the VHP is not to be missed. She describes the VHP, a new digital technology that can replicate human beings internally and externally. She claims that the technology is ontologically revolutionary, arguing it to reflect a change in the relationship between life and death. Waldby suggests that public interest with the VHP can be situated in a history of popular fascination with and anxiety about medicine technologies that represent the human body. She considers that digital visualisation intensifies the altered distinction be life and death facilitated by photography.

"Virtual space as the matrix for new form of life"

VHP captures narrative of Frankenstein - the medical experiment, the reanimated corpse, the monstrosity of animated death.