ATTITUDES AND ACCEPTANCE TOWARD THE TECHNOLOGY OF CRYONICS IN GERMANY.

This study explores the awareness and the degree of acceptance of the idea of the medical technology cryonics-the freezing of a corpse to revive it in the future-among German citizens. Data were collected on the basis of a representatively weighted online survey of 1,000 people aged between 16 and 69 years and resident in the Federal Republic of Germany. Forty-seven percent stated that they had already heard of cryonics; 22 percent could imagine having their bodies cryonized after their deaths.

Discourse and policy making on consumer protection in the areas of mobile telecommunication and tanning.

Perceived health risks from electromagnetic fields in mobile telecommunication and from UV radiation in tanning have become regulation issues in Germany during the last decade. Health risk messages from government expert bodies and the main stakeholders in these areas as well as subsequent consumer protection policy making are investigated. Publications and websites of government expert bodies and the main stakeholders as well as debates in Federal Parliament were analysed to compare argumentation patterns and parliamentary decision-making processes.

Pilot project "Patient-Safety" in Medical Education.

Since the summer term 2009 the study project "Patientensicherheit - Der klinische Umgang mit Patienten- und Eingriffsverwechslungen sowie Medikationsfehlern" (Patient Safety - the clinical handling of patients - and mistaking of procedures as well as medication errors) is offered within the Modellstudiengang Medizin. Seminars on patient safety in Germany so far mainly address trained doctors and health economists. In contrast, this study project on patient safety should at an early stage contribute to a "culture of discussing and preventing mistakes" - an aspect that is little established in clinical medicine, but also in medical training.