Antimicrobial resistance is a critical public health challenge, and the contribution of the widespread use of antimicrobials in food animals to bacterial drug resistance and human infection demands greater policymaker attention. Global consumption of antimicrobials in food animal production by 2030 is projected to rise by two-thirds due to increases in both food animal production and demand for animal products. In the United States, the volume of antibiotics sold for use in food-producing animals is at least three times greater than (...) that sold for human use. A One Health approach that emphasizes the connections among the health of humans, animals, and the environment is needed to address antibiotic resistance in an integrated manner. This approach holds the promise of collaboration across multiple disciplines, including doctors, veterinarians, food safety professionals, and environmental health experts. (shrink)

Advances in life-saving technologies in the past few decades have challenged our traditional understandings of death. Traditionally, death was understood to occur when a person stops breathing, their heart stops beating and they are cold to the touch. Today, physicians determine death by relying on a diagnosis of ‘total brain failure’ or by waiting a short while after circulation stops. Evidence has emerged, however, that the conceptual bases for these approaches to determining death are fundamentally flawed and depart substantially from (...) the established biological conception of death. We argue that the current approach to determining death consists of two different types of unacknowledged legal fictions. These legal fictions were developed for practices that are largely ethically legitimate but need to be reconciled with the law. The considerable debate over the determination of death in the medical and scientific literature has not informed the public that vital organs are being procured from still-living donors and it seems unlikely that this information can remain hidden for long. Given the instability of the status quo and the difficulty of making the substantial legal changes required by complete transparency, we argue for a second-best policy solution: acknowledging the legal fictions involved in determining death to move in the direction of greater transparency. This may someday result in more substantial legal change to directly confront the challenges raised by life-sustaining and life-preserving technologies without the need for fictions. (shrink)

Allocating access to unapproved COVID-19 drugs available via Pre-Approval Access pathways or Emergency Use Authorization raises unique challenges at the intersection of clinical care and research....

In their paper, “Helpful Lessons and Cautionary Tales: How Should COVID-19 Drug Development and Access Inform Approaches to Non-Pandemic Diseases?” Holly Fernandez Lynch and colleagues have present...

Deciding whether to grant an expanded access request for a child whose sibling is enrolled in a gene therapy trial involves a number of complex factors: considering the best interests of the child, the psychosocial and economic impact on the family, and the concerns and obligations of researchers. Despite the challenges in coming to a substantively fair outcome in cases of discordant eligibility, creating a procedurally fair decision-making process to adjudicate requests is essential.

BackgroundTo assess ethical concerns associated with participation in a financial incentive programme to help adolescents with type 1 diabetes improve diabetes self-management.MethodsFocus groups with 46 adolescents with type 1 diabetes ages 12–17 and 38 of their parents were conducted in the Seattle, Washington metropolitan area. Semistructured focus group guides addressed ethical concerns related to the use of FI to promote change in diabetes self-management. Qualitative data were analysed and emergent themes identified.ResultsWe identified three themes related to the ethical issues adolescents (...) and parents anticipated with FI programme participation. First, FI programmes may variably change pressure and conflict in different families in ways that are not necessarily problematic. Second, the pressure to share FIs in some families and how FI payments are structured may lead to unfairness in some cases. Third, some adolescents may be likely to fabricate information in any circumstances, not simply because of FIs, but this could compromise the integrity of FI programmes relying on measures that cannot be externally verified.ConclusionsMany adolescents with type 1 diabetes and their parents see positive potential of FIs to help adolescents improve their self-management. However, ethical concerns about unfairness, potentially harmful increases in conflict/pressure and dishonesty should be addressed in the design and evaluation of FI programmes. (shrink)

This article is a collective writing experiment undertaken by philosophers of education affiliated with the PESGB (Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain). When asked to reflect on questions concerning the Philosophy of Education in a New Key in May 2020, it was unsurprising that the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on society and on education were foremost in our minds. We wanted to consider important philosophical and educational questions raised by the pandemic, while acknowledging that, first and foremost, it (...) is a human tragedy. With nearly a million deaths reported worldwide to date, and with everyone effected in one way or another by Covid-19, there is a degree of discomfort, and a responsibility to be sensitive, in reflecting and writing about it academically. Members of this ‘Covid Collective’ come from various countries, with perspectives from Great Britain and Ireland well represented, and we see academic practice as a globally connected enterprise, especially since the digital revolution in academic publishing. The concerns raised in this article relate to but move beyond Covid-19, reflecting the impact of neoliberalism [and other political developments] on geopolitics with educational concerns as central to our focus. (shrink)

The current COVID-19 pandemic and the previous SARS/MERS outbreaks of 2003 and 2012 have resulted in a series of major global public health crises. We argue that in the interest of developing effective and safe vaccines and drugs and to better understand coronaviruses and associated disease mechenisms it is necessary to integrate the large and exponentially growing body of heterogeneous coronavirus data. Ontologies play an important role in standard-based knowledge and data representation, integration, sharing, and analysis. Accordingly, we initiated the (...) development of the community-based Coronavirus Infectious Disease Ontology in early 2020. -/- As an Open Biomedical Ontology (OBO) library ontology, CIDO is open source and interoperable with other existing OBO ontologies. CIDO is aligned with the Basic Formal Ontology and Viral Infectious Disease Ontology. CIDO has imported terms from over 30 OBO ontologies. For example, CIDO imports all SARS-CoV-2 protein terms from the Protein Ontology, COVID-19-related phenotype terms from the Human Phenotype Ontology, and over 100 COVID-19 terms for vaccines (both authorized and in clinical trial) from the Vaccine Ontology. CIDO systematically represents variants of SARS-CoV-2 viruses and over 300 amino acid substitutions therein, along with over 300 diagnostic kits and methods. CIDO also describes hundreds of host-coronavirus protein-protein interactions (PPIs) and the drugs that target proteins in these PPIs. CIDO has been used to model COVID-19 related phenomena in areas such as epidemiology. The scope of CIDO was evaluated by visual analysis supported by a summarization network method. CIDO has been used in various applications such as term standardization, inference, natural language processing (NLP) and clinical data integration. We have applied the amino acid variant knowledge present in CIDO to analyze differences between SARS-CoV-2 Delta and Omicron variants. CIDO's integrative host-coronavirus PPIs and drug-target knowledge has also been used to support drug repurposing for COVID-19 treatment. -/- CIDO represents entities and relations in the domain of coronavirus diseases with a special focus on COVID-19. It supports shared knowledge representation, data and metadata standardization and integration, and has been used in a range of applications. (shrink)

Using medical advances to enhance human athletic, aesthetic, and cognitive performance, rather than to treat disease, has been controversial. Little is known about physicians? experiences, views, and attitudes in this regard. We surveyed a national sample of physicians to determine how often they prescribe enhancements, their views on using medicine for enhancement, and whether they would be willing to prescribe a series of potential interventions that might be considered enhancements. We find that many physicians occasionally prescribe enhancements, but doctors hold (...) nuanced and ambiguous views of these issues. Most express concerns about the potential effects of enhancements on social equity, yet many also believe specific enhancements that are safe and effective should be available but not covered by insurance. These apparently contradictory views might reflect inherent tensions between the values of equity and liberty, which could make crafting coherent social policies on medical enhancements challenging. [Supplementary materials are available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of American Journal of Bioethics for the following free supplemental resource(s): An additional table (Table 5) referred to on p. 5]. (shrink)

Volume 19, Issue 6, June 2019, Page 22-25.

Advancements in fetal assessment and therapeutic intervention in medical practice and clinical research call for corresponding progress in regulatory and ethical guidance. In “A new ethical framewo...

BackgroundIn the Canadian Alliance for Healthy Hearts and Minds (CAHHM) cohort, participants underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain, heart, and abdomen, that generated incidental findings (IFs). The approach to managing these unexpected results remain a complex issue. Our objectives were to describe the CAHHM policy for the management of IFs, to understand the impact of disclosing IFs to healthy research participants, and to reflect on the ethical obligations of researchers in future MRI studies.MethodsBetween 2013 and 2019, 8252 participants (...) (mean age 58 ± 9 years, 54% women) were recruited with a follow-up questionnaire administered to 909 participants (40% response rate) at 1-year. The CAHHM policy followed a restricted approach, whereby routine feedback on IFs was not provided. Only IFs of severe structural abnormalities were reported.ResultsSevere structural abnormalities occurred in 8.3% (95% confidence interval 7.7–8.9%) of participants, with the highest proportions found in the brain (4.2%) and abdomen (3.1%). The majority of participants (97%) informed of an IF reported no change in quality of life, with 3% of participants reporting that the knowledge of an IF negatively impacted their quality of life. Furthermore, 50% reported increased stress in learning about an IF, and in 95%, the discovery of an IF did not adversely impact his/her life insurance policy. Most participants (90%) would enrol in the study again and perceived the MRI scan to be beneficial, regardless of whether they were informed of IFs. While the implications of a restricted approach to IF management was perceived to be mostly positive, a degree of diagnostic misconception was present amongst participants, indicating the importance of a more thorough consent process to support participant autonomy.ConclusionThe management of IFs from research MRI scans remain a challenging issue, as participants may experience stress and a reduced quality of life when IFs are disclosed. The restricted approach to IF management in CAHHM demonstrated a fair fulfillment of the overarching ethical principles of respect for autonomy, concern for wellbeing, and justice. The approach outlined in the CAHHM policy may serve as a framework for future research studies.Clinical trial registrationhttps://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/nct02220582. (shrink)

This book deals with the ethics of technology and addresses specific ethical problems related to some emerging technologies, mainly in the field of computer science (from machine learning models to extracting value from data to human–robot interaction). The contributions are authored mainly by scholars in ICT and other engineering fields who reflect on ethical and societal issues emerging from their own research activity. Thus, rather uniquely, the work overcomes the traditional divide between pure ethical theory that disregards what practitioners do (...) and mere R&D practice that ignores what theorists conceptualize. Conversely, the reader is enabled to understand what ethics means when it is actually put into work by engineering researchers. The book arises from a joint program between MIT and Politecnico di Milano aimed at training early career researchers in addressing the ethical issues of technology and critically reflecting on the social impacts of the emerging, and even disruptive, technologies they are currently developing through their novel research. Overall, it aims at spreading the task of developing technologies that, from the beginning, are designed to be responsible for human life, society, and nature. (shrink)

Biography of Sukhlalji Sanghavi, philosopher and Jaina thinker.

Rationalization in the sense of biased self-justification is very familiar. It's not cheating because everyone else is doing it too. I didn't report the abuse because it wasn't my place. I understated my income this year because I paid too much in tax last year. I'm only a social smoker, so I won't get cancer. The mental mechanisms subserving rationalization have been studied closely by psychologists. However, when viewed against the backdrop of philosophical accounts of the regulative role of truth (...) in doxastic deliberation , rationalization can look very puzzling. Almost all contemporary philosophers endorse a version of the thesis of deliberative exclusivity—a thinker cannot in full consciousness decide whether to believe that p in a way that issues directly in forming a belief by adducing anything other than considerations that he or she regards as relevant to the truth of p. But, as I argue, rationalization involves the weighing of considerations that the thinker kn.. (shrink)

Ṣadr al-Dīn Shīrāzī, Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm, -1641--Criticism and interpretation. ; Islamic philosophy.

jild-i 1. Az ʻAbd al-Ḥamīd Kātib (59 Sh.) tā Abū al-Ḥasan Masʻūdī (336 Sh.) -- jild-i 2. Az Abū al-Ḥasan ʻĀmirī (291 Sh.) tā Abū al-Faz̤l Bayhaqī (465 Sh.) -- jild-i 3. Az Nāṣir Khusraw (383 Sh.) tā Sadīd al-Dīn ʻAwfī (616 Sh.) -- jild-i 4. Az Najm al-Dīn Rāzī (553 Sh.) tā Fakhr al-Muḥaqqiqīn (748 Sh.) -- jild-i 5. Az ʻUbayd Zākānī (670 Sh.) tā Jalāl al-Dīn Sayūṭī (884 Sh.) -- jild-i 6. Az Rūzbihān Khunjī (825 Sh.) tā Shaykh (...) Ḥurr ʻĀmilī (1071 Sh.) -- jild-i 7. Az ʻAlāmah Majlisī (1006 Sh.) tā Muḥammad Bāqir Shafaq (1223 Sh.) -- jild-i 8. Az Muḥammad Ṣādiq Marvazī (1147 Sh.) tā Mīrzā Fatḥʻalī Ākhūndzādah (1289 Sh.) -- jild-i 9. Az Mīrzā-yi Shīrāzī Avval (1194 Sh.) tā Ākhūnd Khurāsānī (1290 Sh.) -- jild-i 10. Az ʻAbd Allāh Māzandarānī (1219 Sh.) tā Saʻd Zaghlūl (1306 Sh.) -- jild-i 11. Az ʻImād al-ʻUlamāʼ Khalkhālī (1237 Sh.) tā ʻAbd al-ʻAzīz S̲aʻālibī (1323 Sh.) -- jild-i 12. Az Āyat Allāh Burūjirdī (1254 Sh.) tā Muḥammad Amīn Rasūlʹzādah (1333 Sh.) -- jild-i 13. Az ʻAbd al-Karīm Zanjānī (1263 Sh.) tā Amīn al-Ḥusaynī (1353 Sh.) -- jild-i 14. Az Jamālzādah (1274 Sh.) tā Mahdī Bāzargān (1373) -- jild-i 15. Az Muḥammad Ḥamīd Allāh (1286 Sh.) tā Muṭahharī (1358 Sh.) -- jild-i 16. Az Farīdūn Ādamīyat (1299 Sh.) tā Muṣṭafá Khumaynī (1356 Sh.) -- jild-i 17. Az Samīr Amīn (1310 Sh.) tā Ḥasan Ḥanafī -- jild-i 18. Az Sayyid Muḥammad Bāqir Ṣadr (1314 Sh.) tā Rāshid al-Ghanūshī -- jild-i 19. Az ʻAlī Awmlīl (1321 Sh.) tā Ṭāriq Ramaz̤ān. (shrink)

Machiavelli, Niccolò, 1469-1527-Criticism and interpretation ; Political science-Translating.

Jild-i 1-2. Nāmahʹī az nāmahʹhā-yi andīshahʹvarzī.

Shaḥrūr, Muḥammad; Islamic philosophy; Qurʼan; hermeneutics; criticism, interpretation, etc.

Political science - Iran - History ; Political science - Philosophy.

Criticism and interpretation of Murtaz̤á Muṭahharī; Iranian religious scholar.

Heidegger, Martin, 1889-1976- Criticism and interpretation ; Corbin, Henry, 1903-1978- Criticism and interpretation ; Fardīd, Aḥmad, 1912-1994- Criticism and interpretation.

jild-i 1. Falsafah -- jild-i 2. Andīshahʹhā-yi kalāmī va ijtimāʻī.

Ḥāʼirī Yazdī, Mahdī - Criticism and interpretation ;Muslim philosophers - Iran ;Muslim scholars - Iran.

An introduction to the philosophy of ʻAzīz al-Dīn ibn Muḥammad Nasafī, 13th cent. and Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm Ṣadr al-Dīn Shīrāzī, d. 1641 about mysticism and politics in Iran.

We welcome Ballantyne & Schaefer’s discussion of the issues concerning consent and use of health data for research. In response to their acknowledgement of the need for public debate and discussion, we provide evidence from our own public consultation on this topic.