"The largest Ebola outbreak to date—first detected in December 2013 and still ongoing as of April 2015—has cast new light on the shortfalls of international public health systems.1 As in previous health crises, scrutiny has reemerged over the pharmaceutical industry’s ability and willingness to innovate new medicines for underserved disease areas. The public debate has intensified following revelations that promising drug candidates to treat Ebola had gone undeveloped despite compelling preclinical results.2 This lack of development is especially troubling because it (...) occurred after a recently implemented U.S. incentive scheme—the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) tropical disease priority review voucher program—designed to counteract exactly this problem. Taking Ebola as a case in point, it is useful to examine the short history and ongoing refinement of this voucher program, since it represents one of the most significant legislative efforts to systematically address the relative absence of com- mercial rewards for drugs targeting tropical diseases. This analysis evaluates the voucher program’s effectiveness for both stimulating private sector innovation and achieving positive health impacts among populations most severely burdened by tropical diseases. It then proposes specific recommendations for how law- makers can improve the program’s legislation to better achieve these objectives. ". (shrink)

The sixth decade of this century may be considered a period of dynamic development of the Soviet ethics. In contrast with the post-revolutionary period, the ethics does not limit itself to a normative reflection, but starts also extensive studies in the theory of ethics. According to the authors of the present article, there are all reasons to believe that the marxist ethics will become a scientific discipline in a full sense of the word. The purpose of the article is not (...) to discuss all problems involved in the contemporary Soviet ethics, but above all to outline main problems and trends of its development. The authors distinguish following aspects of the ethical investigations: philosophical, sociological, social-psychological, axiological, pedagogical, historical, gnoseological, logical, and metaethical. Together with a critical evaluation of solutions of certain problems, they criticize some abstractive and ahistorical, in their opinion, approach to ethics which has been manifested above all in works of Y. A. Milner-Irinin and P. M. Egides. (shrink)

This article provides ethical guidance on using race in health research as a variable or in defining the study population. To this end, a plain, non-exhaustive checklist is provided for researchers and research ethics committees, preceded by a brief introduction on the need for justification when using race as a variable or in defining a study population, the problem of exoticism, that distinctions pertain between race, ethnicity and ancestry, the problematic naming of races, and that race does not serve well (...) as a presumed biological construct in genetic research. (shrink)

Since its publication in 1965, Brian Barry's seminal work has occupied an important role in the revival of Anglo-American political philosophy. A number of ideas and terms in it have become part of the standard vocabulary, such as the distinction between "ideal-regarding" and "want-regarding" principles and the division of principles into aggregative and distributive. The book provided the first precise analysis of the concept of political values having trade-off relations and its analysis of the notion of the public interest has (...) also been significant. (shrink)

(No abstract is available for this citation).

PurposeThe relation between fear of childbirth and gestational age is inconclusive, and self-reported need for help regarding this fear has never been investigated. This study aimed to determine the prevalence and course of FoC according to gestational age, to identify risk factors for the development of FoC, the influence of this fear on preferred mode of delivery, and self-reported need for help.MethodsNulliparous pregnant women of all gestational ages completed an online survey. The study consisted of a cross-sectional and a longitudinal (...) analysis. Women who completed the survey in the first or second trimester were approached again in their third trimester. The Wijma Delivery Expectancy Questionnaire Version A was used with a cut-off score ≥ 85 to define presence of fear of childbirth. Questionnaires indexing social support, anxiety, symptoms of depression, preferred mode of delivery, and self-reported need for help were included.ResultsIn total, 364 women were enrolled at T0, and 118 out of 184 eligible women were included in the longitudinal analysis. Point prevalence of FoC at T0 was 18.4% with no significant difference between trimesters. In the longitudinal sample, the prevalence of FoC decreased from 18.6% to 11.0%, p = 0.004. Although mean scores for FoC decreased significantly, p < 0.001, scores increased in 41 women. The presence of FoC was associated with elevated anxiety, less family support, prenatal care of the obstetrician by choice, preference for a cesarean section, and for pain relief. Women with FoC were more likely to actively seek for help compared to women without FoC.ConclusionWhile FoC is common in each trimester, prevalence decreases over the course of pregnancy. Women with FoC are often actively seeking for help, suggesting that this fear should be addressed better, and help should be offered accordingly. (shrink)

Joining the ongoing academic debates around medical students’ alternative career choices, this research examines the role of family in medical school attendees’ entrepreneurial intention. Specifically, this study decomposes the multidimensionality of family embeddedness and highlights the mediated nature of the family–EI relationship. The empirical analysis relied on data from graduation year medical students from diverse geographical locations and from different institution types in China. These data were collected from a total of 687 questionnaires covering the basic information of individual, parents, (...) and family composition, as well as the measuring scale of EI. Examining medical students’ EI and its antecedents provide a dual-missing-link in the extant knowledge, i.e., it adds the medical school piece to the overall picture of university students’ EI, and equally important, it de-trivializes entrepreneurship from the extant theorizations of medical students’ career choices. This study also bears implications for educators, practitioners, and policymakers interested in better understanding EI of medical school attendees and family embeddedness. (shrink)

From these words of Athenaeus, the majority of scholars have come to the Dnclusion that the Asotodidaskalos was not, despite what Sotion says, composed by Alexis, but is a forgery; and some even go so far as to attribute the forgery to Sotion himself. Yet nowhere do they support their views with sufficient rguments; nowhere has the question, in the light of all the evidence, both sternal and internal, been fully considered. Meineke has indeed given clear reasons for his belief (...) that the play as not written by Alexis, in objecting to three usages in the cited fragment as unattic ; but these objections are not all justifiable, as Kock has lown in the case of , or together inclusive enough to make us reject the fragment out of hand. (shrink)