Elizabeth A. McGibbon and Josephine B. Etowa, Anti-racist health care practice, Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press, 2009, reviewed by Kathryn L. Mackay.

In their Target Article, “Promoting Ethical Payment in Human Infection Challenge Studies,” Lynch et al. propose a framework for ethical payment to research participants and apply it to the c...

In this article, I focus on two problematic aspects of British health-promotion campaigns regarding feeding children, particularly regarding breastfeeding and obesity. The first of these is that health-promotion campaigns around “lifestyle” issues dehumanize mothers with their imagery or text, stemming from the ongoing undervaluing and objectification of mothers and women. Public health-promotion instrumentalizes mothers as necessary components in achieving its aims, while at the same time undermining their agency as persons and interlocutors by tying “mother” to particular images. This has (...) a double effect: first, it excludes mothers who do not fit the campaign picture of a mother; second, it encloses those who do fit the picture into an objectified image of motherhood that is defined by and subject to the dominant white, heteropatriarchal gaze. The second problem is that campaigns place unjustified demands on mothers, which stem from a misinterpretation of the maternal duty to benefit. I argue that nutrition-related health concerns regarding children are improperly framed as individual failures of maternal duty, rather than as failures of a system to function correctly. These arguments ultimately support shifting the focus of responsibility for issues around childhood nutrition away from mothers and back toward policymakers. (shrink)

Hospital systems commonly face the challenge of determining just ways to allocate scarce drugs during national shortages. There is no standardised approach of how this should be instituted, but principles of distributive justice are commonly used so that patients who are most likely to benefit from the drug receive it. As a result, clinical indications, in which the evidence for the drug is assumed to be established, are often prioritised over research use. In this manuscript, we present a case of (...) a phase II investigational trial of intravenous thiamine for delirium prevention in patients undergoing haematopoietic stem cell transplantation to emphasise several shortcomings in the overarching prioritisation of clinical over research uses of scarce drugs. Specifically, we present the following considerations: clinical use may not have stronger evidence than research use; a strong scientific rationale for research use may outweigh the claim for clinical indications in which there is weak evidence; treatment within the context of a clinical trial may be the standard of care; and research use may not only benefit patients receiving the treatment but also offers the prospect of improving future clinical care. In summary, we argue against allocation schemes that prohibit all research uses of scarce drugs and instead recommend that allocation schemes include a balanced approach that weighs risks and benefits of access to scarce drugs irrespective of the research versus clinical use designation. (shrink)

In the case discussion, ‘Equity in Public Health Ethics: The Case of Menu Labelling Policy at the Local Level’ , Mah and Timming state that menu labelling would ‘place requirements for information disclosure on private sector food businesses, which, as a policy instrument, is arguably less intrusive than related activities such as requiring changes to the food content’. In this commentary on Mah and Timming’s case study, I focus on discussing how menu-labelling policy permits governments to avoid addressing the heart (...) of the problem, which is high-calorie, high-sodium restaurant food. Menu labelling policy does not address food content in a way that is meaningful for change, instead relying on individuals to change their behaviour given new information. Besides having questionable efficacy, this raises concerns about moralizing food choices. (shrink)

The concept of projection from one space to another, with a consequent loss of information, can be seen in the relationships of gene to protein and language description to real situation. Such a transformation can only be reversed if extra external information is re-supplied. The genetic algorithm embodying this idea is now used in applied mathematics for exploring a configuration space. Such a dialectic – transformation back and forth between two kinds of description – extends the traditional Hegelian concept used (...) by Engels and others of change as resulting from a resolution of the conflict of two opposing tendencies and provides for evolution of the joint system. (shrink)

Elizabeth A. McGibbon and Josephine B. Etowa’s co-authored book Anti-racist Health Care Practice exposes and addresses systemic racism in the Canadian health-care system. McGibbon and Etowa directly confront racism in health provision and Canadian society, and provide a discussion of racism and related issues (gender, class) that does not hold back criticisms. The system of racial oppression and its sustenance by white privilege is presented to the reader in a clear and straightforward way, making it impossible for the reader to (...) deny or misunderstand his or her role in the power structures of Canadian (or American) society. The book is directed primarily at medical practitioners, as well as educators and policy .. (shrink)

_Purpose._ The purpose of the article lies in studying the main socio-anthropological measurements of the problem of recognition represented primarily by the philosophy of recognition of Alex Honneth, which is actualized by the struggle of the Ukrainian people for their existence and national-cultural recognition. A consistent analysis of the communicative paradigm in contemporary philosophy led to the understanding of its transformation into the reality of the problem of recognition and the identification of the main forms of recognition in it, which (...) determine an individual’s perception of the social space as fair or unfair, where his dignity is disrespected. _Theoretical basis._ Turning to the works of Jurgen Habermas, Otfried Hoeffe, Ernst Tugendhat, Stefan Gosepath, and Thomas Rentsch made it possible to supplement the mainly procedural, theoretical-communicative way of philosophizing with a philosophical-anthropological, existential, contextual principle of awareness of recognition as a fundamental principle of justice and the understanding that the brutal, unjust destruction of the "living world" of a person and the state is synonymous with their physical destruction. The thesis of Francis Fukuyama about the relationship between the desire for recognition and human dignity inherent in human nature has acquired an important theoretical and methodological meaning. _Originality._ The article investigates the modern philosophical discourse of the problem of recognition in the socio-anthropological measurements, in the context of the relationship between recognition, the "living world" and justice, non-recognition, humiliation of human dignity, and injustice. And it was also found that the image of recognition represented by modern philosophical thought, as a horizon and condition of human existence, is based on the following components: justice, solidarity, dignity, and care. Exactly addressing the problem of recognition made it possible to answer the question about the anthropological-ontological, existential meaning of the desire of individuals, nations, and states for recognition and outline the ways of transforming recognition as a variant of "communicative utopia" into a real socio-cultural project. _Conclusions._ In contrast to justice, the theory of recognition comes from asymmetrical human relations, which, in the struggle for recognition, must become symmetrical. Although justice takes precedence over ethics of care and recognition, they are not actually in competition with each other, but belong to different but complementary dimensions of human existence. The perspective of philosophical understanding of the problem of recognition itself requires the deepening of its analysis with an existential-anthropological understanding rooted in a new, tragic life experience. Only under such conditions, it is possible to overcome the gap between often abstract philosophical reflections and real personal and social practices. (shrink)

A commitment to truth requires that you are open to receiving new evidence, even if that evidence contradicts your current beliefs. You should be open to changing your mind. However, this truism gives rise to the paradox of empathy. The paradox arises with the possibility of mental corruption through transformative change, and has consequences for how we should understand tolerance, disagreement, and the ability to have an open mind. I close with a discussion of how understanding this paradox provides a (...) new explanation for a certain kind of standoff between the believer and the skeptic with regard to religious belief. (shrink)

Книга содержит результаты многолетних исследований проблемы диалога и синтеза различных познавательных практик в социальных и гуманитарных науках.

David Hume's Treatise of Human Nature, composed before the author was twenty-eight years old, was published in 1739 and 1740. In revising the late L.A. Selby-Bigge's edition of Hume's Treatise Professor Nidditch corrected verbal errors and took account of Hume's manuscript amendments. He also supplied the text of theof the Treatise following the original 1740 edition and provided an apparatus of variant readings.

Involuntary autobiographical memories are typically discussed in the context of negative memories such as trauma ‘flashbacks’. However, IAMs occur frequently in everyday life and are predominantly positive. In spite of this, surprisingly little is known about how such positive IAMs arise. The trauma film paradigm is often used to generate negative IAMs. Recently an equivalent positive film was developed inducing positive IAMs . The current study is the first to investigate which variables would best predict the frequency of positive IAMs. (...) Higher levels of positive mood change to the film were significantly associated with the number of positive IAMs recorded in the subsequent week. Results demonstrate the importance of positive emotional reaction at the time of an event for subsequent positive IAMs. (shrink)