The current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has killed thousands across the world. SARS-CoV-2 is the latest but surely not the last such global pandemic we will face. The biomedical response to such pandemics includes treatment, vaccination, and so on. In this paper, though, we argue that it is time to consider an additional strategy: the somatic enhancement of human immunity. We argue for this approach and consider bioethics objections we believe can be overcome.

This essay discusses the new report, Heritable Human Genome Editing, by the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Sciences, and the Royal Society. After summarizing the report, we argue that the report takes four quite bold steps away from prior reports, namely (1) rejecting an omnibus approach to heritable human genome editing (HHGE) in favor of a case‐by‐case analysis of possible uses of HHGE, accepting that HHGE is acceptable in some cases; (2) recognizing that the interest in having (...) children who are genetically related to both would‐be rearing parents is one that the regulation of HHGE should honor; (3) patterning a regulatory model for HHGE on the United Kingdom's approach to regulating mitochondrial replacement techniques; and (4) conveying skepticism that international regulation is possible while showing a strong preference for a default into national regulatory regimes for HHGE. (shrink)

This essay discusses the new report, Heritable Human Genome Editing, by the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Sciences, and the Royal Society. After summarizing the report, we argue that the report takes four quite bold steps away from prior reports, namely (1) rejecting an omnibus approach to heritable human genome editing (HHGE) in favor of a case‐by‐case analysis of possible uses of HHGE, accepting that HHGE is acceptable in some cases; (2) recognizing that the interest in having (...) children who are genetically related to both would‐be rearing parents is one that the regulation of HHGE should honor; (3) patterning a regulatory model for HHGE on the United Kingdom's approach to regulating mitochondrial replacement techniques; and (4) conveying skepticism that international regulation is possible while showing a strong preference for a default into national regulatory regimes for HHGE. (shrink)

When prospective parents use in vitro fertilization, many of them hope to generate more embryos than they intend to implant immediately. The technology often requires multiple attempts to reach a successful pregnancy, and couples can cryopreserve any excess embryos so that they have them on hand for later attempts. As part of obtaining informed consent for IVF or cryopreservation, clinics typically ask patients to specify their preferences for the embryos in the event of divorce or death, offering options such as (...) use of the embryos by a specified partner, donation to research, or discarding the remaining embryos. Still, many courts face a recurring problem: the partners dissolve their relationship, and one party wants to use the frozen embryos over the objections of the other. Courts and legislatures have struggled with how to handle these cases, which seem to pit one partner's right to procreate against the other's right not to procreate. In this essay, we use one of the most recent decisions in this line of cases—the Appellate Court of Illinois's decision in Szafranski v. Dunston—to explain the current state of the law and make recommendations for changes. The issue is ripe for revisiting because in the last year, embryo disputes have become a battlefront for larger conflagrations over the moral status of embryos. (shrink)

Professor Sparrow’s (2022) Target Article helpfully elucidates the question of when the ordinary person-affecting conception of harm and benefit should apply to discussions of germline genome editi...

Artificial intelligence surveillance can be used to diagnose individual cases, track the spread of Covid‐19, and help provide care. The use of AI for surveillance purposes (such as detecting new Covid‐19 cases and gathering data from healthy and ill individuals) in a pandemic raises multiple concerns ranging from privacy to discrimination to access to care. Luckily, there exist several frameworks that can help guide stakeholders, especially physicians but also AI developers and public health officials, as they navigate these treacherous shoals. (...) While these frameworks were not explicitly designed for AI surveillance during a pandemic, they can be adapted to help address concerns regarding privacy, human rights, and due process and equality. In a time where the rapid implementation of all tools available is critical to ending a pandemic, physicians, public health officials, and technology companies should understand the criteria for the ethical implementation of AI surveillance. (shrink)

Hastings Center Report, Volume 52, Issue 2, Page 10-14, March‐April 2022.

One of the distinctive features of the primate genome is the Alu element, a repetitive short interspersed element, over a million highly similar copies of which account for >10% of the genome. A direct consequence of this feature is that primates' transcriptome is highly enriched in long stable dsRNA structures, the preferred target of adenosine deaminases acting on RNAs (ADARs), which are the enzymes catalyzing A‐to‐I RNA editing. Indeed, A‐to‐I editing by ADARs is extremely abundant in primates: over a hundred (...) million editing sites exist in their genomes. However, there are few essential editing sites conserved across mammals that have maintained their editing level despite the radical change in ADAR target landscape. Here, we review and discuss the cost of having an unusual amount of dsRNA and editing in the transcriptome, as well as the opportunities it presents, which might have contributed to the accelerated evolution of the primates. (shrink)

Écrire, c’est actualiser le geste de l’adieu pour aller nulle part. Je dis donc adieu au Liban, où je ne reviendrai sans doute plus qu’en esprit, dans la clandestinité d’un silence amoureux.Un écrivain qui fait ses adieux au monde y retourne dans un livre. La formule n’est pas seulement romantique. J’essaierai de vous le montrer dans les lignes..

Structural Realism (SSR), as embodied in the Ramsey-sentence H* of a theory H, is defended against the view that H* reduces to a trivial statement about the cardinality of the domain of H, a view which arises from ignoring the central role of observation within science. Putnam’s theses are examined and shown to support rather than undermine SSR. Finally: in view of its synthetic character, applied mathematics must enter into the formulation of H* and hence be shown to be finitely (...) axiomatisable; this is done in the Appendix, which is the most important part of the paper. (shrink)

En este artículo discuto una nueva aproximación al concepto de teología política. Mi propuesta es que al incluir la perspectiva ecofeminista se abren nuevas miradas para abordar la discusión de la teología política, que se ha caracterizado por una dominación geográfica, androcéntrica y antropocéntrica en el estado del arte sobre la teología política y su relación con la soberanía. El artículo se articula a partir de ideas planteadas por la teología ecofeminista de Ivone Gebara y Mary Judith Ress en el (...) contexto latinoamericano. Para finalizar, planteo el caso del colectivo Con-spirando como una posibilidad política de acercarnos a nuevos modos de abordar el concepto de teología política. (shrink)

The Evans-Salmon position on vague identity has deservedly elicited a large response in the literature. I think it is in fact among the most provocative metaphysical ideas to appear in recent years. I will try to show in this paper, however, that the position is vulnerable to a fundamental criticism that seems to have been virtually ignored in the many discussions of it. I take the Evans-Salmon position to consist of the following two theses: Thesis I. There cannot be objects (...) x and y such that it is indeterminate whether x is (identical with) y. Thesis II. The only way for an identity sentence to be indeterminate in truth-value is if one of the expressions flanking the identity symbol is referentially ambiguous.] The argument for Thesis I is essentially as follows. We are assuming that the sense of identity under discussion satisfies the standard formal logic of identity including Leibniz's Law. Suppose, now, that it is indeterminate whether x is y. Since it is determinate that x is x, x differs from y with respect to the property of being determinately x, from which it follows by Leibniz's Law that x is not y. Since the supposition that it is indeterminate whether x is y leads to the conclusion that x is not y, this supposition is incoherent. (shrink)

The George W. Bush ascent to the presidency lacks a true precedent in the United States History. It is true that in three previous elections (1824, 1876 and 1888) it happened that a candidate gained the popular vote and the other the electoral vote. But that was not the distinctive characteristic..

El psicoanálisis, desde mi punto de vista, es una teorí­a y una práctica para la vida personal. Su históricamente original telos fue, valga la expresión, el desmontaje de la familia, la liberación de lo individual de sus patrones paternal y maternal. Así­, para entender la diferencia que el género representa para las mujeres analistas de la década de 1920, tenemos que situarlas en relación con el despliegue de la historia de la vida personal. ésta, en cualquier caso, es la aproximación (...) que desarrolla este ensayo, centrado en las contribuciones de Melanie Klein."œThe ironic fate of feminist psichoanalysis: The case of Melanie Klein"From my point of view psychoanalysis is a theory and practice for personal life. Historically its original telos was, excuse the expression, the dismantling of the family, the liberation of the individual from his or her paternal and maternal masters. Thus, in order to understand the diference that the genre represents for women analysts in the 192 0s, we have to place them in relation to the unfolding of the history of personal life. This, in any case, is the approach developed in this essay, based on Melanie Klein "™s contributions. (shrink)

Structural Realism (SSR), as embodied in the Ramsey-sentence H of a theory H, is defended against the view that H reduces to a trivial statement about the cardinally of the domain of H, a view which arises from ignoring the central role of observation within science. Putnam's theses are examined and shown to support rather than undermine SSR. Finally: in view of its synthetic character, applied mathematics must enter into the formulation of H and hence to be shown axiomatisable; this (...) is done in the Appendix, which is the most important part of the paper. (shrink)

In this paper I try to explain why Lakatos’s conventionalist view must be replaced by a phenomenological conception of the empirical basis; for only in this way can one make sense of the theses that the hard core of an RP can be shielded against refutations; that this metaphysical hard core can be turned into a set of guidelines or, alternatively, into a set of heuristic metaprinciples governing the development of an RP; and that a distinction can legitimately be made (...) between novel predictions and facts to which a theory might have been adjusted post hoc. Two basic metaprinciples are finally examined: the Correspondence Principle and various symmetry requirements; both of these heuristic devices illustrate the fundamental role which, according to Lakatos, mathematics plays in the progress of empirical science. (shrink)

Resumo: A partir da disseminação das políticas educacionais inclusivas observa-se um aumento de matrículas de estudantes em situação de deficiência no Ensino Superior, elegíveis aos serviços de Educação Especial, no Brasil. Este artigo objetiva analisar os critérios institucionais utilizados para delinear o perfil desses universitários nos dados Censitários da Universidade e, de que modo tais dados comungam com as políticas educacionais inclusivas vigentes. Por conseguinte, buscará compreender como as políticas institucionais da universidade se correlacionam com as do Censo do Ensino (...) Superior e Políticas Educacionais Inclusivas no que refere aos apoios e medidas protetivas de acesso e participação dos estudantes a esta etapa de ensino à população mencionada. Trata-se de um estudo documental balizado na descrição do perfil de universitários da graduação e de pós-graduação, de uma universidade pública paulista no a) anuário institucional, b) formulário de identificação de matrícula de estudantes e, c) das designações desta população, descrita no Censo do INEP. Os resultados demonstraram um descompasso na caracterização dos marcadores que retratam o perfil do público em relação as designações referenciadas na Lei Brasileira de Inclusão. A escassez de práticas institucionais inclusivas dirigidas a este tema, somadas a falta de clareza na compreensão sobre as demandas educacionais específicas, declaradas pelos estudantes contribuem para manter um clima de instabilidade das tratativas de respostas à permanência deste público na universidade investigada. Palavra-chave: Acessibilidade; Deficiência; Ensino Superior; Políticas Educacionais Inclusivas. Policy for the identification of students with SEN at a public Brazilian university Abstract: From the dissemination of inclusive educational policies, there is an increase in enrollment of students with Special Educational Needs (SEN) in Higher Education, users of Special Education services, in Brazil.The article aims to analyze the institutional criteria used to delineate the profile of these university students in the University's Census data and how these data are in line with the current inclusive educational policies. Therefore, it will seek to understand how the university's institutional policies correlate with those of the Higher Education Census and Inclusive Educational Policies regarding support and protective measures to access this stage of education for the population mentioned. This is a documentary study based on the description of the profile of undergraduate and graduate students, of a public university in São Paulo in a) institutional yearbook, b) student enrollment identification form, and c) the designations of this population, described in the INEP Census. The results demonstrated a disparity in the characterization of the markers that portray the public's profile in relation to the designations referenced in the Brazilian Inclusion Law. The shortage of inclusive institutional practices aimed at this theme, added to the lack of clarity in understanding about the especific educational demands, declared by students at the time contribute to maintaining a climate of instability in the treatment of responses to the permanence of this public in the investigated university. Key-words: Accessibility; Disability; Higher Education; Inclusive Educational Policies. Política para la identificación de estudiantes con NEE en una universidad pública brasileña Resumen: El artigo tiene como objetivo analizar los criterios institucionales utilizados para delinear el perfil de estos estudiantes universitarios en los datos del Censo de la Universidad y cómo estos datos están en línea con las políticas educativas inclusivas vigentes. Por lo tanto, le interesará comprender cómo las políticas institucionales de la universidad se correlacionan con las del Censo de Educación Superior y las Políticas Educativas Inclusivas en cuanto a medidas de apoyo y protección para el acceso a esta etapa educativa para la población mencionada. Se trata de un estudio documental basado en la descripción del perfil de estudiantes de grado y posgrado, de una universidad pública de São Paulo en a) anuario institucional y b) formulario de identificación de matrícula y, c) las designaciones de esta población, descritas en Censo del INEP. Los resultados demostraron un desajuste en la caracterización de los marcadores que retratan el perfil del público en relación a las designaciones referenciadas en la Ley de Inclusión brasileña. La escasez de prácticas institucionales inclusivas dirigidas a esta temática, sumada a la falta de claridad en la comprensión de las demandas educativas especificas, declaradas por los estudiantes al momento de su ingreso y / o matrícula, contribuyen a mantener un clima de inestabilidad en el tratamiento de respuestas a la permanencia de este público en la universidad investigada. Palabra-claves: Accesibilidad ; Deficiencia ; Enseñanza superior ; Políticas educativas inclusivas Data de registro: 16/04/2021 Data de aceite: 16/02/2022. (shrink)

This is a strikingly original, rich, and trenchant study. Its point of departure is the notion of discrimination, which is shown to illuminate a range of topics in metaphysics and epistemology, including subjectivity, observationality, sorites paradoxes, and identity criteria. A central problem involves the phenomenal character of experience. We are intuitively tempted to say that character is subjective in the sense that distinct characters must be discriminable. This seems to imply that matching experiences--that is, experiences which are indiscriminable in character--must (...) have the same character. We find familiar cases, however, in which the experiences x and y match, and the experiences y and z match, but x and z do not match. Williamson defends the subjectivity of character by arguing that a pair of characters may be indiscriminable as presented by one pair of experiences but discriminable as presented by another pair of experiences. Hence the indiscriminability of characters is indeed sufficient for their identity, which makes characters subjective, but the matching of experiences is not sufficient for the experiences' having the same character. (shrink)

Los Comités Hospitalarios de Bioética (CHB) tienen la atribución de emitir sugerencias al personal de salud, ante casos clínicos difíciles que involucran problemas y/o dilemas bioéticos. A nivel mundial, y también en México, se encontró poca literatura relacionada, generando en ocasiones cierto grado de incertidumbre en los profesionales de la salud para su resolución. Objetivo: describir los motivos de presentación de casos clínicos de pacientes ante el CHB en un hospital de segundo nivel, desde junio de 2007 a junio de (...) 2018. Método: estudio observacional, descriptivo, retrospectivo y transversal; la muestra fue por conveniencia y se obtuvieron 48 registros de minutas. Resultados: el motivo de consulta más frecuente ante los CHB fue el apoyo en la decisión para la limitación del esfuerzo terapéutico, con 24 casos (50%). Se identificaron 34 dilemas bioéticos (71%) y 14 problemas bioéticos (29%). Conclusiones: ayudará a los servicios médicos tratantes a identificar e intervenir oportunamente, al basarse en situaciones previas sobre dilemas y/o problemas bioéticos. (shrink)