Background A biobank is a structure which collects and manages biological samples and their associated data. The collected samples will then be made available for various uses. The sharing of those samples raised ethical questions which have been answered through specific rules. Thus, a Biobank functioning under tight ethical rules would be immensely valuable from a scientific and an economic view point. In 2009, Côte d’Ivoire established a biobank, which has been chosen to house the regional biobank of Economic Community (...) of West African States countries in 2018. To ensure optimal and efficient use of this biobank, the scientific community must be aware of its existence and its role. It was therefore necessary to evaluate the knowledge of laboratories staff on the role and activities of a biobank. Methods This descriptive study was done by questioning staff from laboratories working on human’s health, animals or plants. The laboratories were located in southern Côte d’Ivoire. Results A total of 205 people completed the questionnaire. Of these 205 people, 34.63% were biologists, 7.32% engineers, 48.78% technicians and 9.27% PhD students. The average length of work experience was 10.11 ± 7.83 years. In this study, 43.41% of the participants had never heard of biobanking. Only 48.78% of participants had a good understanding of the role of a biobank. Technicians and PhD students were less educated on the notion of biobank. Conclusion The level of knowledge of laboratory staff about biobanking needs to be improved. Training on the role, activities and interests of the biobank is important. (shrink)

Many ethical concerns surrounding human genetics studies remain unresolved. We report here the situation in Cameroon.Objectives: To describe the profile of human genetic studies that used Cameroonian DNA samples, with specific focus on i) the research centres that were involved, ii) authorship, iii) population studied, iv) research topics and v) ethics disclosure, with the aim of raising ethical issues that emerged from these studies.Method: Bibliometric Studies; we conducted a PubMed-based systematic review of all the studies on human genetics that used (...) Cameroonian DNA samples from 1989 to 2009.Results and Discussion: Fifty articles were identified, involving predominantly research centres from Europe (64%) and America (32%). Only 7 (14%) Cameroonian institutions and 14 (28%) Cameroonian authors were associated with these publications.At least 52% of publications were devoted to population genetics (variation/migration patterns) amongst 30 Cameroonian ethnic groups. Very few studies concerned public health related genetic issues and only 5 (10%) references were found for hemoglobinopathies like sickle cell anaemia. Almost all DNA samples are ‘banked’ outside of the African continent.Capacity building, rights to the genetic information and benefits to the individuals, communities and populations who contribute to these studies are addressed.Conclusions: 1) Our data suggests the need for a wider debate towards building capacity and addressing ethical issues related to human genomic research in sub-Saharan Africa and specifically in Cameroon; 2) National ethical guidelines and regulations concerning the collection, use and storage of human DNA are urgently needed in Cameroon. (shrink)

L’article part d’un constat élémentaire : les phénomènes de patrimonialisation se démultiplient et recouvrent toute sorte de réalités. Dans ce contexte, à côté de la recherche traditionnelle sur les questions de patrimoine, ils invitent à développer ce que dans le monde anglo-saxon de la recherche, on dénomme les heritage studies en mettant tout particulièrement l’accent sur la dimension critique de la recherche. Cette dernière ne doit plus chercher à établir, à consolider ou à préserver des patrimoines existants mais à interroger (...) ce qui fait patrimoine et les raisons pour lesquelles des acteurs se mobilisent et tendent à imposer une valeur symbolique à un objet, à une pratique ou à une coutume, non sans en tirer profit. (shrink)

The enrolment of children and adolescents in health research requires that attention to be paid to specific assent and consent requirements such as the age range for seeking assent; conditions for parental consent (and waivers); the age group required to provide written assent; content of assent forms; if separate assent and parental consent forms should be used, consent from emancipated young adults; reconsent at the age of adulthood when a waiver of assent requirements may be appropriate and the conditions for (...) waiving assent requirements. There is however very little available information for researchers and ethics committees on how to navigate these different issues. To provide guidance to research initiatives, the SickleInAfrica consortium conducted a thematic analysis of a sample of research ethics guidelines and procedures in African countries, to identify guidance for assent requirements in health research. The thematic analysis revealed that 12 of 24 African countries specified the age group for which assent is required. The minimum age for written assent varied across the countries. Five countries, Algeria, Botswana, Cameroon, Nigeria and The Democratic Republic of Congo require consent from both parents/family council in certain circumstances. Botswana, Nigeria, South Africa and Uganda have specific assent/consent requirements for research with emancipated minors. South Africa and Algeria requires re-consent at onset of adulthood. Five countries (Botswana, Cameroon, Nigeria, South Africa and Tanzania) specified conditions for waiving assent requirements. The CIOMS and the ICH-GCP guidelines had the most comprehensive information on assent requirements compared to other international guidelines. An interactive map with assent requirements for different African countries is provided. The results show a major gap in national regulations for the inclusion of minors in health research. The SickleInAfrica experience in setting up a multi-country SCD registry in Africa highlights the need for developing and harmonising national and international guidelines on assent and consent requirements for research involving minors. Harmonisation of assent requirements will help facilitate collaborative research across countries. (shrink)

Sickle cell disease is a debilitating illness that affects quality of life and life expectancy for patients. In Cameroon, it is now possible to opt for termination of an affected pregnancy where the fetus is found to be affected by SCD. Our earlier studies found that, contrary to the views of Cameroonian physicians, a majority of parents with their children suffering from SCD would choose to abort if the fetuses were found to be affected. What have not yet been investigated (...) are the views of people suffering from/living with SCD. We used a quantitative sociological method, with administered structured questionnaires, to study the attitudes of adult patients suffering from SCD on prenatal genetic diagnosis and possible TAP. The majority of the 89 participants were urban dwellers , women , Christian and single , with a secondary/tertiary education . The majority would consider PND for SCD; almost half would reject TAP while 40.9% would consider it. Respondents who rejected TAP claimed mostly ethical reasons while those who found TAP acceptable cited fear of having an affected child and the poor quality of the affected child's health . Cameroonian patients with SCD are generally supportive of PND and a remarkably high number of patients living with SCD reported that they would consider terminating a pregnancy based on their assessment of the future well-being of the child. Research is required to investigate the burden of SCD on families and their quality of life. (shrink)

L’article part d’un constat élémentaire : les phénomènes de patrimonialisation se démultiplient et recouvrent toute sorte de réalités. Dans ce contexte, à côté de la recherche traditionnelle sur les questions de patrimoine, ils invitent à développer ce que dans le monde anglo-saxon de la recherche, on dénomme les heritage studies en mettant tout particulièrement l’accent sur la dimension critique de la recherche. Cette dernière ne doit plus chercher à établir, à consolider ou à préserver des patrimoines existants mais à interroger (...) ce qui fait patrimoine et les raisons pour lesquelles des acteurs se mobilisent et tendent à imposer une valeur symbolique à un objet, à une pratique ou à une coutume, non sans en tirer profit. (shrink)

A. Reinach et J. Searle sont bien connus pour avoir chacun développé une théorie de la réalité sociale prenant appui sur le cas particulier de la promesse. Celle-ci est vue comme un acte de parole primordial où la relation à l’autre à qui l’on promet est constitutive de l’acte : c’est ce qui fait son caractère social. Cette caractéristique entraîne une véritable objectivité des obligations engendrées. Pourtant, ces similitudes dans l’analyse recouvrent des divergences conceptuelles fortes entre le tenant d’une phénoménologie (...) réaliste découvrant des essences sociales et le théoricien des actes de parole qui propose un constructivisme social.A. Reinach et J. Searle are well-known for both having elaborated a theory of social reality founded on the particular case of promise. This one is seen as a seminal speech act constituted by relationship to other people : hence its social character. This social feature enables the obligations deriving from the promise to get real objectivity. Despite these similarities of analysis, there is strong divergence between the supporter of realistic phenomenology looking for social substances and the speech-act theorist proposing a social constructivism. (shrink)

Qu'est-ce au juste que le mental? Les nouvelles "sciences de l'esprit" ne paraissent pas avoir de doute sur la réponse : c'est ce qu'il y a dans la boîte crânienne. L'idée que le mental puisse être autre chose que le côté "interne" d'une métaphore qui l'oppose à de l'externe, et qu'à ce titre il puisse s'avérer intrinsèquement social, leur paraît incongrue. C'est pourtant cette idée que le présent ouvrage s'applique à défendre. Il élabore une conception sociale du mental, en prenant (...) appui sur les courants de recherche qui, en philosophie et en sciences humaines et sociales, ont souligné, tant d'un point de vue conceptuel qu'empirique, l'imbrication du social et du mental. Cette élaboration passe par une clarification des deux concepts. D'un côté, il est nécessaire de remédier au rétrécissement du social non seulement par les sciences cognitives, mais aussi par une partie des sciences sociales. De l'autre, il faut proposer une nouvelle compréhension de ce que l'on entend par mental. La conception esquissée est une conception qu'on peut qualifier d'adverbiale : "mental" est un concept opératoire qui qualifie une modalité de l'action d'agents appartenant à une société. (shrink)

Black Knowledges/Black Struggles: Essays in Critical Epistemology explores the central, but often critically neglected role of knowledge and epistemic formations within social movements for human emancipation. This collection examines the systemic connection that exists between the empirical subordination of "Black" peoples globally and the conceptual negation that subordinates or renders this population invisible within the epistemes of the West. The collection recognizes that as peoples of "Black" African and Afro-mixed descent mobilize against their dehumanized status within Western modernity, they are (...) involved in a struggle that is both contemporary and of long standing, one where local and national battles have a global dimension. The essays in this collection foreground the extent to which liberation from imposed subordination necessarily entails critiques of, challenges to, and counter-formulations against the epistemic formations that work to "naturalize" subordination. The essays in the collection engage primarily with knowledge formations and empirical practices generated from within the discourse of "race," but also in its relation to other socio-human discourses of Western modernity. These essays also analyze the critiques, challenges, and counter-knowledge/epistemic formulations put forth by specific individuals, schools, movements, and/or institutions of the "Black" world. Through these examinations, the collection's authors implicitly point towards, and sometimes explicitly take part in, the formulation of a new kind of critical - but also emancipatory - epistemology. What emerges is a more comprehensive view of what it means to be human, an epistemic construction that can serve as an instrument of liberation rather than subordination. (shrink)

La philosophie du langage issue du tournant linguistique peut paraitre depassee par la philosophie de l'esprit et les approches cognitivistes. Ce second volume des Textes-cles de philosophie du langage vise, comme le premier, a montrer au contraire la vitalite et la radicalite de la reflexion sur le langage produite au XXe et au XXIe siecles. Le premier envisageait le rapport du langage au monde, les manieres dont le langage peut dire les choses (et le vrai); le second presente diverses manieres (...) de considerer que le langage fait des choses en disant, met en relation des humains dans des contextes, au sein d'une forme de vie humaine et sociale. D'ou le renouvellement des analyses du langage et l'emergence d'une nouvelle discipline, la pragmatique, qui prend en compte des elements du fonctionnement linguistique oublies par les conceptions strictement veri-conditionnelles. Cette philosophie du langage, fondee sur la description des usages ordinaires et la mise en evidence de la dimension praxeologique du langage, n'a cependant pas renonce a la visee realiste du tournant linguistique. On verra que la philosophie du langage ordinaire, dissidente par rapport a la philosophie analytique classique, attentive aux usages et situations, recherche, perfectionne et raffine l'adequation au reel, poursuivie desormais en termes de sensibilite au detail du reel. (shrink)

La philosophie du langage issue du tournant linguistique, apparue avec Frege a l'oree du XXe siecle, peut paraitre depassee de nos jours par la philosophie de l'esprit ou le cognitivisme. Ce volume vise a illustrer au contraire la vitalite et la radicalite des premieres theories de la signification et de la reference. Il parcourt, a travers une serie de textes devenus classiques, l'evolution de la problematique de la signification, sa definition comme mode de presentation de la reference, son explosion avec (...) la these d'indetermination de la traduction. Il analyse les relations du sens avec la verite - selon qu'il en formule les conditions, ou qu'il informe notre approche du monde. Dans les textes de ce volume, c'est l'articulation du langage au reel, du mot a la chose, qui apparait comme l'objet de la philosophie du langage et le lieu de son actualite. (shrink)

« La coutume fait toute l’équité, par cette seule raison qu’elle est reçue. C’est le fondement mystique de son autorité. Qui la ramènera à son principe l’anéantit »Pascal, Pensées Avant toute intervention présentée dans le cadre d’une journée d’études scientifique – rituel universitaire récurrent et structurant, où les places de chacun des participants sont minimalement mais hiérarchiquement...

Charles Travis,Corinne Lajoie,Bruno Ambroise.

This article draws on key normative principles grounded in important values – solidarity, partiality and friendliness – in African philosophy to think critically and deeply about the ethical challenges around returning individual genetic research findings in African genomics research. Precisely, we propose that the normative implication of solidarity, partiality and friendliness is that returning findings should be considered as a gesture of goodwill to participants to the extent that it constitutes acting for their well-being. Concretely, the value of friendliness may (...) imply that one ought to return actionable results to participants even when their preferences regarding feedback are unknown. Notwithstanding, returning individual genetic results will have a cost implication. The cost of feeding back is relevant in the context of African genomics research projects, which are often funded by international sponsors and should be researched further. (shrink)

Research, innovation, and progress in the life sciences are increasingly contingent on access to large quantities of data. This is one of the key premises behind the “open science” movement and the global calls for fostering the sharing of personal data, datasets, and research results. This paper reports on the outcomes of discussions by the panel “Open science, data sharing and solidarity: who benefits?” held at the 2021 Biennial conference of the International Society for the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies (...) of Biology, and hosted by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. (shrink)

Se os romanos começaram a desenvolver tardiamente sua literatura, é porque, desde os primórdios, necessi-taram firmar-se como nação e solidificar princípios e valores que se perpetuariam em sua cultura. De início, cuida-ram da expansão e da organização da urbs e da civitas. Com a anexação de outros povos e novas culturas, tomaram conhecimento de outros valores, os quais foram submetidos ao gênio da assimilação e da universalização, sua marca inconfundível. Foram capazes de desenvolver um sistema de escrita que é seguido (...) até hoje. Sua literatura, mesmo nascendo com o carimbo da literatura grega, infunde as marcas características da cultura latina e se torna modelo pelos séculos vindouros. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Metaphorical Pharmacology of Cannabis Cannabis Effects and Meanings Applied.

A poesia lírica mediolatina desenvolve-se a partir dos poetas latinos que a antecederam, mas elabora novas formas de expressão que acompanham, pari passu, o desenvolvimento da língua latina, com a perda gradativa o acento musical. Novo ritmo e novas formas de expressão foram introduzidos. A poesia, a princípio vista como forma especial de linguagem, ganha especial tratamento entre os goliardos, que também nos legaram o maior e mais característico acervo da lírica profana mediolatina.

Cipriano, atuante bispo de Cartago em difíceis tempos de grandes perseguições aos cristãos, compõe um texto, um discurso apologético, no qual se dirige ao pagão Dimitriano, defendendo os cristãos de acusações a eles imputadas como responsáveis pelas desgraças e dificuldades por que passava o Império Romano. Aborda a temática do fim do mundo de modo original invertendo as acusações que o poder público atribuía aos cristãos.

O ato de alimentar-se deixa de ser apenas uma satisfação de necessidades biológicas e torna-se um dos grandes prazeres da vida do homem. Apresentamos aqui as principais refeições e o modo de alimentar-se dos antigos romanos, amantes da boa mesa, e um alguns comentários sobre aquele que é o mais famoso dos seus cozinheiros e nos legou a obra De re coquinaria: Apício.