IntroductionWe aimed to study post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms in breast cancer patients during the coronavirus disease pandemic.Materials and methodsWe included BC patients receiving medical treatment during the first COVID-19 lockdown in France. PTSD symptoms were evaluated using the Impact of Event Scale-Revised questionnaire. Quality of life [Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-General ], cognitive complaints [Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy–Cognitive Function ], insomnia [Insomnia Severity Index ], and psychosocial experiences during lockdown were also evaluated. Multivariable logistic regression was used to identify (...) clinical factors and psychosocial factors associated with PTSD symptoms.ResultsAmong the 253 included BC patients, 46% had metastatic cancer and 52% were treated by chemotherapy alone. COVID-19-induced adjustments in medical oncology practices were experienced by 27% of patients. No case of COVID-19 was reported; 23% of BC patients had PTSD symptoms. Compared to other patients, patients with PTSD symptoms had more fears relative to COVID-19 infection, had more feeling of isolation, and had more prescription or increased use of psychotropic drugs. In the multivariable model adjusted for clinical factors, fears relative to COVID-19 and increased use of psychotropic drugs were independently associated with PTSD symptoms. Besides, patients with PTSD symptoms had poor quality of life, and more cognitive complaints and insomnia.ConclusionPost-traumatic stress disorder symptoms were observed in 23% of BC patients during the first COVID-19 lockdown in France. Psychological supports are needed for patients treated during the COVID-19 pandemic. (shrink)

The author examines the functional explanation that G. A. Cohen employs in his book Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defense in light of its recent republication. In recent years, Roy Bhaskar has provided a convincing critique of the empiricist philosophy of social science that Cohen employs, and this article tries to provide an assessment of his method from a Bhaskarian perspective. It begins with an exposition of functional explanation, followed by the Bhaskarian critique by demonstrating that functionalism is unworkable (...) because it is dependent on an empiricist account of causation. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage n'est ni un commentaire ni une explication d'obedience historiciste ou deterministe. Par questionnement, lecture et interpretation, l'auteur a voulu produire une semantique philosophique. La doctrine des idees est ainsi reexaminee a la convergence des problemes du langage, de la science et de la cite (logos, episteme, polis). Elle ne peut plus des lors etre interpretee sous l'hypothese de l' idealisme. Elle se manifeste comme une serie de questions de sens ou s'indique une philosophie de la raison. Partout ou (...) le logos nous porte, c'est la qu'il faut aller, tel en serait le mot d'ordre, mais avec la precision qu'a l'articulation du mythique et du theorique, du tragique et du philosohique, et plus profondement de la deraison et du logos, le rationalisme platonicien n'est fait que de raison. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage n'est ni un commentaire ni une explication d'obedience historiciste ou deterministe. Par questionnement, lecture et interpretation, l'auteur a voulu produire une semantique philosophique. La doctrine des idees est ainsi reexaminee a la convergence des problemes du langage, de la science et de la cite (logos, episteme, polis). Elle ne peut plus des lors etre interpretee sous l'hypothese de l' idealisme. Elle se manifeste comme une serie de questions de sens ou s'indique une philosophie de la raison. Partout ou (...) le logos nous porte, c'est la qu'il faut aller, tel en serait le mot d'ordre, mais avec la precision qu'a l'articulation du mythique et du theorique, du tragique et du philosohique, et plus profondement de la deraison et du logos, le rationalisme platonicien n'est fait que de raison. (shrink)

Cohen employs in his book Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defense in light of its recent republication. In recent years, Roy Bhaskar has provided a convincing critique of the empiricist philosophy of social science that Cohen employs, and this article tries to provide an assessment of his method from a Bhaskarian perspective. It begins with an exposition of functional explanation, followed by the Bhaskarian critique by demonstrating that functionalism is unworkable because it is dependent on an empiricist account of (...) causation. (shrink)

"Dialogue aux enfers entre Machiavel et Montesquieu" de Maurice Joly. Journaliste et écrivain français (1829-1878).

Media exposure influences mental health symptomology in response to salient aversive events, like terrorist attacks, but little has been done to explore the impact of news coverage that varies more subtly in affective content. Here, we utilized an existing data set in which participants self-reported physical symptoms, depressive symptoms, and anxiety symptoms, and completed a potentiated startle task assessing their physiological reactivity to aversive stimuli at three time points (waves) over a 9-month period. Using a computational linguistics approach, we then (...) calculated an average ratio of words with positive vs. negative affective connotations for only articles from news sources to which each participant self-reported being exposed over the prior 2 weeks at each wave of data collection. As hypothesized, individuals exposed to news coverage with more negative affective tone over the prior 2 weeks reported significantly greater physical and depressive symptoms, and had significantly greater physiological reactivity to aversive stimuli. (shrink)

Although informed consent models for prescribing hormone replacement therapy are becoming increasingly prevalent, many physicians continue to require an assessment and referral letter from a mental health professional prior to prescription. Drawing on personal and communal experience, the author argues that assessment and referral requirements are dehumanising and unethical, foregrounding the ways in which these requirements evidence a mistrust of trans people, suppress the diversity of their experiences and sustain an unjustified double standard in contrast to other forms of clinical (...) care. Physicians should abandon this unethical requirement in favour of an informed consent approach to transgender care. (shrink)

By attending to how people speak about their gender, we can find diverse answers to the question of what it is like to have a gender identity. To some, it is little more than having a body whereas others may report it as more attitudinal or dispositional—seemingly contradictory views. In this paper, I seek to reconcile these disparate answers by developing a theory of how individual gender identity comes about. In the simplest possible terms, I propose that gender identity is (...) how we make sense of our gender subjectivity, the totality of our gendered experiences of ourselves. Gender identity is constituted by gender subjectivity, but this constitutive relationship is underdetermined. While gender subjectivity may narrow the range of inhabitable gender identities, it is always compatible with more than one. To arrive at a gender identity, we arrange gender subjectivity like building materials. My theory helps us understand how different people offer seemingly incompatible accounts of their gender identity without questioning their authenticity or validity. They simply arrange similar building materials differently. (shrink)

Drawing on the principle of subsidiarity, this article develops a framework for allocating medical decision-making authority in the absence of capacity to consent and argues that decisional authority in paediatric transgender healthcare should generally lie in the patient. Regardless of patients’ capacity, there is usually nobody better positioned to make medical decisions that go to the heart of a patient’s identity than the patients themselves. Under the principle of subsidiarity, decisional authority should only be held by a higher level decision-maker, (...) such as parents or judges, if lower level decision-makers are incapable of satisfactorily addressing the issue even with support and the higher level decision-maker is better positioned to satisfactorily address the issue than all lower level decision-makers. Because gender uniquely pertains to personal identity and self-realisation, parents and judges are rarely better positioned to make complex medical decisions. Instead of taking away trans youth’s authority over their healthcare decisions, we should focus on supporting their ability to take the best possible decision for themselves. (shrink)

"An impressively reasoned and startlingly unorthodox treatise on religion." - Belles Lettres Florence Nightingale (1820-1920) is famous as the heroine of the Crimean War and later as a campaigner for health care founded on a clean environment and good nursing. Though best known for her pioneering demonstration that disease rather than wounds killed most soldiers, she was also heavily allied to social reform movements and to feminist protest against the enforced idleness of middle-class women. This original edition provides bold (...) new insights into Nightingale's beliefs and a new picture of the relationship between feminism and religion. Suggestions for Thought to the Searchers after Truth Among the Artisans of England (1860), which contains the novel Cassandra , is a central text in 19th-century history of feminist thought and is published here for the first time. Nightingale argues that work was the means by which every individual sought self-fulfillment and served God. She wrote influentially about the group most Victorians declared to be above work: unmarried, middle-class women. (shrink)

Appels au meurtre et à la haine, apologie de la pédophilie, propos racistes ou sexistes, quelles sont les limites de la liberté d'expression en littérature ? Le style et la fiction autorisent-ils toutes les transgressions ?

This article outlines procedures for the feedback of individual research data to participants. This feedback framework was developed in the context of a personalized medicine research project in Canada. Researchers in this domain have an ethical obligation to return individual research results and/or material incidental findings that are clinically significant, valid and actionable to participants. Communication of individual research data must proceed in an ethical and efficient manner. Feedback involves three procedural steps: assessing the health relevance of a finding, re-identifying (...) the affected participant, and communicating the finding. Re-identification requires researchers to break the code in place to protect participant identities. Coding systems replace personal identifiers with a numerical code. Double coding systems provide added privacy protection by separating research data from personal identifying data with a third "linkage" database. A trusted and independent intermediary, the "keyholder", controls access to this linkage database. (shrink)

Participatory Technology Assessment initiatives have usually been analyzed as if they existed in a social and political vacuum. This article analyzes the linkages that occur, in both directions, between the microcosm set up by a pTA exercise and the real world outside. This dual-dynamics perspective leads to a new way of understanding the function and significance of pTA initiatives. Rather than viewing them as a means to create the ideal conditions for real public debate, they are viewed here as an (...) additional public arena in which sociotechnical controversies are played out. This perspective is developed from the analysis of an interactive technology assessment exercise conducted by the French National Institute for Agricultural Research, on the topic of genetically modified vines. (shrink)

A recent paper by Teresa Baron and Geoffrey Dierckxsens argues that puberty blockers and hormone therapy should be disallowed before adulthood on prudential and consent-related grounds. This response contends that their argument fails because it is predicated on unsupported premises and misinterpretations of the available evidence. There is no evidence that a large proportion of pubertal and postpubertal youths later discontinue medical transition. Meaningful assent is a viable and commonly accepted alternative to meaningful consent in paediatric bioethics. And finally, the (...) primary purpose of transition-related interventions is to actualise youths’ gendered self-image, not treat an underlying mental illness. (shrink)

Florence Chiew interviews Maurizio Meloni on his new book, Impressionable Biologies: From the Archaeology of Plasticity to the Sociology of Epigenetics. The conversation reflects on a number of key themes and arguments in Meloni’s work, such as the use of the term ‘impressionability’ to explore longstanding ideas of the permeable body in constant flux in response to cosmological changes. This notion of the body-porous is one whose history Meloni traces back to ancient traditions and systems of medicine, such as (...) humoralism. In this important book, Meloni makes a compelling argument for questioning the current emphasis on the novelty of biological plasticity as an exclusively contemporary phenomenon, and urges us to take a longer genealogical perspective to appreciate how histories of corporeal plasticity have always been part of deeply gendered, racialized and classed discourses in which social hierarchies have been made through physiological distinctions. (shrink)

" Les romans devraient être interdits par l'État " selon le professeur Kien, savant solitaire dans " Auto-da fé " d'Elias Canetti. En quoi la littérature est-elle dangereuse? Elle ne connaît de vérité que de passage. Elle se plaît à décliner les formes changeantes que l'imagination fait percevoir ou disparaître. Le charme qu'elle exerce menace ainsi l'identité. S'il est une séduction littéraire, elle réside dans l'invention d'une subjectivité impersonnelle: on ne parle pas de soi en littérature. Écrire procède d'un effort (...) exceptionnel pour sortir du carcan de la personne, briser le miroir, s'évader de la psyché en faisant résonner, dans et par le style, une parole défigurée. L'autofiction se situe aux antipodes de l'enjeu littéraire majeur, lorsqu'elle prend la forme d'un déballage des émois dérisoires qui composent une vie. Dès lors, notre réflexion relève d'un double défi : extraire la littérature de la gangue du savoir critique qui risque de l'asphyxier sans que le refus de l'objectivité ne coïncide avec un retour au mirage de l'expression de soi. Cette défense et illustration du pouvoir des fables implique un regard déniaisé sur le plaisir de l'imagination. La fiction ne demande pas un " oui " servile, adhésion à un monde cohérent qui comblerait les fissures de la réalité ; elle fait éprouver jusqu'au vertige de l'idée inattendue, dans l'exploration de mondes logiquement autonomes. Déployant une pensée déconcertante, la fiction met la raison à la question, égarée au-delà des terres familières de l'argumentation. Détournons la voix du poète : " Vous qui entrez ici, abandonnez toute espérance " ; la littérature est enfer pour l'esprit de sérieux qui s'y effraie, s'accrochant à son identité, faute de tenter la quête de soi. La passion littéraire commence par l'abandon de réponses dépassées en vue d'une imagination en liberté, déculpabilisée. À l'heure où tout le monde prétend raconter sa vie et la publier, comptons que ce livre, réveillant le questionnement, servira la force littéraire, invitation à lire et écrire des livres dignes d'être brûlés. (shrink)

As global warming continues to attract growing levels of attention, various stakeholders have put climate change on corporate agendas and expect firms to disclose relevant greenhouse gas information. In this paper, we investigate the consistency of the GHG information voluntarily disclosed by French listed firms through two different communication channels: corporate reports and the Carbon Disclosure Project. More precisely, we contrast the amounts of GHG emissions reported and the methodological explanations provided in each channel. Consistent with a stakeholder theory perspective, (...) we find that GHG amounts are significantly lower in the CR than in the CDP. We also find that firms increase the CR figures’ traceability when there is a discrepancy between disclosures in the two channels. We suggest that the aim of this greater traceability is to enhance information credibility across the different channels used. (shrink)

Although it has been recognized that employees regularly engage in non-green behaviors, little research has been conducted to explain how these behaviors may be avoided. Using data from a three-wave study, this study tested a moderated-mediation model in which trust in the immediate manager was expected to increase the indirect effect of supervisory support for the environment on non-green behaviors through employee environmental commitment. While the findings showed, as predicted, that exchange relationships with the immediate manager reduce the tendency of (...) employees to engage in non-green behaviors, the indirect effect of supervisory support on non-green behaviors through employee environmental commitment was moderated at a low level of trust in the manager, contrary to predictions. Though unexpected, this result seems less surprising when discussed in the light of negotiated exchange, suggesting that employee efforts to avoid non-green behaviors need to be seen as the result of a deal between managers and subordinates. The findings of this study contribute to the emerging literature on social exchange in an environmental context and have implications for organizations seeking to achieve environmental sustainability. (shrink)

In conversation with Hortense Gallois’ recent essay on the importance of bioethicists participating in public discourse, I suggest that speaking up is as fraught as it is important. Focusing on the anti-trans movement’s misuse of expertise, I highlight the fine line between correcting misinformation and inadvertently causing harm through ill-timed speech. Drawing on the work of Eva Feder Kittay, I suggest that knowing when to speak up and when to stay silent starts with understanding the communities we speak about and (...) the consequences that our words can have on them. (shrink)

During the last two decades there has been an enormous development in treatment possibilities in the field of neonatology, particularly for (extremely) premature infants. Although there are cross-cultural differences in treatment strategy, an overview of the literature suggests that every country is confronted with moral dilemmas in this area. These concern decisions to initiate or withhold treatment directly at birth and, later on, decisions to withdraw treatment with the possible consequence that the child will die. Given that the neonate cannot (...) express his or her own will, who will decide? And on the basis of what information, values and norms? We explored some of these issues in daily practice by interviewing a small sample of health care practitioners in a Dutch university Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). It turned out that experiencing moral dilemmas is part of their daily functioning. Nurses underline the suffering of the newborn, whereas physicians stress uncertainty in treatment outcome. To make the best of it, nurses focus on their caring task, whereas physicians hope that future follow-up research will lead to more predictable outcomes. As for their own offspring, part of these professionals would hesitate to bring their own extremely premature newborn to a NICU. For the most oppressing dilemma reported – terminating an already initiated treatment – we propose the concept of ‘evidence shift’ to clarify the ambiguous position of uncertainty in decision making. (shrink)

Feminism is going to ruin your life--in the best way possible--because society screams numerous messages every moment about how women must look, act, and speak in order to earn their right to be seen and heard. The only thing any human needs to do in order to earn their right to exist, however, is to exist. Break free of the insidious narratives that hold you back from being your most authentic self.

In a previous article, I argued that assessment requirements for transgender hormone replacement therapy are unethical and dehumanising. A recent response published by the Journal of Medical Ethics criticises this proposal. In this reply, I advance that their response misunderstood core parts of my argument and fails to provide independent support for assessment requirements. Though transition-related care may have similarities with cosmetic surgeries, this does not suffice to establish a need for assessments, and nor do the high rates of depression (...) and anxiety justify assessments, especially given the protective role HRT plays towards mental well-being. (shrink)

Scholars have noted persistent high rates of agricultural health and safety incidents and the need to develop more effective interventions. Participatory research provides an avenue to broaden the prevailing research paradigms and approaches by allowing those most impacted to illuminate and work to solve those aspects of their lives. One such approach is photovoice, an emancipatory visual narrative approach. Yet, despite its broad appeal, photovoice can be hard to implement. In this article, we leverage our experience using photovoice for a (...) farm children safety project to describe and reflect on the ethical and methodological aspects broadly relevant to agricultural health and safety topics. We first contextualize the tensions of navigating between photovoice, the research ethics committees (RECs) regulatory frameworks, and competing views on visual representations in agriculture. We then discuss the sources of risks to participants and researchers, how we addressed these risks, and how these risks unfolded during the research phase of the photovoice activity. We conclude with three lessons we (re)learned: the importance of collaborating with RECs, the need to increase preparation to limit psychological risks to participants and researchers, and avenues to augment the emancipatory power of photovoice in a virtual environment. (shrink)

A well-established narrative in the history of science has it that the years around 1800 saw the end of a purely descriptive, classificatory and static natural history. The emergence of a temporal understanding of nature and the new developmental-history approach, it is thought, permitted the formation of modern biology. This paper questions that historical narrative by closely analysing the concepts of development, history and time set out in Karl Ernst von Baer’s study of the mammalian egg (1827). I show that (...) Baer’s research on embryogenesis aimed not simply to explain temporal changes, but to inscribe the formation of new individual organisms into a continuous, unending organic process. I confront Baer’s views with other explanations of embryogenesis arising in the 1820s and 1830s, especially those of Jean-Baptiste Dumas and Jean-Louis Prévost and of Theodor Schwann. By highlighting divergences between these scientists, especially as to their view of the role of gender differences in reproduction, I argue that biology evolved not from a homogeneous concept of developmental history but out of various, even opposing, views and research programmes. Thus, the birth of biology did not imply the end of all natural history’s thought models. (shrink)

Volume 19, Issue 6, June 2019, Page W3-W4.

La question de l'animal occupe une place singulière dans la philosophie occidentale moderne. L'animal y est certes présent, mais à un titre bien particulier. Il désigne l'être privé de tous les attributs qui sont censés caractériser l'humain : l'âme, la raison, la conscience, le langage, le monde... Cette approche privative a notamment conduit à une lecture mécaniste de la vie animale. S'opposant à cette conception, les approches phénoménologiques ont ruiné les fondements philosophiques du mécanisme, mais aussi du vitalisme. C'est en (...) effet en partant de l'animal comme " corporéité animée ", et en considérant son comportement comme la manifestation de la vie en lui - d'une vie qui n'est ni l'arrière-plan ni la cause des phénomènes vitaux - qu'un tout autre regard s'est mis en place. La reconnaissance de la liberté et de l'inquiétude, du fait du mouvement spontané, de la perception et de l'émotion, distingue la vie animale de la vie végétale, et permet d'y voir l'émergence d'une condition existentielle. (shrink)

This paper analyses the use of metaphor in discourses around the “superweed” Palmer amaranth. Most weed scientists associated with the US public agricultural extension system dismiss the term superweed. However, together with the media, they indirectly encourage aggressive control practices by actively diffusing the framing of herbicide resistant Palmer amaranth as an existential threat that should be eradicated at any cost. We use argumentative discourse analysis to better understand this process. We analyze a corpus consisting of reports, policy briefs, and (...) press releases produced by state extension services, as well as articles from professional and popular magazines and newspapers quoting extension specialists and/or public sector weed scientists or agronomists. We show how the superweed discourse is powered by negative metaphors, and legitimizes aggressive steps to eradicate the weed. This discourse reinforces the farmers’ techno-optimism master frame, contributes to deskilling of farmers and sidelines ethical concerns. (shrink)