Severe COVID‐19 is often accompanied by coagulopathies such as thrombocytopenia and abnormal clotting. Rarely, such complications follow SARS‐CoV‐2 vaccination. The cause of these coagulopathies is unknown. It is hypothesized that coagulopathies accompanying SARS‐CoV‐2 infections and vaccinations result from bacterial co‐infections that synergize with virus‐induced autoimmunity due to antigenic mimicry of blood proteins by both bacterial and viral antigens. Coagulopathies occur mainly in severe COVID‐19 characterized by bacterial co‐infections with Streptococci, Staphylococci, Klebsiella, Escherichia coli, and Acinetobacter baumannii. These bacteria express (...) unusually large numbers of antigens mimicking human blood antigens, as do both SARS‐CoV‐2 and adenoviruses. Bacteria mimic cardiolipin, prothrombin, albumin, and platelet factor 4 (PF4). SARS‐CoV‐2 mimics complement factors, Rh antigens, platelet phosphodiesterases, Factors IX and X, von Willebrand Factor (VWF), and VWF protease ADAMTS13. Adenoviruses mimic prothrombin and platelet factor 4. Bacterial prophylaxis, avoidance of vaccinating bacterially infected individuals, and antigen deletion for vaccines may reduce coagulopathy risk. Also see the video abstract here: https://youtu.be/zWDOsghrPg8. (shrink)

Italian Life sciences in post-WWII faced important challenges: the reconstruction of a scientific panorama suffering heavily after two decades of Fascism and the damages of war. Modernization was not only a matter of recreating a favorable environment for research, by modernizing Italian biomedical institutions and connecting the Italian scientists with the new ideas coming from abroad. The introduction of new genetics required a new array of concepts and instruments, but also, the ability to connect to international networks and to become (...) active members of a broader scientific community. Because of the several socio-cultural issues involved (eugenics, racism, religion, politics), human genetics is a good case study in order to analyze how Italian life sciences managed the transition towards a new research system, and the influences Italian human geneticists received. The paper focuses primarily on the development of the early career of Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, probably the most prominent scientist in post-WWII human genetics in Italy, and his friend and colleague Ruggero Ceppellini. In following their path, a healthy mix of local traditions and international stimuli emerges, allowing for the establishment—within and beyond national borders—of the discipline. (shrink)

The article discusses questions on the significance of blood relatedness in the context of identity arguments about artificial reproduction (AR). Kinship, origins, and biological connections are significant to human beings. The author explains that family relationships bear on the identity of human beings. Moreover, she emphasizes that once these principles are neglected, it is possible to create people in ways that threaten significant human bonds and alienate people who are naturally related spelling loss, confusion and grief (...) for them. (shrink)

Despite the importance of human blood to clinical practice and research, hematology and blood transfusion data remain scattered throughout a range of disparate sources. This lack of systematization concerning the use and definition of terms poses problems for physicians and biomedical professionals. We are introducing here the Blood Ontology, an ongoing initiative designed to serve as a controlled vocabulary for use in organizing information about blood. The paper describes the scope of the Blood Ontology, (...) its stage of development and some of its anticipated uses. (shrink)

It is increasingly suggested that shortages in the supply chain for human blood could be met by the development of techniques to manufacture human blood ex vivo. These techniques fall broadly under the umbrella of synthetic biology. We examine the biopolitical context surrounding the ex vivo culture of red blood cells through the linked concepts of alienation, immunity, bio-value and biosecuritization. We engage with diverse meanings of synthetic blood, and questions about how the discourses (...) of biosecurity and privatization of risk are linked to claims that the technology will address unmet needs and promote social justice. Through our discussion we contrast communitarian ideas that culturing red blood cells ‘extends the gift’ of adult blood donation with understandings of the immunitary logics that underpin the cord-blood economy. (shrink)

Aircraft with increasingly high performance were important to the war effort in World War II. Changes in technology allowed aircraft to reach faster speeds and to complete missions at higher altitudes. With these changes came new obstacles for pilots who had to tolerate these stresses. Of primary concern to the U.S. War Department was the loss of consciousness that often occurred with high-speed maneuvers and especially during pull-up after dive-bombing missions. In some cases, pilots would experience up to 9G of (...) force during rapid ascent, much more than the 6G threshold that typically leads to loss of consciousness. In 1941, a research team in Red Wing, MN, proposed experiments to elucidate the mechanism .. (shrink)

The human blood coagulation system comprises a series of linked glycoproteins that upon activation induce the generation of downstream enzymes ultimately forming fibrin. This process is primarily important to arrest bleeding (hemostasis). Hemostasis is a typical example of a molecular machine, where the assembly of substrates, enzymes, protein cofactors and calcium ions on a phospholipid surface markedly accelerates the rate of coagulation. Excess, pathological, coagulation activity occurs in “thrombosis”, the formation of an intravascular clot, which in the most (...) dramatic form precipitates in the microvasculature as disseminated intravascular coagulation. Thrombosis occurs according to a biochemical machine model in the case of atherothrombosis on a ruptured atherosclerotic plaque, but may develop at a slower rate in venous thrombosis, illustrating that the coagulation machinery can act at different velocities. The separate coagulation enzymes are also important in other biological processes, including inflammation for which the rapid conversion of one coagulation factor by the other is not a prerequisite. The latter role of coagulation enzymes may be related to the old and probably maintained function of the coagulation machine in innate immunity. BioEssays 25:1220–1228, 2003. © 2003 Wiley Perioicals, Inc. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss full-blooded Platonism (the claim that all possible mathematical objects exist) as a response to the skeptical problem in the philosophy of mathematics as to how empirical beings can cognize non-empirical mathematical objects. I then attempt to develop an analogous position regarding the applicability of concepts to reality in response to the skeptical problem regarding how we can cognize an objective reality through human-constructed concepts. If all concepts meeting certain minimal conditions structure reality under some (...) aspect, then objective knowledge is possible, regardless of how these concepts arose historically. (shrink)

Ethical reflection on the justice/injustice of past public health policy can inform current and future policy creation and assessment. For eight years in the 1980s, Haitians were prohibited from donating blood in the USA due to their national origin, a supposed risk factor for AIDS. This case study underlines the racial stereotypes and cultural ignorance at play in risk assignment—which simultaneously marked Haitians as risky ‘others’ and excluded them as significant participants in policy-making. This article also discerns Haitian understandings (...) of justice related to this donor policy and explores how dimensions of this past policy relate to current blood donor policy. (shrink)

This essay examines the symbolic significance of blood in the twentieth century and its role in determining the composition of a national community along racial lines. By drawing parallels between Nazi notions of blood and racial purity and historically contemporaneous U.S. policies regarding blood and blood products, Polsky reveals a disturbing proximity in discourse and policy. While the Nazis attempted to locate Jewish racial essence and inferiority in blood and instituted eugenic measures and laws forbidding (...) racial admixture, similar policies existed in the U.S. based on the so-called one drop rule that systematically discriminated against African Americans. (shrink)

This article presents an overlooked case of research misconduct and violations of basic principles of medical and business ethics. When Bayer’s Cutter Laboratories realized that their blood products, Factor VIII and IX or antihemophiliac factor (AHF), were contaminated with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the financial investment in the product was considered too high to destroy the inventory. Cutter misrepresented the results of its own research and sold the contaminated AHF to overseas markets in Asia and Latin America without (...) the precaution of heat treating the product recommended for eliminating the risk. As a consequence, hemophiliacs who infused the HIV-contaminated Factor VIII and IX tested positive for HIV and developed AIDS. (shrink)

NEW BLOOD EDITION: Contains three new chapters from Season 3. This new edition is available as an E-BOOK ONLY and contains three chapters not found in the print book! The first look at the philosophical issues behind Charlaine Harris's _New York Times_ bestsellers _The Southern Vampire Mysteries_ and the _True Blood_ television series! Teeming with complex, mythical characters in the shape of vampires, telepaths, shapeshifters, and the like, _True Blood_, the popular HBO series adapted from Charlaine Harris's bestselling The (...) Southern Vampire Mysteries, has a rich collection of themes to explore, from sex and romance to bigotry and violence to death and immortality. The goings-on in the mythical town of Bon Temps, Louisiana, where vampires satiate their blood lust and openly commingle with ordinary humans, present no shortages of juicy metaphysical morsels to sink your teeth into. Now _True Blood and Philosophy_ calls on the minds of some of history's great thinkers to perform some philosophical bloodletting on such topics as Sookie and the metaphysics of mindreading; Maryann and sacrificial religion; werewolves, shapeshifters and personal identity; vampire politics, evil, desire, and much more. The first book to explore the philosophical issues and themes behind the _True Blood_ novels and television series Adds a new dimension to your understanding of _True Blood_ characters and themes The perfect companion to the start of the third season on HBO and the release of the second season on DVD Smart and entertaining_, True Blood and Philosophy_ provides food -- or blood -- for thought, and a fun, new way to look at the series. (shrink)

Clinical success with human hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) transplantation establishes a paradigm for regenerative therapies with other types of stem cells. However, it remains generally challenging to therapeutically treat tissues after engineering of stem cells in vitro. Recent studies suggest that stem and progenitor cells sense physical features of their niches. Here, we review biophysical contributions to lineage decisions, maturation, and trafficking of blood and immune cells. Polarized cellular contractility and nuclear rheology are separately shown to be functional (...) markers of a hematopoietic hierarchy that predict the ability of a lineage to traffic in and out of the bone marrow niche. These biophysical determinants are regulated by a set of structural molecules, including cytoplasmic myosin‐II and nuclear lamins, which themselves are modulated by a diverse range of transcriptional and post‐translational mechanisms. Small molecules that target these mechanobiological circuits, along with novel bioengineering methods, could prove broadly useful in programming blood and immune cells for therapies ranging from blood transfusions to immune attack of tumors. (shrink)

Between December 14 and 20, 1965, the World Health Organization Scientific Group on Haemoglobinopathies and Allied Disorders metatthe Geneva agency's headquarters. The group comprised eight well-known physicians including Tulio Arends, a leading Latin American human geneticist from the Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Investigations. Others came from North America, Northern and Southern Europe, the Middle East and South East Asia, an array that reflected the delicate geopolitical equilibriums of postwar international health programs, but also the development of highly specialized biomedical (...) research around the globe. They elected Herman Lehmann, from the Abnormal Haemoglobin Research Unit of the Medical Research... (shrink)

High blood pressure is a disease of unknown cause. Family history of the disease indicates higher risk, but it is not known which genes are involved or how they interact with environmental influences to produce the disorder. Molecular biology offers an approach to problems that have not so far been solved by classical physiology or biochemistry. By analysing polymorphic variation in chromosome markers such as minisatellite sequences, or by restriction fragment polymorphism analysis of candidate genes, attempts are being made (...) to link genetic variations with hypertension. In genetically hypertensive rats, hypertension is associated with a polymorphism of the renin gene and with other loci on chromosomes 10 and 18. The role of these loci in human hypertension remains to be determined. Other genes such as sodium‐lithium countertransport may be involved. Environmental factors such as stress or salt intake could influence the rate or timing of expression of certain genes and thus result in hypertension. (shrink)

Article 3.4 of EC directive 89/381 requires member states to take "all necessary measures to promote Community self-sufficiency in human blood or human plasma" and, for this purpose, to "encourage the voluntary unpaid donation of blood and plasma". This paper presents an ethical case in support of the policy of voluntary, unpaid donation.

In this paper, I discuss full-blooded Platonism as a response to the skeptical problem in the philosophy of mathematics as to how empirical beings can cognize non-empirical mathematical objects. I then attempt to develop an analogous position regarding the applicability of concepts to reality in response to the skeptical problem regarding how we can cognize an objective reality through human-constructed concepts. If all concepts meeting certain minimal conditions structure reality under some aspect, then objective knowledge is possible, regardless of (...) how these concepts arose historically. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss full-blooded Platonism as a response to the skeptical problem in the philosophy of mathematics as to how empirical beings can cognize non-empirical mathematical objects. I then attempt to develop an analogous position regarding the applicability of concepts to reality in response to the skeptical problem regarding how we can cognize an objective reality through human-constructed concepts. If all concepts meeting certain minimal conditions structure reality under some aspect, then objective knowledge is possible, regardless of (...) how these concepts arose historically. (shrink)

The rate at which women and girls have been ‘butchered’ in Africa before and during the COVID-19 pandemic suggests that violence against women in patriarchal settings is more tolerable. According to Exodus 21:12, Leviticus 24:17, Deuteronomy 12:312, 2 Kings 17:31 and Isaiah 66:3, murder and human sacrifice are an abomination and defile the land. Unfortunately, it is heartbreaking to note how the murder of women finds justification, as shown in Judges 11:31–40. Ironically, in Genesis 22:13, the sacrifice of Isaac (...) is prevented through the provision of a sacrificial lamb. In this conversational platform, an African women’s hermeneutical lens to Judges 11:31–40 enables one to reimagine female bodies and motherhood as a theological phenomenon. It is proposed that ‘Sharon’s blood’ presents murdered women as Mother Earth’s sacrificial lambs of Africa, whose lives do not go unnoticed by God. Reimagining female bodies and motherhood as a theological phenomenon arguably enables the voices of murdered women to cry for justice from beyond the grave. If ‘the Sharons’ and their unborn babies do not receive justice, the ground continues to be defiled by human blood and remains ‘cursed’ (Mi 6:15). We will plant but not harvest; hence, there is a direct relationship between female bodies, motherhood and Mother Earth. One therefore asks: can scholarly conversational platforms enable murdered women of African descent to cry for justice from beyond the grave, allowing for life to flourish ‘again’? Contribution: This article contributed new knowledge to feminist studies by presenting murdered female victims of gender-based violence (GBV) as the sacrificial lambs of Mother Africa, whose innocent blood continues to cry for justice from beyond the grave. From an African hermeneutical lens, this research article reimagined female bodies and motherhood as a theological phenomenon in order to arguably enable the voices of murdered women to cry for justice from beyond the grave. (shrink)

The first look at the philosophical issues behind Charlaine Harris's _New York Times_ bestsellers _The Southern Vampire Mysteries_ and the _True Blood_ television series Teeming with complex, mythical characters in the shape of vampires, telepaths, shapeshifters, and the like, _True Blood_, the popular HBO series adapted from Charlaine Harris's bestselling _The Southern Vampire Mysteries_, has a rich collection of themes to explore, from sex and romance to bigotry and violence to death and immortality. The goings-on in the mythical town of (...) Bon Temps, Louisiana, where vampires satiate their blood lust and openly commingle with ordinary humans, present no shortages of juicy metaphysical morsels to sink your teeth into. Now _True Blood and Philosophy_ calls on the minds of some of history's great thinkers to perform some philosophical bloodletting on such topics as Sookie and the metaphysics of mindreading; Maryann and sacrificial religion; werewolves, shapeshifters and personal identity; vampire politics, evil, desire, and much more. The first book to explore the philosophical issues and themes behind the _True Blood_ novels and television series Adds a new dimension to your understanding of _True Blood_ characters and themes The perfect companion to the start of the third season on HBO and the release of the second season on DVD Smart and entertaining_, True Blood and Philosophy_ provides food—or blood—for thought, and a fun, new way to look at the series. (shrink)

In this essay, I argue that the Commodification Objection, locates a phenomenon of real moral significance. In defending the Commodification Objection, I review three common criticisms of it, which claim firstly, that commodification doesn’t always lead to instrumentalization; secondly, that commodification isn’t the only route to such an outcome; and finally, that the Commodification Objection applies only to persons, and human organs are not persons. In response, I conclude that moral significance does not require that an undesirable outcome be (...) a necessary consequence of the phenomenon under examination; the relative likelihood of an undesirable mode of regard arising provides a morally-relevant distinguishing marker for assessing the comparative moral status of social institutions and arrangements; and sales in blood products are sufficiently distinct from sales of everyday artefacts and sufficiently close to personhood to provide genuine grounds for concern. Accordingly, criticisms of the Commodification Objection do not provide grounds for rejecting the claim that human organ sales in general and compensation for blood plasma donation in particular can have morally pernicious ‘commodificatory effects’ upon our attitudes, for what human organ sales provide is a distinctive ethical hazard. (shrink)

Ontario’s Bill 178 proposing a Voluntary Blood Donations Act declares the offer or acceptance of payment for the donation of blood a legal offence and makes it subject to penalty. The bill reinvigorates a fundamental debate about the ethical problems associated with the payment of money for blood. Scarcity of blood donors is a recurring problem in most health systems, and monetary remuneration of the willingness to donate blood is regularly discussed—and sometimes practiced—as a means (...) to overcome scarcity in blood. However, making blood an object of economic exchange has long aroused ethical concerns that often refer to the specific meaning of blood. From the perspective of a modern understanding of money as a metric of economic value, the exchange of money for blood—shed or given—is seen as ethically troubling, because it appears to imply a commensurability of the value of human life and economic wealth. In this paper, we begin with a general taxonomy of the types of arguments that speak in favour or against compensating donors for giving blood. We then describe the context in which the discussion about payment for blood arises, and of the specific aims and concerns that are brought forward in this context. This is used to reconstruct the normative background that supports the rejection of payment for blood as it is envisaged in Bill 178 and the aims of the proposal. We then argue that while a payment indeed changes the nature of a blood donation in an ethically considerable way, we do not believe that decisive arguments against the monetary remuneration of blood donations can be substantiated, at least not independently of assuming specific societal circumstances. Thus it may be possible to establish a stable and safe blood supply through just gratification while at the same time taking strong provisions against social disconnection, injustice, exploitation or heteronomy. (shrink)

With advances in medical technology, the potential uses for human blood have proliferated, and in turn, so has the demand for blood. Blood and blood products circulate in a medical marketplace as a `good' that can be bought and sold to meet various health and commercial demands. Nevertheless, its point of origin — or `production' — remains the individual human body, and reliance on voluntary blood donation remains a cornerstone for meeting this growing (...) market demand. This article examines the contradictions surrounding blood donation in the ethnographic context of contemporary urban China. Specifically, it focuses on both how the circulation of blood outside the individual body interfaces with its circulation in the Chinese social body, and how individual Chinese conceptualize their acts of donation in this process. In ethnographic interviews for this project, many urbanites describe donation as both voluntary and as meeting a social obligation. Yet their donation practices remain structured by meeting work unit quotas and are compensated with monetary and food donations and paid time off. Their descriptions of the mechanisms for motivating and compensating donors echo the socialist calls for contributing to society's greater good typical of the Maoist era propaganda. These descriptions highlight the complexities of sociocultural change in what has come to be described in much of the literature as a `postsocialist' Chinese society characterized by a burgeoning consumer culture and increasing emergence of individual autonomy. Our interviews suggest that the socialist workplace remains a critical social and economic structure in China through which workers' production is transformed into a social `good'. This transformation originates within the individual bodies of workers (not on the factory floor) and is extracted through exhortations to contribute to better society via the work unit and one's obligations to the work unit. Rather than a shift to individual autonomy and self-improvement, or a re-emergence of traditional values — both of which have been described as hallmarks of the postsocialist era — this process highlights the role that the socialist work unit plays in defining Chinese citizenship, consumer culture and embodied desires. (shrink)

Introduction -- Moral reasoning from a cosmopolitan perspective : the problem of culture -- Culturalism and moral reasoning -- Towards a moral conceptual base of culture -- Cosmopolitanism : a definition and the question of tolerance -- Who owns culture : a moral cosmopolitan inquiry -- Culture-faith : the mystification of culture -- Culture-faith applied : cultural privacy and the ownership of native culture -- Counter arguments against applied culture faith : the right to cultural privacy -- Representation without authorization (...) -- Who has the right to speak for whom? -- Ethnocide or culture killings : is it so bad? -- Dismantling the tribes from within : modernization and the capabilities approach -- Moral culture is public culture : cosmopolitanism and culture warfare -- Sylvia Plath : daddy and the creation of moral culture -- Moral incommensurability and the clash of cultures -- The anatomy of anti-assimilationism and the logic of contagion -- The cult of death and the worship of ancestry : the genesis of group arcissism -- The psychopathology of tribalism : an exposé -- The tribalist as moral appropriator -- Symbolic ethnicity -- Ethnic vs. ethnic : the problem of definition -- Tribalism, untouchability, and human slime -- The art of symbolic necrophilia -- Imagistic and emblematic representations : tribal epistemology and the impossibility of knowing the other -- Moral masochism and Black identity : a tragic tale -- Jim in Africa -- Theorizing post humanity : radical inclusion, Jews as the chosen people, and the identity politics of St. Paul -- Laissez-faire existential engagement -- Post human in the flesh : Jews and the fragility of chosennes -- How God became a cosmopolitan -- The identity politics of St. Paul. (shrink)