What does autonomy mean from a moral point of view? Throughout Western history, autonomy has had no less than four different meanings. The first is political: the capacity of old cities and modern states to give themselves their own laws. The second is metaphysical, and was introduced by Kant in ...

The origins of professional ethical codes and oaths are explored. Their legitimacy and usefulness within the profession are questioned and an alternative ethical source is suggested. This source relies on a commonly shared, naturally knowable set of principles known as common morality.

Medicine, law, and social values are not static. Reexamining the ethical tenets of medicine and their application in new circumstances is a necessary exercise. The sixth edition of the American College of Physicians (ACP) Ethics Manual covers emerging issues in medical ethics and revisits older ones that are still very ...

Dialogues in Dermatology, a monthly audio program from the American Academy of Dermatology, contains discussions between dermatologists on timely topics. Commentaries from Dialogues Editor-in-Chief Michael Girardi, MD, are provided after each discussion as a topic summary and are provided here as a special service to readers of the Journal of ...

SUMMARY: Screening can identify individuals at increased risk of or in the early stage of a disease at a time when intervention can reduce the risk of morbidity and mortality. There are many ethical issues that have arisen as a result of screening. These can relate to the process of ...

Workshops are an important part of the IFPA annual meeting as they allow for discussion of specialised topics. At IFPA meeting 2011 there were twelve themed workshops, five of which are summarized in this report. These workshops related to various aspects of placental biology: 1) immunology; 2) epigenetics; 3) comparative ...

: We are pleased to publish for the first time selected key summary articles of proceedings from the 5th Annual Retreat for Applied Immunohistochemistry and Molecular Pathology (AIMP). Although the utility and use of immunohistochemistry in diagnostic pathology has improved tremendously since its inception nearly 4 decades ago, issues continue ...

AIM: To provide guidance on writing congress abstracts for submission and how to increase the chance of acceptance. REVIEW: There is increasing competition for submitted abstracts to be accepted by scientific congresses. Because the facilities or size of a congress may be limited a selection process is often used based ...

Television and other media inundate Americans with innumerable yet fragmentary examples of Miranda warnings; however, familiarity born of repeated exposures cannot be equated with accuracy or understanding. The intended purpose of these warnings is to inform and caution rather than to pacify and reassure-a purpose that cannot be realized when ...

Abstract Many countries are considering the expansion of their newborn bloodspot screening programmes. Whereas some countries screen for very few conditions, others are planning to screen for dozens. While advances in technology may facilitate this expansion, they must not lead it at the expense of considerations of the possible harms ...

How are we to understand the fact that the philosophical debate over nanotechnologies has been reduced to a clash of seemingly preprogrammed arguments and counterarguments that paralyzes all rational discussion of the ultimate ethical question of social acceptability in matters of nanotechnological development? With this issue as its starting point, ...

Tom Beauchamp and James Childress have always maintained that their four principles approach (otherwise known as principlism) is a globally applicable framework for biomedical ethics. This claim is grounded in their belief that the principles of respect for autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence and justice form part of a 'common morality', or ...

This contribution is a sequel to an earlier paper in the journal by the second author. It examines the Government's remit to the Law Commission to suggest revision to the law relating to homicide, and the eventual somewhat muted implementation in the Coroners and Justice Act of 2009. These changes ...

ACCESSIBLE SUMMARY: •  Society undergoes long-term changes that in many ways are hard to visualize, explore, and grasp. Many previous obstacles, problems and risks of the everyday life have been solved, but new ones have emerged. Characteristics of these new risks are that they might appear anywhere, are hard to ...

More than ever before, public institutions are expected to have accessible guidelines on what they do, both for their staff and for those served by them. With this in mind, some principles of treatment and care of sick children were drafted for the Children's Hospital at Westmead. These were centred ...

This paper explores the theory and practice of embodied epistemology or mindful embodiment in ethics case consultation. I argue that not only is this epistemology an ethical imperative to safeguard the integrity of this emerging profession, but that it has the potential to improve the quality of ethics consultation (EC). ...

The development of a code of ethics for a profession can be an indicator of the coherence and stability of a discipline as a unique and singular entity. Since "bioethics", as a discipline, is not one profession but many, practiced by persons with not one but many varying responsibilities and ...

A sudden paradigm shift has resulted in governmental measures that greatly impact the scope in which the ethics committees in Germany can perform their task of providing expert opinions for clinical research. The so-called "revaluation" of the Medical Device Law Deutsches Medizinproduktegesetz-MPG) is, in our opinion, not based on sound ...

Engineering ethics is usually focused on engineers' ethics, engineers acting as individuals. Certainly, these professionals play a central role in the matter, but engineers are not a singularity inside engineering; they exist and operate as a part of a complex network of mutual relationships between many other people, organizations and ...

In its guidelines for hand care professionals, the American Society for Surgery of the Hand has set the following criteria as guidelines for the ethical hand surgeon in the 21st century: decency, honor, and integrity. This article reviews these criteria in detail, relates how they apply in practice, and describes ...

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Palliative sedation is a standard procedure used in palliative care especially for patients at the very end of their lives, who are enduring otherwise intractable suffering. It consists of the administration of sedatives and, when necessary, other drugs, usually by infusion, either subcutaneously or intravenously, at the ...

The following report provides an overview of the discussions and outcome of the EuPA General Council meeting that took place in Estoril 20-21 October 2010. During the annual meeting future policy and action plans in a variety of areas are decided. Several important points were decided upon during this meeting ...

Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory committees have a significant influence on patterns of clinical practice worldwide. Recent guidance to the committees by the FDA has focused on attempting to eliminate sources of bias due to committee voting procedures. Nevertheless, major sources of social influence have not been addressed. We ...

In Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice (2007) and an earlier article in this journal, "Defending Abortion Philosophically"(2006), Francis Beckwith argues that fetuses are, from conception, prima facie wrong to kill. His arguments are based on what he calls a "metaphysics of the human person" known ...

Given the availability of novel biologic agents for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA), various national scientific societies have developed specific recommendations in order to assist rheumatologists in prescribing these drugs. The Italian Society for Rheumatology (Società Italiana di Reumatologia, SIR) decided to update its recommendations, and, to this end, ...

Given the availability of novel biologic agents for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA), various national scientific societies have developed specific recommendations in order to assist rheumatologists in prescribing these drugs. The Italian Society for Rheumatology (Società Italiana di Reumatologia, SIR) decided to update its recommendations and, to this end, ...

Evolutionary debunking arguments (EDAs) are arguments that appeal to the evolutionary origins of evaluative beliefs to undermine their justification. This paper aims to clarify the premises and presuppositions of EDAs-a form of argument that is increasingly put to use in normative ethics. I argue that such arguments face serious obstacles. ...

Discussions on questions and problems of medical ethics are on everyone's lips. The debates center for instance around the just allocation of public resources, demographical changes in our society or the guarantee of patient autonomy, thus posing questions on the technical progress in modern medicine. These contemporary conflicts in medicine ...

Health and socioeconomic disparities tend to be experienced along racial and ethnic lines, but investigators are not sure how individuals are assigned to groups, or how consistent this process is. To address these issues, 1,919 orthodontic patient records were examined by at least two observers who estimated each individual's race ...

Emerging domestic and international chemical regulations and a heightened consumer awareness of chemicals of concern in products is challenging American businesses to reevaluate and reconsider their approaches to supply chain management and product design. Some of these companies recognize business opportunities and are responding proactively with innovative strategies and tactics. ...

Healthcare organizations the world over are faced with having to set priorities and allocate resources within the constraint of a fixed envelope of funding. Drawing on economic principles of value for money and ethical principles of fair process, a priority setting framework was developed for Ontario's local health integration networks ...

I analyze the case of humanitarian pro-migrant activists in southern Arizona between 2000 and 2010 to explore how contending groups wield law and legality claims in a dynamic policy environment. Humanitarian activists both evade and engage the law. They appeal to a higher law to elude charges that they are ...

As a therapist operating my own practice, I am constantly reminded of the ethical aspects of my work in dealing with situations involving clients and the everyday running of my business. Professional boundaries and ethical practices are recognized within our profession as an important aspect of our work, as evidenced ...

Polanyi insisted that scientific knowledge was intensely personal in nature, though held with universal intent. His insights regarding the personal values of beauty and morality in science are first enunciated. These are then explored for their relevance to engineering. It is shown that the practice of engineering is also governed ...

OBJECTIVES: To gauge consensus regarding a proposed definition for refractory migraine proposed by Refractory Headache Special Interest Section, and where its use would be most appropriate. BACKGROUND: Headache experts have long recognized that a subgroup of headache sufferers remains refractory to treatment. Although different groups have proposed criteria to define ...

Teaching ethics across the curriculum is a strategy adopted by many universities. One of the fundamental aims of teaching ethics across the curriculum is to get students to see ethics as truly relevant to the subjects they are studying. Ideally, students will come to see that ethics is a thread ...

Psychotherapists aim to benefit others, especially clients. The corresponding ethical principle, beneficence, is found in the aspirational, not enforceable, section of the American Psychological Association (2002) ethics code, is central to the idea of a professional, and is a crucial component of ethical excellence. Beneficence and related controversies (e.g., varying ...

Four carbon-11-labeled camptothecin derivatives, 9-[11C]methoxy-20(S)-camptothecin ([11C]5), 10-[11C]methoxy-20(S)-camptothecin ([11C]7), 9-nitro-10-[11C]methoxy-20(S)-camptothecin ([11C]9), and 9-[([11C]trimethylamino)methyl]-10-hydroxy-20(S)-camptothecin ([11C]11), have been synthesized as potential positron emission tomography tracers for imaging of topoisomerase I in cancers.

Changes are occurring within Brazilian institutes of higher education; currently several universities are reviewing their course offerings and teaching approaches to determine if they meet the needs of today's undergraduate students. When changes are made to the curriculum of experimental courses, there should be an understood guarantee that all efforts ...

The MeOH extract of aerial parts of Flourensia riparia Grisebach (Asteraceae) afforded a sesquiterpene lactone, 4beta-hydroxy-4,10alpha-dimethyl-7alphaH,8alphaH-eudesman-11-ene-8,12-olide, together with septuplinolide, its isomer at positions C-5 and C-10. In addition, known flavonoids, p-hydroxyacetophenone derivatives, carabrone and isoalantolactone were identified. Three known flavonoids and a benzofuran were isolated from Flourensia campestris Wedd.

With the passage of the European "take-back" laws all but inevitable, American automakers are stepping up efforts to recycle U.S. cars.

Abnormal electroencephalographic seizure-like activity and myoclonic movements have been recognized during enflurane anesthesia. This is most commonly seen in the presence of respiratory alkalosis and high concentrations of enflurane. Immediate and delayed postoperative generalized tonic-clonic convulsions have also been reported after enflurane anesthesia. Experimental studies have shown that auditory stimuli ...

Abstract In this paper the relationship between the use of abortion and contraception among married women in a society experiencing uronid decline in fertility is analysed using data from the Korean National Fertility Survey of 1974. The level and pattern of abortion before and after modern contraceptives became widely available ...

Two chimpanzees were given by mouth large numbers of viable oocysts of Toxoplasma gondii obtained from the faeces of experimentally infected cats. Before the experiment the first chimpanzee had a positive dye test reaction (1:250), an indication that it had undergone an earlier infection of toxoplasmosis; the serum antibody titres ...

The home page of the American Headache Society (AHS), a professional society of health care professionals with an interest in the study and treatment of headache and face pain. This site offers information for clinicians and headache specialists as well as a wide range of patient education brochures on headaches ...

This article describes the process of the Canadian Cardiovascular Society 2010 atrial fibrillation (AF) guidelines update. Guideline development was based on the GRADE (Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation) system of evaluation. GRADE separates the quality of evidence (very low, low, moderate, or high quality) from the strength of ...

Beginning in 1955, the American Heart Association recommended antibiotic prophylaxis among patients with certain structural heart diseases to decrease the likelihood of infective endocarditis (IE) following dental procedures. Over the ensuing 52 years, the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association (ACC/AHA) guidelines were revised to address gastrointestinal and genitourinary procedures ...

Colonization of the gastrointestinal tract by bacteria of the normal flora was followed by bacteriological and special histological techniques in mice from several colonies. These histological techniques were designed to preserve the intimate associations that become established between particular strains of microorganisms and the epithelium of the mucosa of certain ...

A short review of past and recent works pertinent to the etiology and pathogenesis of infectious mononucleosis is presented. Epidemiological studies have led to the elaboration of hypotheses concerning the etiology, the length of the incubation period and the mode of transmission of the disease. An unusual type of infectious ...