Background: Funding organisations and research ethics committees should play a part in strengthening attention to gender equality in clinical research. In the research policy of European Union , funding measures have been taken to realise this, but such measures are lacking in the EU policy regarding RECs.Objective: To explore how RECs in Austria, Germany, Ireland, The Netherlands and Sweden deal with gender equality issues by asking two questions: Do existing procedures promote representation of women and gender expertise in the committee? (...) How are sex and gender issues dealt with in protocol evaluation?Methods: Two RECs were selected from each country. Data were obtained through interviews with key informants and content analysis of relevant documents .Results: All countries have rules to ensure the presence of women on RECs; gender expertise is not required. Drug study protocols are carefully evaluated, sometimes on a formal basis, as regards the inclusion of women of childbearing age. The reason for excluding either one of the sexes or including specific groups of women or making a gender-specific risk–benefit analysis are investigated by some RECs. Such measures are, however, neither defined in the regulations nor integrated in review tools.Conclusions: The RECs investigated in five European member states are found to pay limited attention to gender equality in their working methods and, in particular in protocol evaluation. Policy and regulations of EU are needed to strengthen attention to gender equality in the work of RECs. (shrink)

Symbolic healing, that is, responding to meaningful experiences in positive ways, can facilitate human healing. This process partly engages consciousness and partly evades consciousness completely (sometimes it partakes of both simultaneously). This paper, presented as the Society for the Anthropology of Consciousness Distinguished Lecture at the 2011 AAA meeting in Montreal, reviews recent research on what is ordinarily (and unfortunately) called the “placebo effect.” The author makes the argument that language use should change, and the relevant portions of what is (...) often called the placebo effect should be referred to as the “meaning response.”. (shrink)

The distinctions drawn by Vaesen are plausible when we are comparing chimpanzees and human beings somewhere between the middle Paleolithic and the Neolithic. But since then new kinds of organization have vastly outstripped these neurological differences to account for the enormous advancement of human technology leaving our remarkable evolutionary cousins far behind.

Gent is the second largest flemish city, which entails typical metropolitan issues such as the concentration of underprivileged and migrant workers. lts educational network of city schools therefore has a far greater proportional share of migrant students than other schools. The local public education network, by definition has the strongest ties with the local community. Having lifted obstacles of open or concealed discrimination, it still remains difficult to assess what determines school choice, for native pupils as well as for pupils (...) of foreign origin.It is therefore necessary to part from the assumption that education of migrant children is necessarily of inferior quality. City schools start from the basic idea that high quality education is obtained by getting the best out of every child in accordance with his or her talents. Gent has chosen to work with heterogeneousgroups. Social and racial segregation does not prepare students adequately for "real life" in society. This concentration of pupils of underprivileged and deprived origin implies that one necessarily has to keep education as inexpensive as possible. (shrink)