Cross jurisdictional collaboration efforts and emergency vaccine plans that are consistent with Tribal sovereignty are essential to public health emergency preparedness. The widespread adoption of clearly written federal, state, and local vaccine plans that address fundamental assumptions in vaccine distribution to Tribal nations is imperative for future pandemic response.

This article provides a systematic analysis of the proposal to use Covid‐19 vaccination status as a criterion for admission of patients with Covid‐19 to intensive care units (ICUs) under conditions of resource scarcity. The general consensus is that it is inappropriate to use vaccination status as a criterion because doing so would be unjust; many health systems, including the UK National Health Service, are based on the principle of equality of access to care. However, the analysis reveals that there are (...) several unique features of Covid vaccination status in the context of a pandemic that make this issue disanalogous to cases (such as lung cancer caused by smoking) discussed previously. First, there is equality in access to care at the point of vaccination; the unvaccinated refuse the offer of preventive care when they decline vaccination, weakening their claim to ongoing care if they become ill (this is qualitatively different from ‘poor lifestyle choices’ such as smoking). Second, the decision of one person to refuse vaccination substantially increases the risk that they will become seriously ill and need ICU care; the person who chooses not to get vaccinated thus potentially increases the pressure on intensive care bed provision, as well as increasing the risk that he or she will infect others who in turn might end up needing ICU care. Third, justice cuts both ways, and giving unvaccinated patients equal priority may itself be unjust when other patients have reduced their risk of ending up on the ICU by getting vaccinated. (shrink)

Recent theorizing argues that online communication technologies provide powerful, although precarious, means of emotional regulation. We develop this understanding further. Drawing on subjective reports collected during periods of imposed social restrictions under COVID-19, we focus on how this precarity is a source of emo-tional dysregulation. We make our case by organizing responses into five distinct but intersecting dimensions wherein the precarity of this regulation is most relevant: infrastructure, functional use, mindful design (individual and social), and digital tact. Analyzing these reports, (...) along with examples of mediating technologies (i.e., self-view) and common interactive dynamics (e.g., gaze coordination), we tease out how breakdowns along these dimensions are sources of affective dysregulation. We argue that the adequacy of available technological resources and competencies of various kinds matter greatly to the types of emotional experiences one is likely to have online. Further research into online communication technologies as modula-tors of both our individual and collective well-being is urgently needed, especially as the echoes of the digital push that COVID-19 initiated are set to continue rever-berating into the future. (shrink)

Communication campaigns often highlight environmental progress to encourage further pro-environmental behaviour. Consequently, the drop in carbon emissions caused by the COVID-19 restrictions has been framed as a positive environmental outcome of the pandemic. We conducted an experimental study with a US-representative sample (N = 500) to show that raising awareness of emissions reduction has the contrary effect: an increase in moral self-concept facilitated a negative spillover, namely, it reduced climate-friendly behavioural intentions. Normative influence was able to prevent this negative spillover (...) because activating environmental norms inhibited compensatory feelings. Besides, awareness of recent emissions reduction was less likely to increase the moral self-concept of participants with a strong environmental self-identity. Our findings demonstrate that environmental progress increases moral self-concept which, in turn, could cause a negative spillover (i.e., reduce climate-friendly low-carbon behaviour and increase climate-harmful high-carbon behaviour). Normative influences and environmental self-identity can inhibit this negative spillover. (shrink)

Background:The severity of the Coronavirus pandemic has led to lockdowns in different countries to reduce the spread of the infection. These lockdown restrictions are likely to be detrimental to mental health and well-being in adolescents. Physical activity can be beneficial for mental health and well-being; however, research has yet to examine associations between adolescent physical activity and mental health and well-being during lockdown.Purpose:Examine the effects of adolescent perceived Coronavirus prevalence and fear on mental health and well-being and investigate the extent (...) to which physical activity can be a protective factor against these concerns.Methods:During United Kingdom lockdown restrictions, 165 participants (100 female, aged 13–19) completed an online questionnaire assessing perceived Coronavirus prevalence and fear, physical activity, and indicators of mental health and well-being (stress, anxiety, depression, fatigue, vitality, and perceived health). Separate hierarchical multiple linear regression analyses (with age, gender, perceived Coronavirus prevalence, and fear entered in step 1, and physical activity in step 2) were run to predict each well-being outcome.Results:Regression analyses indicated that in general, while Coronavirus fear was a negative predictor, physical activity was a positive and stronger predictor of enhanced mental health and well-being outcomes.Conclusion:Findings suggest that physical activity during the Coronavirus pandemic can counteract the negative effects of Coronavirus fear on adolescent mental health and well-being. Therefore, physical activity should be promoted during lockdown to support good mental health and well-being. (shrink)

In response to the Covid‐19 pandemic, health care systems worldwide canceled or delayed elective surgeries, outpatient procedures, and clinic appointments. Although such measures may have been necessary to preserve medical resources and to prevent potential exposures early in the pandemic, moving forward, the indirect effects of such an extensive medical shutdown must not outweigh the direct harms of Covid‐19. In this essay, we argue for the reopening of evidence‐based health care with assurance provided to patients about the safety and necessity (...) of high‐value vaccinations, screenings, therapeutics, and procedures. To ensure that virtually all non‐Covid‐related services do not come to a halt again, health care systems and physician practices must preemptively increase their capacity, secure adequate personal protective equipment to safeguard health care personnel, and develop a measured approach to reclosing such routine health care, should it become necessary in the future. (shrink)

For much of 2021, allocating the scarce supply of Covid‐19 vaccines was the world's most pressing bioethical challenge, and similar challenges may recur for novel therapies and future vaccines. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) identified three fundamental ethical principles to guide the process: maximize benefits, promote justice, and mitigate health inequities. We argue that critical components of the recommended protocol were internally inconsistent with these principles. Specifically, the ACIP (...) violated its principles by recommending overly broad health care worker priority in phase 1a, using being at least seventy‐five years of age as the only criterion to identify individuals at high risk of death from Covid‐19 during phase 1b, failing to recommend place‐based vaccine distribution, and implicitly endorsing first‐come, first‐served allocation. More rigorous empirical work and the development of a complete ethical framework that recognizes trade‐offs between principles may have prevented these mistakes and saved lives. (shrink)

The author argues that ancient Skepticism may be most suited to deal with two crises in the Age of COVID-19: both the physical or epidemiological aspects of the pandemic, and the epistemological and ethical crisis of increasing disbelief in the sciences. Following Michel Bitbol, I suggest one way to mitigate this crisis of faith may be for science to become more epistemically modest, renouncing some of its claims to describe reality as it objectively is, and adopting an “intransitive” rather than (...) a “transitive” approach to Nature. This was the attitude adopted by the Greco-Roman medical school of the Empirics, which may also be of assistance in combatting the urgent problem of Fake News. The epistemology of Skepticism and the scientific methodology of the closely related Medical Empiricism shows that an epistemically modest, non-interventionist approach to science is quite compatible with a robust and sophisticated proto-experimental scientific methodology. (shrink)

In two pre-registered online studies during the COVID-19 pandemic and the early 2020 lockdown (one of which with a UK representative sample) we elicit risk-tolerance for 1,254 UK residents using four of the most widely applied risk-taking tasks in behavioral economics and psychology. Specifically, participants completed the incentive-compatible Balloon Analog Risk Task (BART) and the Binswanger-Eckel-Grossman (BEG) multiple lotteries task, as well as the Domain-Specific Risk-Taking Task (DOSPERT) and the self-reported questions for risk-taking used in the German Socio-economic Panel (SOEP) (...) study. In addition, participants in the UK representative sample answered a range of questions about COVID-19-related risky behaviors selected from the UCL COVID-19 Social Survey and the ICL-YouGov survey on COVID-19 behaviors. Consistently with pre-COVID-19 times, we find that risk tolerance during the UK lockdown (i) was higher in men than in women and (ii) decreased with age. Undocumented in pre-COVID-19 times, we find some evidence for healthier participants displaying significantly higher risk-tolerance for self-reported risk measures. We find no systematic nor robust patterns of association between the COVID-19 risky behaviors and the four risk-taking tasks in our study. Moreover, we find no evidence in support of the so-called “risk compensation” hypothesis. If anything, it appears that participants who took greater risk in real-life COVID-19-relevant risky behaviors (e.g., isolating or taking precautions) also exhibited higher risk-tolerance in our experimental and self-reported risk-taking measures. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Classical Genetics Modern Genetics How Genes Work DNA Function in Metabolism Differentiation Information, Structure and Function: Individuals and “Persons” Information and Individuals Personhood and “Me‐ness”.

The outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 has threatened ethnographic inquiry, undermining its quintessential characteristic. Participant observation, then, has been thoroughly dismembered by the radical measures implemented to prevent the spread of the virus. This phenomenon, in short, has dragged anthropologists to a liminal state within which ethnography is paradoxically caught in an onto-epistemological unstable vortex. The question of being here and not there, during the pandemic, is epitomised in the instability of different spatio-temporal contexts that overlap through technological mediations. Reflecting on previous (...) fieldwork experiences and current virtual inquiries with the Shuar of the Ecuadorian Amazon unfolds how COVID-19 has thoroughly reshaped how the author approaches subjects' socio-ecological settings. Against this background, the article argues that corporeal immersion remains a necessary condition for the anthropological scrutiny of multispecies relationalities amidst the challenging times of the Anthropocene. The article nevertheless demonstrates that the intellectual efforts to grasp the different material temporalities of virtual spaces embrace the ethical principles concerning the renunciation of fieldwork with vulnerable communities. Furthermore, a reflective and speculative stance is proposed to actualise the snapshots of faraway physicalities linking them to past embodied and multi-sensory experiences. It is ultimately theorised how these mnemonic devices operate as creative forms of inquiry that overcome the pandemic consequences, extra-stimulating our cognitive capabilities to reflect on prior and possible socio-material interactions. (shrink)

The coronavirus has affected almost all sectors of the economy. Some areas have suffered and declined, while others have developed and benefited from the pandemic. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, economies around the world have experienced a downturn. The effects of the pandemic will undoubtedly reverberate around the world for decades to come. The global threat of the COVID-19 epidemic has greatly affected people, families, communities and businesses. Countries have begun implementing a wide range of measures both within and between (...) countries to combat the humanitarian and commercial impact of COVID-19. The effects of the worldwide epidemic and the emergency situations to be taken in this context were felt more and more in business life. Considering that the epidemic progressed very quickly, it was observed that it caused constant negative pressure on business and stock markets. This situation is interpreted as a harbinger of a global crisis. On the other hand, issues such as disruptions in supply and distribution channels, closure of workplaces and ports, disruption of customs processes, lack of manpower and decrease in consumption, operations in the stock market continued in a negative direction day by day. The consistent exposure of COVID-19 around the world, especially in developing economies, suggests that developing economies are seen as a major driver of macroeconomic instability compared to developed countries. After the initiation of economic reforms, with the increase of national income, aggregate production and employment, the trend of increasing economic volatility in developing economies has also been observed. Considering all this, it can be noted that the topic of the article is quite relevant. In the article, the negative impact of the pandemic on the economy of the world, as well as Azerbaijan, is examined in a broad aspect, and the methods of eliminating the damage caused by it are determined. (shrink)

Green space around the university campus is of paramount importance for emotional and psychological restorations in students. Positive emotions in students can be aroused when immersed in green space and naturalness. However, to what extent can perceived naturalness influence students' positive emotion remains unclear, especially in the context of COVID-19 countermeasures. This study, therefore, attempts to investigate in-depth the nature and strength of the relationships between students' positive emotion and their perceived naturalness, place attachment, and landscape preference, which are potentially (...) varying across universities in different social and environmental contexts and different restrictions policies regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. (shrink)

Objective: To explore the strategies that can help individuals mourning a family member’s death from Covid-19 to cope with the loss. Method: We carried out a narrative review on the PubCovid-19 platform using the descriptors “death,” “mourning,” “Covid-19,” and “coping strategies.” Ten articles were included. Results: The strategies found are phone calls, audio recording, letters, and photos, classified as immediate and long-term. These strategies are focused on mental health, which can be adversely affected by depression and psychological disorders. Conclusions: Creating (...) counseling programs for the relatives of those who died from Covid-19 is urgent. They must offer comprehensive, humanized, and continuous mental health care. (shrink)

Background Healthcare professionals (HCPs) face a myriad of ethical challenges during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. However, there is limited literature examining the ethical challenges faced by HCPs in low- and medium-income countries. The research was designed to explore the ethical challenges experienced by HCPs in a Malaysian hospital setting during the pandemic. Methods Semistructured interviews were conducted via video calls with 10 Malaysian HCPs across different clinical disciplines involved in managing patients diagnosed with COVID-19 infections. The calls were (...) audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim and checked. Thematic analysis with constant comparison across transcripts was carried out to identify categories and themes. Results Three main themes emerged. Firstly, there was deprioritisation of care for non-COVID-19 patients resulting from resource limitations. HCPs raised concerns that there was curtailed access to various healthcare services by non-COVID-19 patients. There was also a trade-off between protecting individual patient safety and public health interests. Secondly, patients were disempowered from decision-making; the decision to segregate suspected COVID-19 patients to high-risk areas without seeking patients’ approval may result in an increased risk of infection. Lastly, HCPs expressed internal conflicts when balancing the professional duty of care against concerns about contracting COVID-19 and spreading it to their family members. Conclusion The study highlighted ethical issues faced by HCPs in Malaysia during the pandemic. It underscores the need for clinical ethics consultation services in hospitals to navigate the various ethical dilemmas. (shrink)

From the late 1980s, scientists began concentrating their search for genes presumed responsible for inherited tendencies to get ovarian and breast cancers on chromosome 17. The Berkeley group and others around the world were closing in on the sequence when Mark Skolnick, a founder of Myriad Genetics, announced successfully isolating and cloning the BRCA1 mutation. In 1994, Myriad and other cooperating parties first filed a patent for the BRCA1 mutation they isolated and then in 1995 they also filed patents for (...) what is known as BRCA2, a related mutation. By 1996, Myriad developed and began marketing “BRCAnalysis™,” their predictive test for the presence of possibly cancer‐causing mutations. Shortly after the American Civil Liberties Union's (ACLU) filed its case against Myriad, a series of cases went up to the US Supreme Court that set the stage for its eventual decision in Myriad, and revisited the subject of Section 101 patent‐eligibility. (shrink)

This study examines the practice of corporate social responsibility (CSR) during COVID-19. Little is known about how organizations practice CSR during acute exogenous crises. Overlooking how CSR practices change during a crisis matters because organizations are compelled into trade-offs that carry implications for their CSR initiatives. Analysis of interview data with CSR managers, from 21 Dubai-based business organizations during COVID-19, uncovers changes in the content and process of CSR during the pandemic. The results show that the practice of CSR underwent (...) a fundamental change in focus as organizations shifted to an employee-centric model of CSR and away from an environmental one. Measures placed on organizations and society to combat the pandemic also led to a recalibration of stakeholder and issue salience, with notable effects on CSR that challenge the capability of the power–legitimacy–urgency framework to anticipate these shifts. We consider the impacts associated with the shift in the content of CSR initiatives and process of their implementation and discuss the implications of the findings for CSR theory, research, policy, and practice. (shrink)

US law has until recently treated unmodified and merely “isolated” genes as a form of intellectual property. Patents protect processes, methods, manufactures, and compositions of matter. Legal theorists and intellectual property scholars have similarly weighed in on the patentability of genes, often uncritical of the strained lines of reasoning that made first “isolated and purified” products of nature patentable, or simply weighing the costs vs. benefits. In the early fifteenth century, the first robust institutionalized forms of intellectual property protection emerged (...) in Europe. This chapter examines the theory of intellectual property implicit in its historical development and looks more closely at the question of whether genes belong to the general category “intellectual property.” The purpose of intellectual property law is to encourage innovation, to discourage secret‐keeping, and to move new knowledge into the public domain after a period of time. (shrink)

Getting consumers to adopt infection prevention measures is important for society to overcome the coronavirus pandemic. This research adopts a moral decoupling perspective to examine how consumers in Germany respond to perceived transgressions of COVID-19 infection prevention regulations. Focusing on two nonpharmaceutical measures (mask wearing, social distancing) as well as a pharmaceutical one (vaccination), two empirical studies indicate that transgression relevance influences intention to adopt the measure (in parallel) through judgment of performance and judgment of morality. Type of transgression moderates (...) the effect of transgression relevance on morality, but not on performance. In addition, effects weaken as a person’s fear of infection increases. Effects are robust, though, when controlling for moral decoupling and moral delegation (Study 1), and additionally for psychological reactance and political orientation (Study 2). Implications for research and practice evolve around new insights into how to get consumers to adopt infection prevention measures more effectively. (shrink)

This case study analysis looks at Portuguese policy during the COVID‐19 pandemic whereby convicts were freed for the sake of public health. I defend this policy negatively by refuting the argument that suggested it involved various forms of injustice.

Guidelines for clerkship training at one Canadian medical school – Western University’s Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry – did not state the ethical principles associated with the decision to suspend and eventually resume clinical training during the COVID-19 pandemic. The absence of stated ethical principles was notable considering the impact these decisions had on various stakeholders, and since ethics plays a large role in the practice of medicine. This study assessed these guidelines using an ethical lens approach to identify (...) ethical principles and tensions implicit in the guidelines. Clerkship is defined as the third year of training at this medical school, which consists of clinical rotations. While ethical principles were not documented, it was hypothesized that these could be identified within the guidelines. A literature search was conducted, which yielded a gap in knowledge concerning ethical considerations of clerkship clinical training. The guidelines were analyzed and ethical principles and tensions between conflicting principles were identified. The most prevalent principles were beneficence and non-maleficence. It is recommended that in the future, the ethical principles associated with guidelines responding to significant issues affecting undergraduate medical education be stated, in order to increase transparency to all parties involved, enhance communication with students, and to serve as an example of how ethics is applied in a medical education setting. One limitation of this study was the use of internal guideline documents, which were circulated internally but are not published. (shrink)

BackgroundChildhood abuse increases risk for high levels of distress in response to future stressors. Interpersonal social support is protective for health, particularly during stress, and may be particularly beneficial for individuals who experienced childhood abuse.ObjectiveInvestigate whether childhood abuse predicts levels of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms related to the COVID-19 pandemic, and test whether the perceived availability of social companionship preceding the pandemic moderates this relationship.MethodsDuring Phase 1, adults (N= 120; AgeM[SD] = 19.4 [0.94]) completed a retrospective measure of childhood (...) adversity along with a measure of perceived availability of opportunities for social engagement immediately preceding the pandemic. Two weeks after the COVID-19 pandemic declaration, participants completed the Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R) with respect to the pandemic. Hierarchical linear regression analyses examined the interaction between childhood abuse and the perceived availability of social companionship preceding the pandemic as a predictor of PTSD symptoms.ResultsAdjusting for covariates, the interaction between childhood abuse and perceived availability of others to engage with before the onset of the pandemic was a significant predictor of IES-hyperarousal (β = −0.19,t= −2.06,p= 0.04, ΔR2= 0.032, CI: [−0.31 to −0.01]).ConclusionLevels of perceived opportunities for social companionship before the pandemic associates with levels of hyperarousal related to the pandemic, particularly for individuals who experienced high levels of childhood abuse. More research is needed to understand how to mitigate the higher levels of distress related to the pandemic for these individuals in order to reduce risk for future psychiatric disorders. (shrink)

The advent of the COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly transformed grief around the world. What are the impacts of context factors regarding the COVID-19 pandemic on dysfunctional symptoms of grief? This is a study with a qualitative approach, integrative review, whose article data collection was carried out in the following databases: Biblioteca Virtual de Saúde (BVS), Portal Brasileiro de Publicações e Dados Científicos em Acesso Aberto (Oasisbr), United States National Library of Medicine (PubMed), Scientific Electronic Library (SciELO) and Web of Science. (...) Thirty-three articles were selected for the analysis. The studies showed different results when the risk factors were detailed individually. However, the pandemic context proved to be a complex element that created vulnerability associated with grieving. Bioethics presents itself as a locus of interdisciplinary discussion for a more profound understanding of the complex specificities and, based on the social and political responsibility of Protection Bioethics to protect vulnerable populations, it is recommended to mental health professionals who intentionally explore the impacts of the pandemic on the grieving process. The suffering of people bereaved during the pandemic must be publicly recognized, offering safe spaces for reception and sharing. (shrink)

In the aftermath of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, there is a predicted (and emerging) increase in experiences of mental illness. This phenomenon has been described as “the next pandemic”, suggesting that the concepts used to understand and respond to the COVID-19 pandemic are being transferred to conceptualize mental illness. The COVID-19 pandemic was, and continues to be, framed in public media using military metaphors, which can potentially migrate to conceptualizations of mental illness along with pandemic rhetoric. Given that metaphors shape (...) what is considered justifiable action, and how we understand justice, I argue we have a moral responsibility to interrogate who benefits and who is harmed by the language and underlying conceptualizations this rhetoric legitimates. By exploring how military metaphors have been used in the context of COVID-19, I argue that this rhetoric has been used to justify ongoing harm to marginalized groups while further entrenching established systems of power. Given this history, I present what it may look like were military metaphors used to conceptualize a “mental illness pandemic”, what actions this might legitimate and render inconceivable, and who is likely to benefit and be harmed by such rhetorically justified actions. (shrink)

What does vaccine justice require at the domestic and global levels? In this essay, using the COVID-19 pandemic as a backdrop, we argue that deliberative-democratic participation is needed to answer this question. To be effective on the ground, abstract principles of vaccine justice need to be further specified through policy. Any vaccination strategy needs to find ways to prioritize conflicting moral claims to vaccine allocation, clarify the grounds on which low-risk people are being asked to vaccinate, and reach a balance (...) between special duties toward countrymen and universal duties toward foreigners. Reasonable moral disagreement on these questions is bound to exist in any community. But such disagreement threatens to undermine vaccine justice insofar as the chosen vaccination strategy (and its proposed specification of vaccine justice) lacks public justification. Inclusive democratic deliberation about vaccine justice is a good mechanism for tackling such moral disagreement. By allowing residents and citizens to participate in the specification of abstract principles of vaccine justice, and their translation into policy, democratic deliberation can enhance the legitimacy of any vaccination strategy and boost compliance with it. (shrink)

When pandemics hit communities, women are bound to suffer as most of the responsibilities of ensuring food security lie on them. This article assesses the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the role that church-going women play in food provision. The qualitative study used interviews and focus group discussions to examine the toll of the pandemic-induced restrictions, especially with regard to their disruption of activities that ensure the provision of food for the family. They sought to identify how an environment (...) as restrictive as the one that was imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic affects those largely responsible for food provision in urban Marondera – the women, in this case. The focus was extended to factor in how disasters and pandemics affect women and detract from their normative food procurement and provision roles in marginal societies and how these effects can be mitigated to allow women to carry on with their roles even in restrictive environments. This research was motivated by the recent COVID-19-imposed regulations that restricted the movement of people, restrictions that have only recently been relaxed and (in some cases) removed. We also sought to establish how gender roles are played out, together with whether they are exacerbated by pandemics, and in what ways these pandemics result in higher workloads on women. By utilising the Africana womanist theory, the study analysed women roles in food provision and food security in their societies within the restrictive environments of the pandemics.Contribution: This study concluded that there are gender inequalities that are exacerbated by these pandemics that result in higher workloads for women. It foregrounded how existing gender inequalities were exacerbated by the pandemic, resulting in higher workloads on women. It therefore recommended that women should form empowerment groups to help focus attention on food provision to mitigate challenges women face in this role. Finally, we averred that there ought to be consultation and participation of women on issues to do with pandemics to allow for their full and productive participation in critical roles of providing food. (shrink)

For nearly two decades, nonengineered human DNA was patented without challenge. The US Supreme Court recently agreed that many of those patents do not fit accurately into any currently accepted scheme of intellectual property protection. One should consider: whether DNA fits into other forms of property protection (land, moveables, chattels, etc.); whether DNA warrants a new and unique form of property protection, or whether DNA belongs to the class of objects generally considered to be as “the commons.” Current schemes of (...) patent protection for genes are entirely new, unwarranted by precedent, and utterly aberrant in applying the law of patent. Nonetheless, it bears examining how intellectual property schemes might serve as guidance for new forms of intellectual property protection for genes, if indeed those genes fit into classical dimensions of intellectual property. Private ownership of property has emerged as the dominant legal institution covering modes of possession. (shrink)

The sciences of genetics and genomics are revealing more all the time regarding our statuses as individuals relative to our particular genomes. Geographical isolation is presumably the greatest factor in allowing for populations of a species to change genetically over time, in response to environmental pressures and genetic drift accelerated by the mechanism of sexual reproduction. In order to develop a robust account of what rights individual members of the human species might have to either their own particular DNA or (...) the human genome in general, one need to explain the relations between individuals and species in regards to deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). The fact that genes carry over from species to species does not mean that those genes are completely identical across all species. Laws and regulations exist that govern the use of human tissues and property rights over their products. (shrink)

Gene patenting was enabled by strained interpretations of legal precedent and with very little consideration of its ultimate ethical implications. The sciences of justice, ethics, and morals remain in their dark ages, with their practitioners all ascribing to differing values and modes of inquiry, besieged in their various camps of deontological, or consequentialist, or emotive or theistic dogmas. Ownership and property rights in moveables are good candidates for grounded relations as opposed to intellectual property. The groundedness of a valid possession (...) rests on the intentional state of the possessor and other external and objective facts of the possession. The ontology of the social and legal institution of ownership reveals that it is grounded in certain states of affairs, such as brute‐worldly facts and intentional states, as well as social acts revealing intentions of the parties. (shrink)

Life on earth is bound together by a common heritage, centered around a molecule that is present in almost every living cell of every living creature. Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), composed of four base pairs, the nucleic acids thymine, adenine, cytosine, and guanine, encodes the data that directs, in conjunction with the environment, the development and metabolism of all nondependent living creatures. Except for some viruses that rely only on ribonucleic acid (RNA), all living things are built by the interaction of (...) DNA and RNA within cells and their environments. There is no worldwide consensus yet as to whether portions of the human genome should be granted intellectual property protection, as indeed they are in the United States and a number of other nations. DNA posed numerous challenges to the legal framework for patent protection and may suggest developing an entirely new social and legal category recognizing its uniqueness. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: References.

This chapter contains sections titled: You and Your Genes Your Patented Parts The “I, Robot, Your Robot” Scenario The Elephant Man Scenario There's Gold in Them Thar Genes! Bio‐Prospecting and Social Justice Discovery, not Invention Genetic Diversity and Cultural Commons Are You Your Genes? Genes, Information, and Privacy Practical Considerations: Gene Patents and Innovation The Road Ahead.

This chapter contains sections titled: Setting the Task Constructing Yahweh The Ten Commandments: An Evolutionary Interpretation Conclusion: The Evolved Law.

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Unselving Anticipation Departures Conclusion: Schools as Places of Unselving Acknowledgement Notes References.

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction 1. Heidegger's Phenomenology 2. Heidegger on Teaching/Learning 3. Authenticity and the Phenomenon of Teaching Conclusion Notes References.

In most traditions, the law is founded upon some extralegal view of morality. There are only a handful of cases prior to the 1970s that involved patenting nonhuman organisms. John Moore made several claims, but the one of most interest to us here was a claim for conversion, which means the unlawful use of another person's property for the enrichment of the person using the thing unlawfully. The cell line produced from Moore's spleen cells was eventually patented by the defendants. (...) The potential market for products relating to that patent was estimated to be roughly $3 billion US dollars. The move from patenting hybridized plants, to genetically altered microorganisms, to human tissues and genes reflected the epitome of the fabled slippery slope. There is clearly a gap between our intuitions about the relations between our individual genomes, our identities, perceptions of privacy and personal autonomy, and the law. (shrink)

Recent rulings from the US Supreme Court seem to have effectively narrowed the trend toward allowing patents on artificially produced natural products. All objects must have a structural quality and a genetic quality, and if both are the result of some human intention and meet the other criteria of patent (new, useful, and nonobvious) then they may be patentable. There are millions of natural phenomena that are duplicated by man. Products and processes are mutually exclusive categories. No product is a (...) process, and vice versa. This much, the patent law gets right. All objects are either products (continuants) or processes (occurants). There are two types of each: man‐made and natural, for the purposes of intellectual property law. Any discovery of a law or phenomenon of nature involves some degree of intention, some exercise of consciousness and directedness. (shrink)

This chapter discusses some of the practical consequences of the recent and evolving situation in both science and industry, and forecasts how altering the law might affect each. It considers at least three possibilities: (1) justice demands eradicating patenting genes no matter what the consequences, (2) justice and economic efficiency demand altering the current system to meet both concerns, or (3) the economic effects of altering or eradicating the present system outweigh both the concerns of justice or economic efficiency, and (...) so the status quo should be maintained. The chapter explores each of these possibilities with an eye toward actually proposing rational public policy scenarios that could be adopted. Open Source essentially amounts to the ideal methods of the sciences applied to products in the marketplace. DNA in its natural state is the object of discovery and therefore the domain of science. (shrink)

There are a number of ways one could criticize the practice of patenting genes. This chapter argues that computer‐mediated expressions have revealed the false dichotomy in the law of intellectual property and that as new technologies emerge they will continue to pose problems for courts and innovators alike. This is because the range and nature of our expressions is increased with new technologies like computers, nanotechnology, and biotech. Genetic engineering and nanotechnology undermine the distinction between “clearly” patentable inventions and copyrightable (...) works of authorship. Persons carry obligations, rights, moral duties, and are the objects of almost all our ethical and legal considerations. Health care in general has improved to enable us to make more careful predictions about risks and to make choices with greater information. Useful scientific data have emerged from the various “mapping” projects seeking to reveal the intricacies of genomes and phenotypes. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Errors in the Law Problems of Personhood Other Potential Persons and Property Issues Our Common Genetic Heritage: What Does It Mean? Your Genome/Our Genome Future Issues: Where Do We Go from Here?

The universally recognized backbone of molecular biology describes the flow of genetic information from deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) to ribonucleic acid (RNA) to protein or gene product, that is, DNA is transcribed into another nucleic acid (RNA), which is single stranded, next some types of RNA are in turn translated into proteins. Translation of nucleic acids to proteins is literally a translation from the genomic language to the metabolic language. Codons formed of a sequence of three nucleic acids summon a specific (...) amino acid. Translation from codons to proteins, that is, protein synthesis, takes place by specialized machinery comprising mRNA, ribosomes, and free amino acids. Inferring the structure of DNA opened the door for tremendous advances in understanding the role of genes in creating life, directing replication, and ongoing metabolic processes responsible for maintaining life at both the cellular and organism level. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Reality, Truth and Philosophical Prejudice God, Religion and the Saint Morality, Ressentiment and the Will to Power.

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Preface Part One: On the Prejudices of Philosophers Part Two: The Free Spirit Part Three: The Religious Nature Part Four: Maxims and Interludes Part Five: On the Natural History of Morals Part Six: We Scholars Part Seven: Our Virtues Part Eight: Peoples and Fatherlands Part Nine: What is Noble? From High Mountains: Epode.

This chapter contains sections titled: Life of Nietzsche Nineteenth‐century Europe Romanticism and German Idealism Pessimism German Politics The Text.