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The methods of bioethics : an essay in meta-bioethics
This is the first book in bioethics that explains how it is that you actually go about doing good bioethics. Bioethics has made a mistake about its methods, and this has led not only to too much theorizing, but also fragmentation within bioethics. The unhelpful disputes between those who think bioethics needs to be more philosophical, more sociological, more clinical, or more empirical, continue. While each of these claims will have some point, they obscure what should be common to all instances of bioethics. Moreover, they provide another phantom that can lead newcomers to bioethics down blind alleyways stalked by bristling sociologists and philosophers. The method common to all bioethics is bringing moral reason to bear upon ethical issues, and it is more accurate and productive to clarify what this involves than to stake out a methodological patch that shows why one discipline is the most important. This book develops an account of the nature of bioethics and then explains how a number of methodological spectres have obstructed bioethics becoming what it should. In the final part, it explains how moral reason can be brought to bear upon practical issues via an 'empirical, Socratic' approach.
Book
An RNAi-Based Control of Fusarium graminearum Infections Through Spraying of Long dsRNAs Involves a Plant Passage and Is Controlled by the Fungal Silencing Machinery
Meeting the increasing food and energy demands of a growing population will require the development of ground-breaking strategies that promote sustainable plant production. Host-induced gene silencing has shown great potential for controlling pest and diseases in crop plants. However, while delivery of inhibitory noncoding double-stranded (ds)RNA by transgenic expression is a promising concept, it requires the generation of transgenic crop plants which may cause substantial delay for application strategies depending on the transformability and genetic stability of the crop plant species. Using the agronomically important barley-Fusarium graminearum pathosystem, we alternatively demonstrate that a spray application of a long noncoding dsRNA (791 nt CYP3-dsRNA), which targets the three fungal cytochrome P450 lanosterol C-14α-demethylases, required for biosynthesis of fungal ergosterol, inhibits fungal growth in the directly sprayed (local) as well as the non-sprayed (distal) parts of detached leaves. Unexpectedly, efficient spray-induced control of fungal infections in the distal tissue involved passage of CYP3-dsRNA via the plant vascular system and processing into small interfering (si)RNAs by fungal DICER-LIKE 1 (FgDCL-1) after uptake by the pathogen. We discuss important consequences of this new finding on future RNA-based disease control strategies. Given the ease of design, high specificity, and applicability to diverse pathogens, the use of target-specific dsRNA as an anti-fungal agent offers unprecedented potential as a new plant protection strategy.
Journal Article
Induction of Silencing in Plants by High-Pressure Spraying of In vitro-Synthesized Small RNAs
In this report, we describe a method for the delivery of small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) into plant cells. In vitro synthesized siRNAs that were designed to target the coding region of a GREEN FLUORESCENT PROTEIN (GFP) transgene were applied by various methods onto GFP-expressing transgenic Nicotiana benthamiana plants to trigger RNA silencing. In contrast to mere siRNA applications, including spraying, syringe injection, and infiltration of siRNAs that all failed to induce RNA silencing, high pressure spraying of siRNAs resulted in efficient local and systemic silencing of the GFP transgene, with comparable efficiency as was achieved with biolistic siRNA introduction. High-pressure spraying of siRNAs with sizes of 21, 22, and 24 nucleotides (nt) led to local GFP silencing. Small RNA deep sequencing revealed that no shearing of siRNAs was detectable by high-pressure spraying. Systemic silencing was basically detected upon spraying of 22 nt siRNAs. Local and systemic silencing developed faster and more extensively upon targeting the apical meristem than spraying of mature leaves.
Journal Article
The importance of ethical expertise
Mitochondrial Replacement Techniques (MRTs) aim at preventing the transmission of serious mitochondrial disorders to a future child and involve replacing faulty mitochondria from unfertilized eggs or early embryos with healthy mitochondria from a donor egg or embryo. The ethical issues raised by public policy about matters such as research and assisted reproductive technologies require more than a simply evaluation of their risks, costs and public opinion about them. J Med Ethics 2018; 44: medethics-2017-104213. doi:10.1136/medethics-2017-104213 7 Palacios-González C. Does egg donation for mitochondrial replacement techniques generate parental responsibilities? J Med Ethics 2017; 44: medethics-2017-104400. doi:10.1136/medethics-2017-104400 8 Murphy T. Pathways to genetic parenthood for same-sex couples.
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Different ways to argue about medical ethics
Woollard analyses the way in which the terms used in public information and discussions about breastfeeding can be morally loaded and thereby cause guilt or detract from the effectiveness of public information.1 She argues that normative concepts such as ‘harm’ or ‘dangerous’ and slogans such as ‘breast is best’ can imply moral duties or criticism when it is unhelpful and inappropriate to do so. [...]Rydon-Grange offers an account of the ‘compassion killers’ that play a role in professional and ethical failures of this kind.2 Shift patterns and staffing levels are environmental factors that influence behaviour and the likelihood of compassion. [...]the strength of evidence of benefit for that patient.
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Property Rights and Finance
Which is the tighter constraint on private sector investment: weak property rights or limited access to external finance? From a survey of new firms in post-communist countries, we find that weak property rights discourage firms from reinvesting their profits, even when bank loans are available. Where property rights are relatively strong, firms reinvest their profits; where they are relatively weak, entrepreneurs do not want to invest from retained earnings.
Journal Article
Future of good medical ethics
Correspondence to Professor John McMillan; john.r.mcmillan68@gmail.com In the first issue of the JME, its founding editor Alastair Campbell said it would be a ‘forum for the reasoned discussion of moral issues arising from the provision of medical care’.1 For the last 7 years, the JME editorial team has centred its strategy and priorities upon that aim, built upon the strengths of the journal and broadened its approach to ethical analysis.2 The JME’s first editors were committed to the scholarly discussion of medical ethics being relevant to clinical practice and patients. The ethical analysis of health policy has also always been published in the JME and that journal has made some significant contributions to public debate by drawing on the conceptual resources of disciplines such as law and political philosophy. [...]a generational ban does not amount to a form of political domination of one set of birth cohorts by another, as long as it adheres to certain democratic values.6 A key objective of the JME’s editorial strategy over the last 7 years has been to enrich medical ethics by drawing on a broader range of normative concepts.
Journal Article
Ecological and evolutionary patterns of freshwater maturation in Pacific and Atlantic salmonines
Reproductive tactics and migratory strategies in Pacific and Atlantic salmonines are inextricably linked through the effects of migration (or lack thereof) on age and size at maturity. In this review, we focus on the ecological and evolutionary patterns of freshwater maturation in salmonines, a key process resulting in the diversification of their life histories. We demonstrate that the energetics of maturation and reproduction provides a unifying theme for understanding both the proximate and ultimate causes of variation in reproductive schedules among species, populations, and the sexes. We use probabilistic maturation reaction norms to illustrate how variation in individual condition, in terms of body size, growth rate, and lipid storage, influences the timing of maturation. This useful framework integrates both genetic and environmental contributions to conditional strategies for maturation and, in doing so, demonstrates how flexible life histories can be both heritable and subject to strong environmental influences. We review evidence that the propensity for freshwater maturation in partially anadromous species is predictable across environmental gradients at geographic and local spatial scales. We note that growth is commonly associated with the propensity for freshwater maturation, but that life-history responses to changes in growth caused by temperature may be strikingly different than changes caused by differences in food availability. We conclude by exploring how contemporary management actions can constrain or promote the diversity of maturation phenotypes in Pacific and Atlantic salmonines and caution against underestimating the role of freshwater maturing forms in maintaining the resiliency of these iconic species.
Journal Article
What are clinical ethics advisory groups for?
Clarifies what is meant by clinical ethics and what Clinical Ethics Advisory Groups (CEAG) can do in relation to providing ethical support for clinicians and improving ethical deliberation. Source: National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, licensed by the Department of Internal Affairs for re-use under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 New Zealand Licence.
Journal Article
Being ethical in difficult times
The health inequities that exist in all healthcare systems were exposed and amplified in many countries, and that has highlighted the importance of medical ethics attending to equity and the social determinants of health.7 8 However, there is also a need to explore other ethical concepts so as to frame the ethical issues presented when acting within a difficult context. To make good on that claim they draw on and supplement Beauchamp and Childress by considering ‘reproductive justice’ which… …arises from the lived experiences of people historically excluded from healthcare spaces and centres individuals and their specific reproductive needs. Abortion policies at the bedside: incorporating an ethical framework in the analysis and development of abortion legislation.
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