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Peru was praised for imposing swift pandemic measures early on, so why are its excess deaths so high, asks Luke Taylor

False beliefs and decades of conflict have left Latin America’s doctors facing death threats when they are already vulnerable, writes Luke Taylor

The country’s relaxation of measures such as masking — especially in England — is showing the limits of relying on vaccines alone. The country’s relaxation of measures such as masking — especially in England — is showing the limits of relying on vaccines alone.

Many thought a second wave was impossible in Brazil’s Amazon because of the severity of the first. A second crisis has stunned the city of Manaus, reports Luke Taylor, and raises questions around a new variant and the likelihood of natural herd immunity

I argue in this paper that moral realism is more likely to be true if God exists than if God does not exist. I will first argue that, without the existence of God, objective moral facts would be queer, but that the queerness problem is solved if God exists. I will then go on to argue that no being could be God unless that being has authority over all created rational beings just as morality does, which explains why the existence of God is relevant to metaethics.

•There was no relationship between vaccination and autism (OR: 0.99; 95% CI: 0.92 to 1.06).•There was no relationship between vaccination and ASD (autism spectrum disorder) (OR: 0.91; 95% CI: 0.68 to 1.20).•There was no relationship between [autism/ASD] and MMR (OR: 0.84; 95% CI: 0.70 to 1.01).•There was no relationship between [autism/ASD] and thimerosal (OR: 1.00; 95% CI: 0.77 to 1.31).•There was no relationship between [autism/ASD] and mercury (Hg) (OR: 1.00; 95% CI: 0.93 to 1.07).•Findings of this meta-analysis suggest that vaccinations are not associated with the development of autism or autism spectrum disorder. There has been enormous debate regarding the possibility of a link between childhood vaccinations and the subsequent development of autism. This has in recent times become a major public health issue with vaccine preventable diseases increasing in the community due to the fear of a ‘link’ between vaccinations and autism. We performed a meta-analysis to summarise available evidence from case-control and cohort studies on this topic (MEDLINE, PubMed, EMBASE, Google Scholar up to April, 2014). Eligible studies assessed the relationship between vaccine administration and the subsequent development of autism or autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Two reviewers extracted data on study characteristics, methods, and outcomes. Disagreement was resolved by consensus with another author. Five cohort studies involving 1,256,407 children, and five case-control studies involving 9,920 children were included in this analysis. The cohort data revealed no relationship between vaccination and autism (OR: 0.99; 95% CI: 0.92 to 1.06) or ASD (OR: 0.91; 95% CI: 0.68 to 1.20), nor was there a relationship between autism and MMR (OR: 0.84; 95% CI: 0.70 to 1.01), or thimerosal (OR: 1.00; 95% CI: 0.77 to 1.31), or mercury (Hg) (OR: 1.00; 95% CI: 0.93 to 1.07). Similarly the case-control data found no evidence for increased risk of developing autism or ASD following MMR, Hg, or thimerosal exposure when grouped by condition (OR: 0.90, 95% CI: 0.83 to 0.98; p=0.02) or grouped by exposure type (OR: 0.85, 95% CI: 0.76 to 0.95; p=0.01). Findings of this meta-analysis suggest that vaccinations are not associated with the development of autism or autism spectrum disorder. Furthermore, the components of the vaccines (thimerosal or mercury) or multiple vaccines (MMR) are not associated with the development of autism or autism spectrum disorder.

This paper is an empirical and theoretical analysis of buggery charges brought against men in New South Wales in the period 1788—1838. Drawing on a previously unexamined archive, it shows that an irregular pattern of charges in the first forty years of colonization was displaced by a dramatic increase in buggery charges in the period 1828–1838, and a move towards charging accused persons capitally; that the genesis of most complaints was community, rather than official, surveillance; and that throughout the entire period witnesses were far from circumspect in their evidence of unspeakable acts. The paper then argues that the upswing in charges post-1828 was only partly related to the introduction of the Offences Against the Person Act 1828 and its lower evidentiary threshold for proof of buggery. More important, it suggests, was the acute moralism of NSW society in the 1820s and 1830s, generated in part by John Thomas Bigge's 1822 Report into the State of the Colony of New South Wales. The move towards capital charges, however, does appear to bear some relationship to the changes in the Offences Act. The final part of the paper connects social anxiety over buggery to the 1837–38 Molesworth Inquiry into Transportation and the eventual cessation of convict transportation to NSW in 1840.

In nineteenth-century England, legal conceptions of work and family changed in fundamental ways. Notably, significant legal moves came into play that changed the legal understanding of the family.Constructing the Family examines the evolution of the legal-discursive framework governing work and family relations. Luke Taylor considers the intersecting intellectual and institutional forces that contributed to the dissolution of the household, the establishment of separate spheres of work and family, and the emergence of modern legal and social ideas concerning work and family. He shows how specific legal-institutional moves contributed to the creation of the family's categorical status in the social and legal order and a distinct and exceptional body of rules - Family Law - for its governance.Shedding light on the historical processes that contributed to the emergence of English Family Law, Constructing the Family shows how work and family became separate regulatory domains, and in so doing reveals the contingent nature of the modern legal family.