scholarly journals REPRODUCTIVE CHOICE: INTERNATIONAL ETHICAL STANDARDS AND PROSPECTS FOR LEGAL REGULATION IN CERTAIN EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (9) ◽  
pp. 2056-2061
Author(s):  
Kateryna V. Nykolyna

The aim: The article is aimed at elucidating the prospects for the formation of universal ethical and legal standards in the work of medical workers in order to ensure the reproductive choice of a person according to the analysis of international documents, court practice of the ECHR, and the national legislation of individual European countries. Materials and methods: Research materials include scientific developments of both domestic and Western theorists and human rights defenders in the field of medical law in the aspect of reproductive choice. The recommendations of the Center for Reproductive Rights in the USA, the World Health Organization, the United Nations, and the ECHR practices were of great importance. This article used the methods of searching, analyzing, organizing, and summarizing information. Conclusions: It is necessary to ensure the provision and guarantee of reproductive choice for everyone at the level of the Constitution. Given the public debate about the contradictions of individual manifestations of reproductive autonomy, it is proposed at the first stage of legal regulation to develop national principles and ethical standards for medical workers in this area

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alireza Ahmadvand ◽  
Ayda S. Forough ◽  
Lisa Nissen

BACKGROUND The public health crisis, due to the new Coronavirus found in December 2019, has received unprecedented attention from the public and the media. The infodemiological analysis of queries from search engines to assess the status of search interests and the actual burden of the new virus could be an informative approach. OBJECTIVE The aim of the study was to assess search query data from Google Trends, to visualize the interest in search over time for the new “Coronavirus” in Google, across four English-speaking countries, namely, Australia, Canada, the UK, and the USA, and compare the search interest with the actual burden of Coronavirus in the corresponding countries. METHODS We used Google Trends service to assess people’s interest in searching about “Coronavirus” classified as “Virus,” from January 1, 2020 to March 13, 2020 in Australia, Canada, the UK, and the USA. Then, we evaluated top regions and their relative search volumes (SVs) and country-specific “Top” and “Rising” searches. We also evaluated the trends in the incidence of detected Coronavirus infections to find possible differences between the actual burden of the disease and search patterns by the public. RESULTS From January 1, 2020 to March 13, 2020, Australia was the top country searching for Coronavirus in Google, followed by Canada, the UK, and the USA. There was a noticeable bimodal pattern in searching for Coronavirus, mostly in late January 2020, and then from early March 2020. Search interest in all four countries declined in the month of February 2020. Top regions in each of the four countries with the highest search interest where the ones which reported either a confirmed case of Coronavirus infection or a death due to it. None of the declarations by the World Health Organization of the nature of this pandemic appeared to have caused major changes in the search patterns in Google. CONCLUSIONS Search for ‘Coronavirus’ increased exponentially, in all four countries, mostly in Australia. The month of February 2020 could be considered a ‘lost opportunity’ in terms of acting on the momentum of searching by people on Google about the Coronavirus. The increased interest in searching for keywords related to Coronavirus and its symptoms shows the possible focus areas of awareness campaigns in increasing societal demand for health information on the Web, to be met in community-wide communication or awareness interventions, should another pandemic occur in the future. 


2009 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. van Halem ◽  
S. A. Bakker ◽  
G. L. Amy ◽  
J. C. van Dijk

Abstract. For more than a decade it has been known that shallow tube wells in Bangladesh are frequently contaminated with arsenic concentrations at a level that is harmful to human health. By now it is clear that a disaster of an unheard magnitude is going on: the World Health Organization has estimated that long-term exposure to arsenic in groundwater, at concentrations over 500 μg L−1, causes death in 1 in 10 adults. Other studies show that problems with arsenic in groundwater/drinking water occur in many more countries worldwide, such as in the USA and China. In Europe the focus on arsenic problems is currently confined to countries with high arsenic levels in their groundwater, such as Serbia, Hungary and Italy. In most other European countries, the naturally occurring arsenic concentrations are mostly lower than the European drinking water standard of 10 μg L−1. However, from the literature review presented in this paper, it is concluded that at this level health risks cannot be excluded. As consumers in European countries expect the drinking water to be of impeccable quality, it is recommended that water supply companies optimize arsenic removal to a level of <1 μg L−1, which is technically feasible.


2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (12) ◽  
pp. 1458-1464
Author(s):  
Sweta Kamboj ◽  
Rohit Kamboj ◽  
Shikha Kamboj ◽  
Kumar Guarve ◽  
Rohit Dutt

Background: In the 1960s, the human coronavirus was designated, which is responsible for the upper respiratory tract disease in children. Back in 2003, mainly 5 new coronaviruses were recognized. This study directly pursues to govern knowledge, attitude and practice of viral and droplet infection isolation safeguard among the researchers during the outbreak of the COVID-19. Introduction: Coronavirus is a proteinaceous and infectious pathogen. It is an etiological agent of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). Coronavirus, appeared in China from the seafood and poultry market last year, which has spread in various countries, and has caused several deaths. Methods: The literature data has been taken from different search platforms like PubMed, Science Direct, Embase, Web of Science, who.int portal and complied. Results: Corona virology study will be more advanced and outstanding in recent years. COVID-19 epidemic is a threatening reminder not solely for one country but all over the universe. Conclusion: In this review article, we encapsulated the pathogenesis, geographical spread of coronavirus worldwide, also discussed the perspective of diagnosis, effective treatment, and primary recommendations by the World Health Organization, and guidelines of the government to slow down the impact of the virus are also optimistic, efficacious and obliging for the public health. However, it will take a prolonged time in the future to overcome this epidemic.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (12) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Kmeid ◽  
Breanne Gillie ◽  
Armand Asarian ◽  
Philip Xiao

Abstract Squamous cell carcinomas (SCC) accounts for roughly 20% of lung cancers in the USA. The 2015 World Health Organization classification of lung tumors further categorizes SCC as three subtypes: keratinizing, non-keratinizing and basaloid variant. The non-keratinizing subtype is a poorly differentiated tumor that can present histologically in different ways, and one of which is a rare variant that strongly resembles small cell carcinoma. As a result, histological diagnosis alone is not sufficient to properly diagnose lung carcinomas. Immunohistochemistry has been increasingly used over the past few years to differentiate between lung tumors. The combination of morphological and immunohistochemical staining should be the mainstay for diagnosis of all lung carcinomas as more targeted therapies become more available.


2021 ◽  
pp. 002073142110249
Author(s):  
Huriye Toker

As seen clearly from the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, health is an important foreign policy and diplomatic issue connected with security, economic well-being, and international development. According to risk communication researchers, effective, transparent, and timely information sharing is the most important tool after vaccines for responding to pandemics. This study aims to start a scholarly discussion on the risk communication efforts of the World Health Organization (WHO) during the COVID-19 outbreak. We analyzed WHO’s communication efforts during the first 3 months of the COVID-19 pandemic. As the leading international health organization, WHO was responsible for providing rapid, up-to-date, and credible information for the public and the media. The selected research items were 42 news releases and statements provided by WHO between December 31, 2019, and March 30, 2020. These were subjected to qualitative and quantitative content analyses using the NVivo 12 qualitative analysis software program for coding. The data were coded under 6 variables (date of publication, topics, frequency, wording of the COVID-19 outbreak, sourcing, and themes of the releases). While 54.7% of WHO's communications were devoted to the COVID-19 outbreak, more than half were not issued until March. That is, instead of early risk communication and clear warnings about the outbreak, WHO acted overcautiously, preferring messages related to solidarity and cooperation during the most devastating pandemic of the 21st century.


1989 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
J.-F. Dreyfus ◽  
D. Cremniter ◽  
J.D. Guelfi

SummaryWe are still confronted by numerous different nosographic models and problems concerning the objective evaluation of patients progress during treatment. It is interesting to consider the consequences of this situation in psychiatry which still involves a relative diversity of practical methods used in clinical trials. The recommendations of the USA Food and Drug Administration, on the one hand, constitute a highly structured and precise reference. The World Health Organization, on the other hand, promulgates general recommendations resulting from a compromise designed to satisfy the greatest number of clinicians.Despite the apparently diverse principles and the different practical methods they propose, both those sets of recommendations have been useful in inspiring clinicians to reflect upon these different methodological approaches. The qualities of the inclusion criteria used in the study of patients and the sensitivity of the different measuring instruments have allowed psychotropic drug users as well as producers to recognize the need for a certain rigour in clinical trials.The FDA and WHO guidelines have certainly improved the quality of clinical trials in psychopharmacology. However, they also represent a source of resistance to innovation.A series of consensus meetings to first reconcile US and European points of view and later to include new techniques in the recognized sets of methods would therefore be helpful.


Author(s):  
Susan Igras ◽  
Marina Plesons ◽  
Venkatraman Chandra-Mouli

Abstract Over the past 25 years, there has been significant progress in increasing the recognition of, resources for, and action on adolescent health, and adolescent sexual and reproductive health (ASRH) in particular. As with numerous other health areas, however, many of the projects that aim to improve ASRH are implemented without well-thought-out plans for evaluation. As a result, the lessons that projects learn as they encounter and address policy and programmatic challenges are often not extracted and placed in the public arena. In such cases, post-project evaluation (PPE) offers the possibility to generate learnings about what works (and does not work), to complement prospective studies of new or follow-on projects. To fill the gap in the literature and guidance on PPE, the World Health Organization developed The project has ended, but we can still learn from it! Practical guidance for conducting post-project evaluations of adolescent sexual and reproductive health projects. This article provides an overview of the guidance by outlining key methodological and contextual challenges in conducting PPE, as well as illustrative solutions for responding to them.


2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick M Burkle ◽  
Christopher M Burkle

AbstractLiberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea lack the public health infrastructure, economic stability, and overall governance to stem the spread of Ebola. Even with robust outside assistance, the epidemiological data have not improved. Vital resource management is haphazard and left to the discretion of individual Ebola treatment units. Only recently has the International Health Regulations (IHR) and World Health Organization (WHO) declared Ebola a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, making this crisis their fifth ongoing level 3 emergency. In particular, the WHO has been severely compromised by post-2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) staffing, budget cuts, a weakened IHR treaty, and no unambiguous legal mandate. Population-based triage management under a central authority is indicated to control the transmission and ensure fair and decisive resource allocation across all triage categories. The shared responsibilities critical to global health solutions must be realized and the rightful attention, sustained resources, and properly placed legal authority be assured within the WHO, the IHR, and the vulnerable nations. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2014;0:1-6)


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 253-259 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcos Renato de Assis ◽  
Valdair Pinto

Biological products or biopharmaceuticals are medicinal products derived from living systems and manufactured by modern biotechnological methods that differ widely from the traditional synthetic drugs. Monoclonal antibodies are the most rapidly growing type of biologic. They are much larger and more complex molecules with inherent diversity; therefore, different manufacturers cannot produce identical biological products, even with the same type of host expression system and equivalent technologies. Thus, legal follow-on biologics manufactured and marketed after patent expiration are usually referred to as biosimilars. Biosimilarity is based on a comparability exercise whereby unavoidable clinical differences are evaluated and must meet equivalence or non-inferiority criteria. Biosimilars need to comply with different regulatory requirements for market authorization in different sites. There are several other related issues that need to be defined by the national authorities, such as interchangeability, labeling and prescribing information. The Brazilian health surveillance agency follows the key principles established by the World Health Organization for the assessment of biosimilarity, although does not adopt the name ‘biosimilar’. However, the agency also made a compromise on a standalone application pathway that does not require the usual comparability exercise with the reference product, originating nonbiosimilar copies. Interchangeability and the use of nonproprietary names are not regulated, giving rise to pressures on physicians and conflicts of interest in the decision making on biosimilar use. The scope of this article is to present the Brazilian regulation on biosimilars, its strengths and weaknesses, and to discuss it in the face of regulations in the USA and Europe.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Peta

In 2016, the World Health Organization, through the Global Cooperation on Assistive Technology Initiative, issued the Priority Assistive Products List which is meant to be a guide to member states of the 50 assistive products needed for a basic health care and/or social welfare system; it is also a model from which nations can develop their national priority assistive products lists. The aim of this opinion paper is to share my views about the Priority Assistive Products List on the grounds that it makes no distinct mention of sexual assistive devices, yet research has indicated that sexuality is an area of great concern for persons with disabilities. In any case, sexuality forms a core part of being human, and it impacts on both the physical and mental well-being of all human beings. I conclude in part that, in its present format, the list perpetuates the myth that persons with disabilities are asexual beings who are innocent of sexual thoughts, feelings and experiences. The list also propagates the stereotype that sexuality is a sacred, private, bedroom matter that should be kept out of the public domain, to the detriment of the health and well-being of persons with disabilities.


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