The effect of COVID certificates on vaccine uptake, public health, and the economy

In the COVID-19 pandemic, governments have used various interventions,1,2 including COVID certificates as proof of vaccination, recovery, or a recent negative test, required for individuals to access shops, restaurants, and education or workplaces.3 While arguments for and against COVID certificates have focused on reducing transmission and ethical concerns,4,5 the effect of the certificates on vaccine uptake, public health, and the economy requires investigation. We construct counterfactuals based on innovation diffusion theory6 and validate them with econometric methods7 to evaluate the impact of incentives created by COVID certificates in France, Germany, and Italy. We estimate that from their announcement during summer 2021 to the end of the year, the intervention led to increased vaccine uptake in France of 13.0 (95% CI 9.7–14.9) percentage points (p.p.) of the total population, in Germany 6.2 (2.6–6.9) p.p., and in Italy 9.7 (5.4–12.3) p.p.; averted an additional 3,979 (3,453–4,298) deaths in France (i.e., 31.7%), 1,133 (-312–1,358) in Germany (5.6%), and 1,331 (502–1,794) in Italy (14.0%); and prevented gross domestic product (GDP) losses of €6.0 (5.9–6.1) billion in France, €1.4 (1.3–1.5) billion in Germany, and €2.1 (2.0–2.2) billion in Italy. Notably, the application of COVID certificates substantially reduced the pressure on intensive care units (ICUs) and, in France, averted surpassing the occupancy levels where prior lockdowns were instated. Overall, our findings are more substantial than predicted8 and may help to inform decisions about when and how to employ COVID certificates to increase vaccination and thus avoid stringent interventions, such as closures, curfews, and lockdowns, with large social and economic consequences.

Conventional laboratory housing increases morbidity and mortality in research rodents: results of a meta-analysis

Background Over 120 million mice and rats are used annually in research, conventionally housed in shoebox-sized cages that restrict natural behaviours (e.g. nesting and burrowing). This can reduce physical fitness, impair thermoregulation and reduce welfare (e.g. inducing abnormal stereotypic behaviours). In humans, chronic stress has biological costs, increasing disease risks and potentially shortening life. Using a pre-registered protocol (https://atrium.lib.uoguelph.ca/xmlui/handle/10214/17955), this meta-analysis therefore tested the hypothesis that, compared to rodents in ‘enriched’ housing that better meets their needs, conventional housing increases stress-related morbidity and all-cause mortality. Results Comprehensive searches (via Ovid, CABI, Web of Science, Proquest and SCOPUS on May 24 2020) yielded 10,094 publications. Screening for inclusion criteria (published in English, using mice or rats and providing ‘enrichments’ in long-term housing) yielded 214 studies (within 165 articles, using 6495 animals: 59.1% mice; 68.2% male; 31.8% isolation-housed), and data on all-cause mortality plus five experimentally induced stress-sensitive diseases: anxiety, cancer, cardiovascular disease, depression and stroke. The Systematic Review Center for Laboratory animal Experimentation (SYRCLE) tool assessed individual studies’ risks of bias. Random-effects meta-analyses supported the hypothesis: conventional housing significantly exacerbated disease severity with medium to large effect sizes: cancer (SMD = 0.71, 95% CI = 0.54–0.88); cardiovascular disease (SMD = 0.72, 95% CI = 0.35–1.09); stroke (SMD = 0.87, 95% CI = 0.59–1.15); signs of anxiety (SMD = 0.91, 95% CI = 0.56–1.25); signs of depression (SMD = 1.24, 95% CI = 0.98–1.49). It also increased mortality rates (hazard ratio = 1.48, 95% CI = 1.25–1.74; relative median survival = 0.91, 95% CI = 0.89–0.94). Meta-regressions indicated that such housing effects were ubiquitous across species and sexes, but could not identify the most impactful improvements to conventional housing. Data variability (assessed via coefficient of variation) was also not increased by ‘enriched’ housing. Conclusions Conventional housing appears sufficiently distressing to compromise rodent health, raising ethical concerns. Results also add to previous work to show that research rodents are typically CRAMPED (cold, rotund, abnormal, male-biased, poorly surviving, enclosed and distressed), raising questions about the validity and generalisability of the data they generate. This research was funded by NSERC, Canada.

Microbiome Resilience despite a Profound Loss of Minority Microbiota following Clindamycin Challenge in Humanized Gnotobiotic Mice

Antibiotics cause imbalance of gut microbiota, which in turn increase our susceptibility to gastrointestinal infections. However, how antibiotics disrupt gut bacterial communities is not well understood, and exposing healthy volunteers to unnecessary antibiotics for research purposes carries clinical and ethical concerns.

The performativity of accounting: advancing a Posthumanist understanding

Purpose The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it seeks to articulate a framework for different conceptions of accounting’s performativity. Second, it aims to advance a Baradian posthumanist understanding of accounting’s performativity. Design/methodology/approach The paper traces different foundational conceptions of performativity and then articulates and substantiates different conceptions of accounting’s performativity. It advances one of these conceptions by producing a Baradian posthumanist understanding of accounting’s performativity. Findings Seven conceptions of performative accountings are articulated: accounting as a (counter)performative illocution; accounting as a performative perlocution; accounting as a self-fulfilling prophecy; accounting as an overflowing frame; accounting as a controlled relational agency; accounting as a mediator; and accounting as an exclusionary practice. It is argued how a posthumanist understanding of accounting as an exclusionary practice turns accounting from a world-knowing practice into a world-making practice. As such, it should be called to account. Research limitations/implications Posthumanist qualitative accounting research that conceives of accounting as an exclusionary practice focuses on how accounting is a material-discursive practice that intra-acts with other practices, and on how there is a power-performativity in the intra-actions that locally and temporarily (re)produces meaningful positions for subjects and objects and the boundaries between them. Practical implications A posthumanist understanding teaches practitioners to be attentive to and accountable for the exclusions that come with accounting or, more generally, with measurement. Accounting raises ethical concerns. Originality/value This paper articulates different conceptions of accounting’s performativity and makes the case for empirical non-anthropocentric examinations of accounting as an exclusionary practice.

Ethical concerns in the age of an advanced psychopharmacology

The article's abstract is not available.

Design-Centered HRI Governance for Healthcare Robots

Recent developments have shown that not only are AI and robotics growing more sophisticated, but also these fields are evolving together. The applications that emerge from this trend will break current limitations and ensure that robotic decision making and functionality are more autonomous, connected, and interactive in a way which will support people in their daily lives. However, in areas such as healthcare robotics, legal and ethical concerns will arise as increasingly advanced intelligence functions are incorporated into robotic systems. Using a case study, this paper proposes a unique design-centered approach which tackles the issue of data protection and privacy risk in human-robot interaction.

The patients view on genetics and functional imaging for precision medicine: a willingness-to-pay analysis

Purpose: Willingness-to-pay (WTP) analyses can support allocation processes considering the patients preferences in personalized medicine. However, genetic testing especially might imply ethical concerns that have to be considered. Methods: A WTP questionnaire was designed to compare preferences for imaging and genetic testing in cancer patients and to evaluate potential ethical concerns. Results: Comparing the options of imaging and genetics showed comparable WTP values. Ethical concerns about genetic testing seemed to be minor. Treatment success was the top priority irrespective of the diagnostic modality. In general, the majority of patients considered personalized medicine to be beneficial. Conclusion: Most patients valued personalized approaches and rated the benefits of precision medicine of overriding importance irrespective of modality or ethical concerns.

Implementation of Therapeutic Virtual Reality Into Psychiatric Care: Clinicians' and Service Managers' Perspectives

Objectives: Virtual reality (VR) has emerged as a highly promising tool for assessing and treating a range of mental illnesses. However, little is known about the perspectives of key stakeholders in mental healthcare, whose support will be critical for its successful implementation into routine clinical practise. This study aimed to explore the perspectives of staff working in the private mental health sector around the use of therapeutic VR, including potential implementation barriers and facilitators.Methods: Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with cross-disciplinary clinicians (n = 14) and service managers (n = 5), aged 28–70 years working in a major private mental health hospital in Victoria, Australia. Transcripts were analysed using general inductive coding to allow themes to naturally emerge.Results: Three major themes were identified: clinical factors (four subthemes), organisational factors (five subthemes), and professional factors (three subthemes). The themes encompassed enabling factors and potential barriers that need to be addressed for successful implementation of VR. Clinical factors highlighted the influence of knowledge or perceptions about appropriate clinical applications, therapeutic efficacy, safety and ethical concerns, and patient engagement. Organisational factors emphasised the importance of service contexts, including having a strong business case, stakeholder planning, recruitment of local opinion leaders to champion change, and an understanding of resourcing challenges. Professional factors highlighted the need for education and training for staff, and the influence of staff attitudes towards technology and perceived usability of VR.Conclusions: In addition to enabling factors, potential implementation barriers of therapeutic VR were identified, including resourcing constraints, safety and ethical concerns, negative staff attitudes towards technology and VR system limitations. Future dissemination should focus on addressing knowledge and skills gaps and attitudinal barriers through development of clinical guidelines, training programs, and implementation resources (e.g., adoption decision tools, consultation opportunities).

ETHOS: a multi-label hate speech detection dataset

Online hate speech is a recent problem in our society that is rising at a steady pace by leveraging the vulnerabilities of the corresponding regimes that characterise most social media platforms. This phenomenon is primarily fostered by offensive comments, either during user interaction or in the form of a posted multimedia context. Nowadays, giant corporations own platforms where millions of users log in every day, and protection from exposure to similar phenomena appears to be necessary to comply with the corresponding legislation and maintain a high level of service quality. A robust and reliable system for detecting and preventing the uploading of relevant content will have a significant impact on our digitally interconnected society. Several aspects of our daily lives are undeniably linked to our social profiles, making us vulnerable to abusive behaviours. As a result, the lack of accurate hate speech detection mechanisms would severely degrade the overall user experience, although its erroneous operation would pose many ethical concerns. In this paper, we present ‘ETHOS’ (multi-labEl haTe speecH detectiOn dataSet), a textual dataset with two variants: binary and multi-label, based on YouTube and Reddit comments validated using the Figure-Eight crowdsourcing platform. Furthermore, we present the annotation protocol used to create this dataset: an active sampling procedure for balancing our data in relation to the various aspects defined. Our key assumption is that, even gaining a small amount of labelled data from such a time-consuming process, we can guarantee hate speech occurrences in the examined material.

Initial drafting of telemedicine’s code of ethics through a stakeholders’ participatory process

Telemedicine can improve access to healthcare services; however, it has raised ethical concerns demanding special considerations. This study aimed at developing the codes of ethics for telemedicine, and hence several approved national and international ethical guidelines related to telemedicine practice were reviewed, and 48 semi-structured interviews were conducted with medical ethics and medical informatics experts as well as with physicians and patients who had telemedicine experiences. Content analysis was then performed on the interviews’ transcripts and a draft on code of ethics was prepared, which was further reviewed by the experts in the focus group meetings to reach a consensus on the final document. The final document consisted of a preface, five considerations, and 25 ethical statements. Considering the growing trend of adopting telemedicine worldwide, this document provides an ethical framework for those who use telemedicine in their medical practice.