This article presents a case for transforming traditional bioethics into "Bios-ethics." This exposition relies on three propositions: (1) the climate emergency is the "Bios emergency"; (2) in the Bios emergency, bioethics must be replaced by Bios-ethics; and (3) the top and overwhelming priority of Bios-ethics is to address the Bios emergency. Biocentrism, habitat, and environmental ethics are discussed in light of their contribution to the development of Bios-ethics, and potential lines of research in Bios-ethics are outlined.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBioethics has largely neglected the Anthropocene and its ethical challenges. This essay asks which ethical norms will serve us well in the face of the coming climate catastrophe. It sketches the climate changes likely for the year 2031 and offers six adaptive maxims, drawn from bioethics work in ICUs and hospices, to guide us through the devastation and transition following environmental and social collapse.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe multiple emergencies of global heating require bioethicists to embrace the dormant, comprehensive bioethics legacy of Van Rensselaer Potter, moving beyond the current narrower focus of the field on medicine and health care. We recommend readings that expand the core literature of bioethics to address key environmental issues. These are Jessica Pierce and Andrew Jameton's The Ethics of Environmentally Responsible Health Care; Dale Jamieson's Reason in a Dark Time; and David Wallace-Well's The Uninhabitable Earth.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Health Care Poor Underserved
September 2021
While disparities in the incidence, treatment, and mortality of oral cancer have been investigated in underrepresented groups, the Hispanic migrant farmworker population is understudied. A questionnaire was designed to assess oral cancer knowledge, awareness, and care-seeking behavior in this population. We aim to review this survey and outline its development.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe effects of surface tension and surface viscoelastic properties on the formation of aerosol droplets generated from mucus-like viscoelastic gels (mucus mimetics) during shearing with a high velocity air stream were investigated. Mucus mimetic samples were formulated with similar composition (94% water and 6% dissolved solids, consisting of mucins, proteins, and ions), surface tension (via the addition of surfactant to the mimetic surface) and bulk viscoelastic properties (via crosslinking of mucin macromolecules in the mimetic) to that of native non-diseased tracheal mucus. The surface tension of the mucus mimetic was decreased by spreading one of two surfactants, dipalmitoyl phosphatidylcholine (DPPC) or calf lung surfactant (Infasurf®), on the mimetic surface.
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