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- Munthe, Christian, 1962
(författare)
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Precaution and Ethics: Handling risks, uncertainties and knowledge gaps in the regulation of new biotechnologies
- 2017
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Bok (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This volume outlines and analyses ethical issues actualized by applying a precautionary approach to the regulation of new biotechnologies. It presents a novel way of categorizing and comparing biotechnologies from a precautionary standpoint. Based on this, it addresses underlying philosophical problems regarding the ethical assessment of decision-making under uncertainty and ignorance, and discusses how risks and possible benefits of such technologies should be balanced from an ethical standpoint. It argues on conceptual and ethical grounds for a technology neutral regulation as well as for a regulation that not only checks new technologies but also requires old, inferior ones to be phased out. It demonstrates how difficult ethical issues regarding the extent and ambition of precautionary policies need to be handled by such a regulation, and presents an overarching framework for doing so.
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| 2. |
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| 3. |
- Sanli, Kemal, et al.
(författare)
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Metagenomic Sequencing of Marine Periphyton: Taxonomic and Functional Insights into Biofilm Communities
- 2015
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Microbiology. - : Frontiers Media SA. - 1664-302X. ; 6:1192
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Periphyton communities are complex phototrophic, multispecies biofilms that develop on surfaces in aquatic environments. These communities harbor a large diversity of organisms comprising viruses, bacteria, algae, fungi, protozoans and metazoans. However, thus far the total biodiversity of periphyton has not been described. In this study, we use metagenomics to characterize periphyton communities from the marine environment of the Swedish west coast. Although we found approximately ten times more eukaryotic rRNA marker gene sequences compared to prokaryotic, the whole metagenome-based similarity searches showed that bacteria constitute the most abundant phyla in these biofilms. We show that marine periphyton encompass a range of heterotrophic and phototrophic organisms. Heterotrophic bacteria, including the majority of proteobacterial clades and Bacteroidetes, and eukaryotic macro-invertebrates were found to dominate periphyton. The phototrophic groups comprise Cyanobacteria and the alpha-proteobacterial genus Roseobacter, followed by different micro- and macro-algae. We also assess the metabolic pathways that predispose these communities to an attached lifestyle. Functional indicators of the biofilm form of life in periphyton involve genes coding for enzymes that catalyze the production and degradation of extracellular polymeric substances, mainly in the form of complex sugars such as starch and glycogen-like meshes together with chitin. Genes for 278 different transporter proteins were detected in the metagenome, constituting the most abundant protein complexes. Finally, genes encoding enzymes that participate in anaerobic pathways, such as denitrification and methanogenesis, were detected suggesting the presence of anaerobic or low-oxygen micro-zones within the biofilms.
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| 4. |
- Munthe, Christian, 1962
(författare)
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The Price of Precaution and the Ethics of Risk
- 2011
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Bok (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Since a couple of decades, the notion of a precautionary principle plays a central and increasingly influential role in international as well as national policy and regulation regarding the environment and the use of technology. Urging society to take action in the face of potential risks of human activities in these areas, the recent focus on climate change has further sharpened the importance of this idea. However, the idea of a precautionary principle has also been problematised and criticised by scientists, scholars and policy activists, and been accused of almost every intellectual sin imaginable: unclarity, impracticality, arbitrariness and moral as well as political unsoundness. In that light, the very idea of precaution as an ideal for policy making rather comes out as a dead end. On the basis of these contrasting starting points, Christian Munthe undertakes an innovative, in-depth philosophical analysis of what the idea of a precautionary principle is and should be about. A novel theory of the ethics of imposing risks is developed and used as a foundation for defending the idea of precaution in environmental and technological policy making against its critics, while at the same time avoiding a number of identified flaws. The theory is shown to have far-reaching consequences for areas such as bio-, information- and nuclear technology, and global environmental policy in areas such as climate change. The author argues that, while the price we pay for precaution must not be too high, we have to be prepared to pay it in order to act ethically defensible. A number of practical suggestions for precautionary regulation and policy making are made on the basis of this, and some challenges to basic ethical theory as well as consumerist societies, the global political order and liberal democracy are identified
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| 5. |
- Cutas, Daniela, 1978, et al.
(författare)
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Legal imperialism in the regulation of stem cell research and therapy: the problem of extraterritorial jurisdiction
- 2010
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Ingår i: Capps BJ & Campbell AV (eds.). CONTESTED CELLS: Global Perspectives on the Stem Cell Debate. - London : Imperial College Press. - 9781848164376 ; , s. 95-119
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Countries worldwide have very different national regulations on human embryonic stem (ES) cell research, informed by a range of ethical values. Some countries find reason to extend the applicability of their regulations on such research to its citizens when they visit other countries. Extraterritorial jurisdiction has recently been identified as a potential challenge towards global regulation of ES cell research. This chapter explores the implications and impact of extraterritorial jurisdiction and global regulation of ES cell research on researchers, clinicians and national health systems, and how this may affect patients. The authors argue that it would make ethical sense for ES cell restrictive countries to extend its regulations on ES cell research beyond its borders, because, if these countries really consider embryo destruction to be objectionable on the basis on the status of the embryo, then they ought to count it morally on par with murder (and thus have a moral imperative to protect embryos from the actions of its own citizens). However, doing so could lead to a legal situation that would result in substantial harm to central values in areas besides research, such as health care, the job market, basic freedom of movement, and strategic international finance and politics. Thus, it seems that restrictive extraterritorial jurisdiction in respect to ES cell research would be deeply problematic, given that the ethical permissibility of ES cell research is characterised by deep and wide disagreement.
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| 6. |
- Munthe, Christian, 1962, et al.
(författare)
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The Return of Lombroso? Ethical Aspects of (Visions of) Preventive Forensic Screening
- 2015
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Ingår i: Public Health Ethics. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 1754-9973 .- 1754-9981. ; 8:3, s. 270-283
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The vision of legendary criminologist Cesare Lombroso to use scientific theories of individual causes of crime as a basis for screening and prevention programmes targeting individuals at risk for future criminal behaviour has resurfaced, following advances in genetics, neuroscience and psychiatric epidemiology. This article analyses this idea and maps its ethical implications from a public health ethical standpoint. Twenty-seven variants of the new Lombrosian vision of forensic screening and prevention are distinguished, and some scientific and technical limitations are noted. Some lures, biases and structural factors, making the application of the Lombrosian idea likely in spite of weak evidence are pointed out and noted as a specific type of ethical aspect. Many classic and complex ethical challenges for health screening programmes are shown to apply to the identified variants and the choice between them, albeit with peculiar and often provoking variations. These variations are shown to actualize an underlying theoretical conundrum in need of further study, pertaining to the relationship between public health ethics and the ethics and values of criminal law policy.
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| 7. |
- Rämö, Robert, et al.
(författare)
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Sediment Remediation Using Activated Carbon: Effects of Sorbent Particle Size and Resuspension on Sequestration of Metals and Organic Contaminants.
- 2022
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Ingår i: Environmental toxicology and chemistry. - : Wiley. - 1552-8618 .- 0730-7268. ; 41:4, s. 1096-1110
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Thin-layer capping using activated carbon (AC) has been described as a cost-effective in situ sediment remediation method for organic contaminants. In this study, we compare the capping efficiency of powdered AC (PAC) against granular AC (GAC) using contaminated sediment from Oskarshamn harbor, Sweden. The effects of resuspension on contaminant retention and cap integrity were also studied. Intact sediment cores were collected from the outer harbor and brought to the laboratory. Three thin-layer caps, consisting of PAC or GAC mixed with clay, or clay only, were added to the sediment surface. Resuspension was created using a motor-driven paddle to simulate propeller wash from ship traffic. Passive samplers were placed in the sediment and in the water column to measure the sediment-to-water release of PAHs, PCBs, and metals. Our results show that a thin-layer cap with PAC reduced sediment-to-water fluxes of PCBs by 57 % under static conditions and 91 % under resuspension. Thin-layer capping with GAC was less effective than PAC, but reduced fluxes of high-molecular weight PAHs. Thin-layer capping with AC was less effective in retaining metals, except for Cd, which release was significantly reduced by PAC. Resuspension generally decreased water concentrations of dissolved cationic metals, perhaps due to sorption to suspended sediment particles. Sediment resuspension in treatments without capping increased fluxes of PCBs with log Kow > 7 and PAHs with log Kow 5 6, but resuspension reduced PCB and PAH fluxes through the PAC thin-layer cap. Overall, PAC performed better than GAC, but adverse effects on the benthic community and transport of PAC to non-target areas are drawbacks that favor the use of GAC. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.© 2022 The Authors. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of SETAC.
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| 9. |
- Petersson, Jesper, 1974
(författare)
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Blurring the shoreline: De- and re-infrastructuring and the changing colors of European flood policy
- 2021
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Ingår i: Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space. - : SAGE Publications. - 2514-8494 .- 2514-8494 .- 2514-8486. ; 4:2, s. 623-644
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper provides a genealogy of the emergence of a common EU flood policy, including the scope and direction of this policy. Noticing how EU policy proposes green infrastructure (associated with using nature as a buffer zone in managing floods) as an alternative to grey infrastructure (implying fixed installations of concrete and cement), this paper adopts the theoretical lens of the so-called infrastructural turn, which advocates a relational investigation of infrastructure. By engaging this approach, the paper shows how flood infrastructure can contain very different compositions of (unruly) water and (settled) land. A narrative of a historically strong focus on guarding society from the powerful forces of nature through a fixed line of defense is increasingly giving way to more muddy states—quite literally—where society is expected to learn to live with flooding and show ecological consideration. To capture the EU’s, and especially the European Commission’s efforts to establish a pan-European flood infrastructure that accommodates this turn, the concepts of de- and re-infrastructuring are developed. These concepts act as heuristic devices to capture how policy performs some combinations between water and land as constituting an attractive and functional flood infrastructure, but constitutes other infrastructural relations of the aquatic and the terrestrial as undesirable and, hence, as malfunctioning. This performative act of distinguishing between what constitutes “good and proper” versus “bad and undesirable” infrastructure is referred to as a politics of infrastructure.
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