Effects of transportation, transport medium and re-housing on Xenopus laevis (Daudin)

Understanding the immediate and longer-term effects of transportation and re-housing in a laboratory species is crucial in order to refine the transfer process, enable the optimal introduction of new animals to a novel environment and to provide a sufficient acclimatisation period before usage. Whilst consideration of animal welfare in most model vertebrate species has received attention, little quantitative evidence exists for the optimal care of the common laboratory amphibian Xenopus laevis. Techniques for the non-invasive welfare assessment of amphibians are also limited and here a non-invasive physiological assay was developed to investigate the impacts of transportation, transport medium and re-housing on X. laevis. First the impacts of transportation and transport medium (water, damp sponge or damp sphagnum moss) were investigated. Transportation caused an increase in waterborne corticosterone regardless of transport medium. Frogs transported in damp sphagnum moss also had a greater decrease in body mass in comparison to frogs not transported, suggesting that this is the least suitable transport medium for X. laevis. Next the prolonged impacts of transportation and re-housing were investigated. Frogs were transported between research facilities with different housing protocols. Samples were collected prior to and immediately following transportation, as well as 1 day, 7 days and 35 days after re-housing. Water-borne corticosterone increased following transportation and remained high for at least 7 days, decreasing to baseline levels by 35 days. Body mass decreased following transportation and remained lower than baseline levels across the entire 35 day observation period. These findings suggest the process of transportation and re-housing is stressful in this species. Together these findings have important relevance for both improving animal welfare and ensuring optimal and efficient scientific research

Disclosure and rationality: Comparative risk information and decision-making about prevention

With the growing focus on prevention in medicine, studies of how to describe risk have become increasing important. Recently, some researchers have argued against giving patients "comparative risk information," such as data about whether their baseline risk of developing a particular disease is above or below average. The concern is that giving patients this information will interfere with their consideration of more relevant data, such as the specific chance of getting the disease (the "personal risk"), the risk reduction the treatment provides, and any possible side effects. I explore this view and the theories of rationality that ground it, and I argue instead that comparative risk information can play a positive role in decision-making. The criticism of disclosing this sort of information to patients, I conclude, rests on a mistakenly narrow account of the goals of prevention and the nature of rational choice in medicine

Reznek on health

Philosopher and psychiatrist Lawrie Reznek’s five books all examine various aspects of the foundations of medicine, psychiatry, and insanity law. The first defends a definition of pathological condition on which all the rest at least partly rely: namely, as an abnormal, involuntary, usually harmful condition for which medical treatment is both necessary and appropriate. I first argue in detail that his abnormality element is redundant, while none of the other four is either necessary or sufficient for pathologicity. Independently, Reznek is also mistaken about the environmental relativity of disease and the “political dimension” of disease judgments. His last three books employ a simpler version of his analysis: that a disease is an abnormal harmful involuntary process without obvious external cause. Besides my previous objections to the first three of these elements, I argue that his new analysis has a new defect. It is either too narrow or too 24 Christopher Boorse teorema XL/1, 2021, pp. 23-65 broad, depending on whether he keeps or discards his normal-process thesis that “reacting normally to abnormal circumstances” cannot be pathological. By that thesis, he excludes the vast range of pathology which is the typical effect of unusual environmental insults; but without it, he would make every harmful, atypical, typically acquired, empirically unrefuted belief a mental disorder. Still, though Reznek is wrong in nearly all his major claims about the concept of disease, a great deal of the content of his last four books can survive this deficiencyLos cinco libros del filósofo y psiquiatra Lawrie Reznek examinan diversos aspectos de los fundamentos de la medicina, la psiquiatría y las leyes sobre la locura. El primero defiende una definición del concepto de condición patológica sobre el que descansan, al menos parcialmente, todos los demás. Tal concepto puede enunciarse como una condición anormal, involuntaria, usualmente dañina para la que el tratamiento médico es a la vez necesario y apropiado. En primer lugar, argumento de forma detallada que el elemento de anormalidad es redundante y que ninguno de los otros cuatro es ni necesario ni suficiente para la patologicidad. Independientemente de esto, Reznek se equivoca también sobre la relatividad de la enfermedad y la respecto del entorno y la “dimensión política” de los juicios relativos a la enfermedad. Sus últimos tres libros emplean una versión muy simple de su análisis: que una enfermedad es un proceso anormal y dañino e involuntario sin una causa externa obvia. Además de mis objeciones previas al primero de esos elementos, argumento que su nuevo análisis tiene un nuevo defecto. Es o demasiado estricto, o demasiado amplio, dependiendo de si mantiene o descarta su tesis del proceso normal de que “reaccionar normalmente a circunstancias anormales” no puede ser patológico. Por medio de esta tesis, excluye una amplia gama de patologías que es el efecto típico de agresiones ambientales inusuales; pero si ella, convierte en un desorden mental a cualquier creencia dañina, atípica, adquirida normalmente y empíricamente no refutada. Con todo, y a pesar de que Reznek está equivocado en casi todas sus principales afirmaciones sobre el concepto de enfermedad, gran parte del contenido de sus últimos cuatro libros pueden sobre vivir a esta deficiencia