Ethics in Human-Animal Relationships

Reactions to ethical matters related to human-animal relationships are often ambiguous and are influenced by many human-related factors. Because of such variations, there is a need for guidance in this regard. Such guidelines should thus be useful in a universal sense. Due to veterinarians position as professionally qualified persons they are often involved in debates regarding ethics related to human-animal relationships. In order to propose guidelines, philosophical perspectives were weighed against some of the latest empirical studies in animals ’ neurophysiology and behavioural studies. Suggested guidelines include the modalities of obligatory, desirable, admissible and indifference regarding the application of ethics in human-animal relationships. These guidelines should be valuable in human-animal relationship debates and they should provide a basis for veterinarians to be equal partners in such debates. Ethical dilemmas, neurophysiology, behaviour, veterinary guidelines Since recorded history of humans, animals have received contradictory standings in human ethics. Animals enjoyed deity status, were used as pretexts for the Saviour who could free people from their sins, were used in cultic sacrifices, were viewed as demons and were believed to be intermediate human forms in reincarnation. Animals were also kille

Early prediction of adult police dog efficiencydA longitudinal study

Abstract The problem at the South African Police Service Dog Breeding Centre was that most of their progenies were unsuitable as police dogs. Behaviour tests were developed specifically for police dogs to predict their efficiency as adults. Puppies from the age of 8 weeks were exposed to situations that they probably would encounter in their work as police dogs. These experiences included crossing of obstacles, retrieval of objects, startle stimuli and aggression. In the longitudinal study of 2 years it was found that all the tests had statistical significance to a greater or lesser extent, except the gunshot test. The most significant tests were retrieval at 8 weeks and aggression at 9 months. These tests thus enable selection for suitable dogs as early as 8 weeks of age, but not later than 9 months. The conclusion is that reliable tests can predict adult police dog efficiency and in doing so, save unnecessary training and other costs on unsuccessful dogs.

Recurrent pregnancy loss is associated with a pro-senescent decidual response during the peri-implantation window

During the implantation window, the endometrium becomes poised to transition to a pregnant state, a process driven by differentiation of stromal cells into decidual cells (DC). Perturbations in this process, termed decidualization, leads to breakdown of the feto-maternal interface and miscarriage, but the underlying mechanisms are poorly understood. Here, we reconstructed the decidual pathway at single-cell level in vitro and demonstrate that stromal cells first mount an acute stress response before emerging as DC or senescent DC (snDC). In the absence of immune cell-mediated clearance of snDC, secondary senescence transforms DC into progesterone-resistant cells that abundantly express extracellular matrix remodelling factors. Additional single-cell analysis of midluteal endometrium identified DIO2 and SCARA5 as marker genes of a diverging decidual response in vivo. Finally, we report a conspicuous link between a pro-senescent decidual response in peri-implantation endometrium and recurrent pregnancy loss, suggesting that pre-pregnancy screening and intervention may reduce the burden of miscarriage

The outcome of babies 'of mothers with severe Rhesus incompatibility treated at Tygerberg Hospital, 1980 - 1993

No Abstract

The association between preterm labour, perinatal mortality and infant death (during the first year) in Bishop Lavis, Cape Town, South Africa

Background. We present further analyses from the Safe Passage Study, where the effect of alcohol exposure during pregnancy on sudden infant death syndrome and stillbirth was investigated.Objectives. To describe pregnancy and neonatal outcome in a large prospective study where information on the outcome of pregnancy was known in >98.3% of participants and ultrasound was used to determine gestational age (GA).Methods. As part of the Safe Passage Study of the PASS Network in Cape Town, South Africa, the outcomes of 6 866 singleton pregnancies were prospectively followed from recruitment in early pregnancy until the infant was 12 months old to assess pregnancy outcome. Fetal growth was assessed by z-scores of the birth weight, and GA at birth was derived from early ultrasound assessments. The effects of fetal growth restriction and preterm delivery on pregnancy outcome were determined.Results. There were 66 miscarriages, 107 stillbirths at ≥22 weeks’ gestation, 66 stillbirths at ≥28 weeks’ gestation, 29 and 18 neonatal deaths at ≥22 and ≥28 weeks’ gestation, respectively, and 54 post-neonatal deaths (28 days - 12 months). The miscarriage rate was 9.6/1 000 and the infant mortality rate 12.4/1 000. Of the births, 13.8% were preterm. For deliveries at ≥22 and ≥28 weeks, the stillbirth rates were 15.7 and 9.8/1 000 deliveries, respectively. For deliveries at ≥22 and ≥28 weeks, the neonatal death rates were 4.3 and 2.7/1 000 live births, respectively. For these pregnancies the perinatal mortality rates were 20.0/1 000 (≥22 weeks) and 12.5/1 000 (≥28 weeks), respectively. Only 15.9% of stillbirths occurred during labour (in 15.9% of cases it was uncertain whether death had occurred during labour). In the majority of cases (68.2%) fetal death occurred before labour, and 82.2% of stillbirths and 62.1% of neonatal deaths occurred in deliveries before 37 weeks. Including the miscarriages, stillbirths and infant deaths, there were 256 pregnancy losses; 77.3% were associated with deliveries before 37 weeks. Only 1.8% of all the women were HIV-positive, whereas the HIV-positive rate was 3.7% among those who had stillbirths. Birth weight was below the 10th centile in 25.6% of neonatal and post-neonatal deaths compared with 17.7% of survivors.Conclusions. Preterm birth and fetal growth restriction play significant roles in fetal, neonatal and infant losses.

Vaccination with Rift Valley fever virus live attenuated vaccine strain Smithburn caused meningoencephalitis in alpacas

Rift Valley fever (RVF) is a zoonotic, viral, mosquito-borne disease that causes considerable morbidity and mortality in humans and livestock in Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. In June 2018, 4 alpaca inoculated subcutaneously with live attenuated RVF virus (RVFV) Smithburn strain exhibited pyrexia, aberrant vocalization, anorexia, neurologic signs, and respiratory distress. One animal died the evening of inoculation, and 2 at ~20 d post-inoculation. Concern regarding potential vaccine strain reversion to wild-type RVFV or vaccine-induced disease prompted autopsy of the latter two. Macroscopically, both alpacas had severe pulmonary edema and congestion, myocardial hemorrhages, and cyanotic mucous membranes. Histologically, they had cerebral nonsuppurative encephalomyelitis with perivascular cuffing, multifocal neuronal necrosis, gliosis, and meningitis. Lesions were more severe in the 4-mo-old cria. RVFV antigen and RNA were present in neuronal cytoplasm, by immunohistochemistry and in situ hybridization (ISH) respectively, and cerebrum was also RVFV positive by RT-rtPCR. The virus clustered in lineage K (100% sequence identity), with close association to Smithburn sequences published previously (identity: 99.1–100%). There was neither evidence of an aberrant immune-mediated reaction nor reassortment with wild-type virus. The evidence points to a pure infection with Smithburn vaccine strain as the cause of the animals’ disease.The Department of Paraclinical Sciences Faculty of Veterinary Science, University of Pretoria, and the Department of Diagnostic Medicine/Pathobiology, College of Veterinary Medicine, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS.https://journals.sagepub.com/home/vdihj2022Paraclinical Science

Modelling the impact of decidual senescence on embryo implantation in human endometrial assembloids.

Decidual remodelling of midluteal endometrium leads to a short implantation window after which the uterine mucosa either breaks down or is transformed into a robust matrix that accommodates the placenta throughout pregnancy. To gain insights into the underlying mechanisms, we established and characterized endometrial assembloids, consisting of gland-like organoids and primary stromal cells. Single-cell transcriptomics revealed that decidualized assembloids closely resemble midluteal endometrium, harbouring differentiated and senescent subpopulations in both glands and stroma. We show that acute senescence in glandular epithelium drives secretion of multiple canonical implantation factors, whereas in the stroma it calibrates the emergence of anti-inflammatory decidual cells and pro-inflammatory senescent decidual cells. Pharmacological inhibition of stress responses in pre-decidual cells accelerated decidualization by eliminating the emergence of senescent decidual cells. In co-culture experiments, accelerated decidualization resulted in entrapment of collapsed human blastocysts in a robust, static decidual matrix. By contrast, the presence of senescent decidual cells created a dynamic implantation environment, enabling embryo expansion and attachment, although their persistence led to gradual disintegration of assembloids. Our findings suggest that decidual senescence controls endometrial fate decisions at implantation and highlight how endometrial assembloids may accelerate the discovery of new treatments to prevent reproductive failure

EndoTime: non-categorical timing estimates for luteal endometrium

STUDY QUESTION Can the accuracy of timing of luteal phase endometrial biopsies based on urinary ovulation testing be improved by measuring the expression of a small number of genes and a continuous, non-categorical modelling approach? SUMMARY ANSWER Measuring the expression levels of six genes (IL2RB, IGFBP1, CXCL14, DPP4, GPX3 and SLC15A2) is sufficient to obtain substantially more accurate timing estimates and to assess the reliability of timing estimates for each sample. WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY Commercially available endometrial timing approaches based on gene expression require large gene sets and use a categorical approach that classifies samples as pre-receptive, receptive or post-receptive. STUDY DESIGN, SIZE, DURATION Gene expression was measured by RTq-PCR in different sample sets, comprising a total of 664 endometrial biopsies obtained 4–12 days after a self-reported positive home ovulation test. A further 36 endometrial samples were profiled by RTq-PCR as well as RNA-sequencing. PARTICIPANTS/MATERIALS, SETTING, METHODS A computational procedure, named ‘EndoTime’, was established that models the temporal profile of each gene and estimates the timing of each sample. Iterating these steps, temporal profiles are gradually refined as sample timings are being updated, and confidence in timing estimates is increased. After convergence, the method reports updated timing estimates for each sample while preserving the overall distribution of time points. MAIN RESULTS AND THE ROLE OF CHANCE The Wilcoxon rank-sum test was used to confirm that ordering samples by EndoTime estimates yields sharper temporal expression profiles for held-out genes (not used when determining sample timings) than ordering the same expression values by patient-reported times (GPX3: P  0.05). LARGE SCALE DATA The RTq-PCR data files are available via the GitHub repository for the EndoTime software at https://github.com/AE-Mitchell/EndoTime, as is the code used for pre-processing of RTq-PCR data. The RNA-sequencing data are available on GEO (accession GSE180485). LIMITATIONS, REASONS FOR CAUTION Timing estimates are informed by glandular gene expression and will only represent the temporal state of other endometrial cell types if in synchrony with the epithelium. Methods that estimate the day of ovulation are still required as these data are essential inputs in our method. Our approach, in its current iteration, performs batch correction such that larger sample batches impart greater accuracy to timing estimations. In theory, our method requires endometrial samples obtained at different days in the luteal phase. In practice, however, this is not a concern as timings based on urinary ovulation testing are associated with a sufficient level of noise to ensure that a variety of time points will be sampled. WIDER IMPLICATIONS OF THE FINDINGS Our method is the first to assay the temporal state of luteal-phase endometrial samples on a continuous domain. It is freely available with fully shared data and open-source software. EndoTime enables accurate temporal profiling of any gene in luteal endometrial samples for a wide range of research applications and, potentially, clinical use

Miscarriage matters: the epidemiological, physical, psychological, and economic costs of early pregnancy loss

Miscarriage is generally defined as the loss of a pregnancy before viability. An estimated 23 million miscarriages occur every year worldwide, translating to 44 pregnancy losses each minute. The pooled risk of miscarriage is 15·3% (95% CI 12·5–18·7%) of all recognised pregnancies. The population prevalence of women who have had one miscarriage is 10·8% (10·3–11·4%), two miscarriages is 1·9% (1·8–2·1%), and three or more miscarriages is 0·7% (0·5–0·8%). Risk factors for miscarriage include very young or older female age (younger than 20 years and older than 35 years), older male age (older than 40 years), very low or very high body-mass index, Black ethnicity, previous miscarriages, smoking, alcohol, stress, working night shifts, air pollution, and exposure to pesticides. The consequences of miscarriage are both physical, such as bleeding or infection, and psychological. Psychological consequences include increases in the risk of anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and suicide. Miscarriage, and especially recurrent miscarriage, is also a sentinel risk marker for obstetric complications, including preterm birth, fetal growth restriction, placental abruption, and stillbirth in future pregnancies, and a predictor of longer-term health problems, such as cardiovascular disease and venous thromboembolism. The costs of miscarriage affect individuals, health-care systems, and society. The short-term national economic cost of miscarriage is estimated to be £471 million per year in the UK. As recurrent miscarriage is a sentinel marker for various obstetric risks in future pregnancies, women should receive care in preconception and obstetric clinics specialising in patients at high risk. As psychological morbidity is common after pregnancy loss, effective screening instruments and treatment options for mental health consequences of miscarriage need to be available. We recommend that miscarriage data are gathered and reported to facilitate comparison of rates among countries, to accelerate research, and to improve patient care and policy development