258 research outputs found
Willingness of Community-Recruited Men Who Have Sex with Men in Washington, DC to Use Long-Acting Injectable HIV Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis.
Objectives
Clinical trials are currently investigating the safety and efficacy of long-acting injectable (LAI) agents as HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). Using National HIV Behavioral Surveillance data, we assessed the self-reported willingness of men who have sex with men (MSM) to use LAI PrEP and their preference for LAI versus daily oral PrEP. Methods
In 2014, venue-based sampling was used to recruit MSM aged â„18 years in Washington, DC. Participants completed an interviewer-administered survey followed by voluntary HIV testing. This analysis included MSM who self-reported negative/unknown HIV status at study entry. Correlates of being âvery likelyâ to use LAI PrEP and preferring it to daily oral PrEP were identified using multivariable logistic regression. Results
Of 314 participants who self-reported negative/unknown HIV status, 50% were \u3c30 years old, 41% were non-Hispanic Black, 37% were non-Hispanic White, and 14% were Hispanic. If LAI PrEP were offered for free or covered by health insurance, 62% were very likely, 25% were somewhat likely, and 12% were unlikely to use it. Regarding preferred PrEP modality, 67% chose LAI PrEP, 24% chose oral PrEP, and 9% chose neither. Correlates of being very likely versus somewhat likely/unlikely to use LAI PrEP included age \u3c30 years (aOR 1.64; 95% CI 1.00â2.68), reporting â„6 (vs. 1) sex partners in the last year (aOR 2.60; 95% CI 1.22â5.53), previous oral PrEP use (aOR 3.67; 95% CI 1.20â11.24), and being newly identified as HIV-infected during study testing (aOR 4.83; 95% CI 1.03â22.67). Black (vs. White) men (aOR 0.48; 95% CI 0.24â0.96) and men with an income of \u3c75,000; aOR 0.37; 95% CI 0.15â0.93) were less likely to prefer LAI to oral PrEP. Conclusions
If LAI PrEP were found to be efficacious, its addition to the HIV prevention toolkit could facilitate more complete PrEP coverage among MSM at risk for HIV
Forst on Reciprocity of Reasons: a Critique
According to Rainer Forst, (i) moral and political claims must meet a requirement of reciprocal and general acceptability (RGA) while (ii) we are under a duty in engaged discursive practice to justify such claims to others, or be able to do so, on grounds that meet RGA. The paper critically engages this view. I argue that Forst builds a key component of RGA, i.e., reciprocity of reasons, on an idea of the reasonable that undermines both (i) and (ii): if RGA builds on this idea, RGA is viciously regressive and a duty of justification to meet RGA fails to be agent transparent. This negative result opens the door for alternative conceptions of reciprocity and generality. I then suggest that a more promising conception of reciprocity and generality needs to build on an idea of the reasonable that helps to reconcile the emancipatory or protective aspirations of reciprocal and general justification with its egalitarian commitments. But this requires to downgrade RGA in the order of justification and to determine on prior, substantive grounds what level of discursive influence in reciprocal and general justification relevant agents ought to have
On Sidgwick's Demise: A Reply to Professor Deigh
In âSidgwickâs Epistemologyâ, John Deigh argues that Henry Sidgwickâs The Methods of Ethics âwas not perceived during his lifetime as a major and lasting contribution to British moral philosophyâ and that interest in it declined considerably after Sidgwickâs death because the epistemology on which it relied âincreasingly became suspect in analytic philosophy and eventually [it was] discarded as obsoleteâ. In this article I dispute these claims
A justification of whistleblowing
Penultimate version accepted for publicationWhistleblowing is the act of disclosing information from a public or private organization in order to reveal cases of corruption that are of immediate or potential danger to the public. Blowing the whistle involves personal risk, especially when legal protection is absent, and charges of betrayal, which often come in the form of legal prosecution under treason laws. In this article we argue that whistleblowing is justified when disclosures are made with the proper intent and fulfill specific communicative constraints in addressing issues of public interest. Three communicative constraints of informativeness, truthfulness and evidence are discussed in this regard. We develop a âharm testâ to assess the intent for disclosures, concluding that it is not sufficient for justification. Along with the proper intent, a successful act of whistleblowing should provide information that serves the public interest. Taking cognizance of the varied conceptions of public interest, we present an account of public interest that fits the framework of whistleblowing disclosures. In particular, we argue that whistleblowing is justified inter alia when the information it conveys is of a presumptive interest for a public insofar as it reveals an instance of injustice or violation of a civil or political right done against and unbeknown to some members of a polity.Project: âChange of Direction. Fostering Whistleblowing in the Fight against Corruptionâ co-funded by the Internal Security Fund of the European Union (Grant Agreement Number: HOME/2014/ISFP/AG/EFCE/7233); SFRH/BPD/108669/2015info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Multiculturalism and moderate secularism
What is sometimes talked about as the âpost-secularâ or a âcrisis of secularismâ is, in Western Europe, quite crucially to do with the reality of multiculturalism. By which I mean not just the fact of new ethno-religious diversity but the presence of a multiculturalist approach to this diversity, namely: the idea that equality must be extended from uniformity of treatment to include respect for difference; recognition of public/private interdependence rather than dichotomized as in classical liberalism; the public recognition and institutional accommodation of minorities; the reversal of marginalisation and a remaking of national citizenship so that all can have a sense of belonging to it. I think that equality requires that this ethno-cultural multiculturalism should be extended to include state-religion connexions in Western Europe, which I characterise as âmoderate secularismâ, based on the idea that political authority should not be subordinated to religious authority yet religion can be a public good which the state should assist in realising or utilising. I discuss here three multiculturalist approaches that contend this multiculturalising of moderate secularism is not the way forward. One excludes religious groups and secularism from the scope of multiculturalism (Kymlicka); another largely limits itself to opposing the âotheringâ of groups such as Jews and Muslims (Jansen); and the third argues that moderate secularism is the problem not the solution (Bhargava)
The Astropy Problem
The Astropy Project (http://astropy.org) is, in its own words, "a community
effort to develop a single core package for Astronomy in Python and foster
interoperability between Python astronomy packages." For five years this
project has been managed, written, and operated as a grassroots,
self-organized, almost entirely volunteer effort while the software is used by
the majority of the astronomical community. Despite this, the project has
always been and remains to this day effectively unfunded. Further, contributors
receive little or no formal recognition for creating and supporting what is now
critical software. This paper explores the problem in detail, outlines possible
solutions to correct this, and presents a few suggestions on how to address the
sustainability of general purpose astronomical software
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