A behind-the-scenes examination of the special court dedicated to claims that vaccines have caused harm The so-called vaccine court is a small special court in the United States Court of Federal Claims that handles controversial claims that a vaccine has harmed someone. While vaccines in general are extremely safe and effective, some people still suffer severe vaccine reactions and bring their claims to vaccine court. In this court, lawyers, activists, judges, doctors, and scientists come together, sometimes arguing bitterly, trying to figure out whether a vaccine really caused a person’s medical problem. In Vaccine Court, Anna Kirkland draws on the trials of the vaccine court to explore how legal institutions resolve complex scientific questions. What are vaccine injuries, and how do we come to recognize them? What does it mean to transform these questions into a legal problem and funnel them through a special national vaccine court, as we do in the US? What does justice require for vaccine injury claims, and how can we deliver it? These are highly contested questions, and the terms in which they have been debated over the last forty years are highly revealing of deeper fissures in our society over motherhood, community, health, harm, and trust in authority. While many scholars argue that it’s foolish to let judges and lawyers decide medical claims about vaccines, Kirkland argues that our political and legal response to vaccine injury claims shows how well legal institutions can handle specialized scientific matters. Vaccine Court is an accessible and thorough account of what the vaccine court is, why we have it, and what it does.
Draws on little-known legal cases brought by fat citizens as well as significant lawsuits over other forms of bodily difference (such as transgenderism), and asks why the boundaries of our antidiscrimination laws rest where they do. Fatness, argues Kirkland, is both similar to and provocatively different from other protected traits, raising long-standing dilemmas in antidiscrimination law into stark relief. Though options for defending difference may be scarce, Kirkland evaluates the available strategies and proposes new ways of navigating this new legal question. From publisher description.
This project brings readers into conversation at the intersections of gender studies and Christian theology--particularly diverse feminist and queer theologies. Interrupting a Gendered, Violent Church develops over three parts to an extended essay that points to the real ways churches foster violence around gender. This volume discusses this violent reality while also exploring church as a nexus for resistance to gender-based violence and sketches the contours of a Christian theology mapped apart from patriarchal heteronormativity's hold on late modern Christian life. The goal of the Dispatches series is to offer a genuinely creative and disruptive theological-ethical ressourcement for church in the present moment. Volumes illuminate and explore, creatively and concisely, the implications and relevance of theology for the global crises of late modernity. Our authors have been invited to introduce succinct and provocative arguments intended to provoke dialogue and exchange of ideas, while setting in relief the implications of theology for political and moral life.
Gulf War Illness (GWI) is a chronic, multi-symptomatic disorder with underlying central nervous system (CNS) dysfunction and cognitive impairments. Neurotoxic exposures during the Gulf War are thought to have caused over activation of glutamatergic receptors, leading to neuroexcitotoxicity and symptoms associated with GWI. Glutamate has a dual role as an excitatory neurotransmitter and a non-essential dietary amino acid, with the potential to be an excitotoxin. While the blood-brain barrier (BBB) should prevent dietary glutamate from entering the CNS, Gulf War specific stressors may have increased BBB permeability among veterans with GWI allowing dietary glutamate to enter the CNS. Increased availability of glutamate in the CNS from dietary exposures may be contributing to excitotoxicity and the continuation of symptoms of GWI decades after the conflict. Therefore, the current clinical trial investigated a low glutamate diet as a novel treatment for GWI. Participants were assessed at baseline for CNS dysfunction using magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS), resting-state electroencephalography (EEG), and computerized cognitive functioning testing using CNS Vital Signs℗ʼ (CNSVS) software. After intensive dietary training, all participants were on the low glutamate diet for one month before returning for post-diet assessments of MRS, EEG, and cognitive functioning. Participants were then randomized to a two-week double-blind placebo-controlled crossover challenge period where participants received either five grams of glutamate (as monosodium glutamate or MSG) or five grams of a sugar/salt mixture as a placebo (with an equal amount of salt as the MSG) over three days to test whether glutamate induced changes in EEG and CNSVS outcomes. After one month on the low glutamate diet, a majority of participants (72.5%) reported overall improvement based on the global impression of change scale. Overall cognitive functioning measured by the neurocognitive index (NCI) significantly improved (p=0.002), and the majority of the domain-specific cognitive outcomes showed significant improvement as well. A decrease in glutamine (p=0.074) and glutamate plus glutamine (Glx) (p=0.070) approached significance in the left hippocampus after one month on the low glutamate diet, and the change in glutamine was associated with improvements in the NCI (p=0.034). Changes in resting-state EEG included decreases in central and posterior delta (p
Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is the most common neurodevelopmental disorder in children, and over half of these individuals carry the diagnosis into adulthood. Dietary exposure to artificial food coloring (AFC) has been reported to worsen symptoms of ADHD in children, but the validity of these findings has been debated. Furthermore, no studies have been completed to date examining the potential effects of AFC on young adults with ADHD. The current study examined the effects of AFC on brainwave activity of college students with and without ADHD. Participants (mean (SD) age of 20 (1.3) yrs) with (n = 18) and without (n = 41) ADHD completed baseline testing, including the Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale (ASRS) and 4 minutes of eyes-closed resting-state EEG. After avoiding AFC in the diet for 2 weeks, the ADHD group and 11 controls (referred to as Extended Controls or EC) were randomized to a double-blind placebo-controlled crossover challenge lasting three days each over two consecutive weeks. The challenge materials consisted of either 250 mg of combined AFC disguised in chocolate cookies or placebo chocolate cookies. The ASRS and EEG measures were collected at the end of each 3-day exposure. ASRS scores significantly differed at baseline between the ADHD and control group (p
Growing a small business requires more than just sales Business Development For Dummies helps maximise the growth of small- or medium-sized businesses, with a step-by-step model for business development designed specifically for B2B or B2C service firms. By mapping business development to customer life cycle, this book helps owners and managers ensure a focus on growth through effective customer nurturing and management. It's not just sales! In-depth coverage also includes strategy, marketing, client management, and partnerships/alliances, helping you develop robust business practices that can be used every day. You'll learn how to structure, organise, and execute an effective development plan, with step-by-step expert guidance. Realising that you can't just "hire a sales guy" and expect immediate results is one of the toughest lessons small business CEOs have to learn. Developing a business is about more than just gaining customers – it's about integrating every facet of your business in an overarching strategy that continually works toward growth. Business Development For Dummies provides a model, and teaches you what you need to know to make it work for your business. Learn the core concepts of business development, and how it differs from sales Build a practical, step-by-step business development strategy Incorporate marketing, sales, and customer management in general planning Develop and implement a growth-enhancing partnership strategy Recognising that business development is much more than just sales is the first important step to sustained growth. Development should be daily – not just when business starts to tail off, or you fall into a cycle of growth and regression. Plan for growth, and make it stick – Business Development For Dummies shows you how.
Integrative psychotherapy: using the principles of dynamic complex systems to guide everyday clinical work. This book introduces a new, integrative, systemic approach to psychotherapy and counseling and shows how the principles of dynamic complex systems can guide everyday clinical work. Our mental, interpersonal, and biological (e.g., neuronal) systems are complex and nonlinear, and allow spontaneous pattern formation and chaotic dynamics. Their self-organizing nature sometimes maneuvers the systems into pathological states. However, the very same principles can be utilized therapeutically to encourage change for the better. The feedback-driven nonlinear dynamic systems approach described here basically attempts to facilitate positive self-organizing processes, such as order transitions, healthy patterns of behavior, and learning processes. In addition to describing the theory and evidence supporting the feedback-driven nonlinear dynamic systems approach, the authors use an extensive case study to illustrate how the principles of dynamic complex systems can guide everyday clinical work. They show how modeling and monitoring of the client's systems and an empirical description of its patterns allows the therapist to individually fine-tune therapeutic techniques to support the client's progress. Fine-meshed feedback based on real-time data and time-series analysis is at the core of the approach, and so an internet-based monitoring system – the Synergetic Navigation System (SNS) – that helps capture dynamic processes and guide practitioners' therapeutic decisions is also described.
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