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Ethical Schools of Thought: Utilitarianism

G Guidero

I’m so excited to be introducing my mini-blog series with you all: Ethical Schools of Thought! I figure, we talk about the ethics of so many topics on this blog, that it would be pretty worthwhile to dive into the rabbit hole of how some people might evaluate them. The first one I will kick off this series with is utilitarianism, by Jeremy Bentham. According to Utilitarianism, we determine the right thing to do based on the outcome. Who was harmed? What happened? Are questions a utilitarian might ask. Here’s a little table – main strengths and weaknesses of this … Continue reading Ethical Schools of Thought: Utilitarianism

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Eating Disorders: History of Bulimia and Teens

G Guidero

NEDA Hotline For those of you who were following my last blog post, Bulimia Nervosa (BN) appeared a little after Anorexia Nervosa (AN) did in the official timeline of eating disorder diagnoses classifications. 1903 is the year when Dr. Pierre Janet observed bulimic behaviors in his patients. Other doctors in the early 20th century had recorded behaviors of patients differing from those diagnosed with anorexia, which had been an established diagnosis since 1873. These behaviors largely involved using compensatory behaviors (explained below) to maintain a low weight. The first instance we see of bulimia being categorized is in 1979, by … Continue reading Eating Disorders: History of Bulimia and Teens

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Eating Disorders: History of Anorexia and Teens

G Guidero

NEDA Hotline (Hyperlink) To properly understand anorexia nervosa, you’ve got to understand the historical background. The first recorded examples of human “self-starving” themselves – i.e. choosing to withhold food intake rather than having food intake being restricted by external factors (environment, competition, economics, etc.) – is during the spread of Christianity. The National Library of Medicine writes that Christian hermits believed in purification of the soul through self-starvation, to the point where a Roman girl died from starvation after believing the preaching of Saint Jerome. Catherine of Siena is a later example of self-starvation, during the 13-16th Centuries, where extreme … Continue reading Eating Disorders: History of Anorexia and Teens

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CRISPR Used to Treat Sickle-Cell Anemia

G Guidero

I came across a really cool application of CRISPR today, in Rob Stein’s NPR article, “First Sickle-Cell Patient Treated with CRISPR Gene-Editing Still Thriving.” If you’re interested, I highly suggest you give it a read — but I’ll summarize the findings here. Victoria Gray, a 36-year-old mom and wife, volunteered for a clinical trial where doctors took cells out of her bone marrow, edited a gene in those cells using CRISPR, and then reinfused the modified cells back into her body. The idea of this method was that the edited cells would produce a protein called fetal hemoglobin, and alleviate … Continue reading CRISPR Used to Treat Sickle-Cell Anemia