Blood donation must go on

Beta-blockers and COPD: the show must go on.

Identification of comorbidities is now recognised as one of the pillars for a comprehensive clinical evaluation in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) [1]. Specifically, the burden of coexisting cardiovascular disease in COPD has gained significant attention, with specific algorithms being developed for its clinical detection [2]. The relationship between the heart and COPD is of clini...

Cascade screening of familial hypercholesterolemia must go on.

PURPOSE This study assesses the success of the recently terminated Dutch nationwide cascade screening by examining whether children with familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) were identified through family screening or due to cardiovascular (CVD) events in the FH parent. METHODS We collected clinical information of all children (0-18 years) with FH with a pathogenic variant at our outpatient lip...

Contingent Power in Contingent Work: Must the Show Go On?

How does a union manage to operate with any bargaining strength when its members‟ work is individualised, infrequent, short-term and unpredictable? Where there is permanent labour oversupply, the closed shop is unlawful, and most members want to work at this specific occupation so much that they will often effectively pay to work? How does an apparently toxic combination of structural and ideol...

Blood Donation

On harm thresholds and living organ donation: must the living donor benefit, on balance, from his donation?

For the majority of scholars concerned with the ethics of living organ donation, inflicting moderate harms on competent volunteers in order to save the lives or increase the life chances of others is held to be justifiable provided certain conditions are met. These conditions tend to include one, or more commonly, some combination of the following: (1) The living donor provides valid consent to...