scholarly journals The Alberta Eugenics Movement and the 1937 Amendment to the Sexual Sterilization Act

2013 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
Author(s):  
W Mikkel Dack

The scholarly study of eugenics legislation in Alberta has been seriously limited as research has focused on the province’s original Sterilization Act, passed in March 1928, and on the political, social, and economic conditions of the 1920s. Although the 1928 Act was of great significance, being the first sterilization law passed in Canada, it was its 1937 amendment and the permitting of involuntary sterilizations that made the Alberta eugenics movement truly distinct. During the late 1930s, a time when the great majority of regional governments were either decommissioning or disregarding their sterilization laws due to a lack of funding, the discrediting of scientific racism and an increase in public protest, Alberta expanded its own legislation. Although similar laws were met with fierce opposition in other provinces and in the United States, this new amendment of 1937 remained largely unopposed in Alberta. As a result of such narrowly focused research, the explanations for why the Act was amended and why resistance to non-consensual sterilization remained minimal during the 1930s have been based almost entirely on political and social assumptions and not on sound evidence; explanations have proven to be exaggerated, inaccurate, and misleading. By dismissing the preconceived notions and arguments of the past we are left with a new grounding from which to build future propositions and with a new set of sharpened questions to help determine why the Alberta government, and presumably its people, were willing to support such regressive legislation when it was being ignored and rejected elsewhere. By doing so new theories arise, such as the influential role of individual personalities within the provincial government and the Alberta medical community, the definition and diagnosis of “mental deficiency” in Canada, and the means by which political resistance could be expressed.

Author(s):  
M.V. Maksimov

This essay presents a description of the scholarly events commemorating the 20th anniversary of the journal “Solovyov Studies”. It gives an overview of the exhibition "20 years of the journal “Solovyov Studies”: 2001–2021," prepared by the editorial board of the journal together with the Library of the ISPU. It highlights a variety of the sections of the exposition and the materials presented, reflecting the development of the journal over two decades, the composition of its editorial board, including authoritative experts from Russia, Bulgaria, Great Britain, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, the United States of America, Ukraine, and France. The reader’s attention is drawn to the information about the journal's position in various ratings schemes, both domestic and foreign, and citation indices, the share of publications by foreign authors and their geographical location, as well as the number of journal-views over the past five years. The article shows the role of scientific communications in the development of the journal, Information is given on the participation of the editorial board in international scientific events, on publications devoted to the journal and its presentations in Russian and foreign publications, universities and research centers. The article describes the Solovyov seminar’s cultural and student projects, which received substantial content and information support from “Solovyov Studies”. The level of interest of the scientific community in the journal is also noted.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyle D. Kittelberger ◽  
Solomon V. Hendrix ◽  
Çağan Hakkı Şekercioğlu

Due to the increasing popularity of websites specializing in nature documentation, there has been a surge in the number of people enthusiastic about observing and documenting nature over the past 2 decades. These citizen scientists are recording biodiversity on unprecedented temporal and spatial scales, rendering data of tremendous value to the scientific community. In this study, we investigate the role of citizen science in increasing knowledge of global biodiversity through the examination of notable contributions to the understanding of the insect suborder Auchenorrhyncha, also known as true hoppers, in North America. We have compiled a comprehensive summary of citizen science contributions—published and unpublished—to the understanding of hopper diversity, finding over fifty previously unpublished country and state records as well as dozens of undescribed and potentially undescribed species. We compare citizen science contributions to those published in the literature as well as specimen records in collections in the United States and Canada, illuminating the fact that the copious data afforded by citizen science contributions are underutilized. We also introduce the website Hoppers of North Carolina, a revolutionary new benchmark for tracking hopper diversity, disseminating knowledge from the literature, and incorporating citizen science. Finally, we provide a series of recommendations for both the entomological community and citizen science platforms on how best to approach, utilize, and increase the quality of sightings from the general public.


Author(s):  
William B. Meyer

If the average citizen's surroundings defined the national climate, then the United States grew markedly warmer and drier in the postwar decades. Migration continued to carry the center of population west and began pulling it southward as well. The growth of what came to be called the Sunbelt at the "Snowbelt's" expense passed a landmark in the early 1960s when California replaced New York as the most populous state. Another landmark was established in the early 1990s when Texas moved ahead of New York. In popular discussion, it was taken for granted that finding a change of climate was one of the motives for relocating as well as one of the results. It was not until 1954, though, that an American social scientist first seriously considered the possibility. The twentieth-century flow of Americans to the West Coast, the geographer Edward L. Ullman observed in that year, had no precedent in world history. It could not be explained by the theories of settlement that had worked well in the past, for a substantial share of it represented something entirely new, "the first large-scale in-migration to be drawn by the lure of a pleasant climate." If it was the first of its kind, it was unlikely to be the last. For a set of changes in American society, Ullman suggested, had transformed the economic role of climate. The key changes included a growth in the numbers of pensioned retirees; an increase in trade and service employment, much more "footloose" than agriculture or manufacturing was; developments in technology making manufacturing itself more footloose; and a great increase in mobility brought about by the automobile and the highway. All in one way or another had weakened the bonds of place and made Americans far freer than before to choose where to live. Whatever qualities made life in any spot particularly pleasant thus attracted migration more than in the past. Ullman grouped such qualities together as "amenities." They ranged from mountains to beaches to cultural attractions, but climate appeared to be the most important, not least because it was key to the enjoyment of many of the rest. Ullman did not suppose that all Americans desired the same climate. For most people, in this as in other respects, "where one was born and lives is the best place in the world, no matter how forsaken a hole it may appear to an outsider."


2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 249-277 ◽  
Author(s):  
DAVID SEHAT

The United States is a deeply Christian country, but over the last sixty years American public culture has become increasingly detached from religious concerns. Christian activists, when not speaking within the Republican Party, have had to assert their privilege in a way that they never had to do in the past. In spite of their efforts, the role of Christianity in culture and politics has seen a more or less continuous decline. This essay examines how and why that process occurred. It puts forward a schematic narrative that relies on the concepts of public reason, the avant-garde, and an overlapping consensus to explain how different people came together in the mid-twentieth century to secularize and liberalize American public life.


2020 ◽  
pp. 096777202092451
Author(s):  
Michael Swash

The formal named lecture has an iconic position in British medical life, but it is less valued now than in the past. The Schorstein memorial lecture series at the London Hospital illustrates the evolving role of such lectures and their significance in medical practice, science and history, and the evolving concepts of medicine in society. The founding concept underlying the Schorstein lectures was an ideal of education, strongly supported by William Osler and other influential figures. The influence of the series of annual lectures and their subsequent publication among the wider medical community was immense. However, the formal named lecture as an educational experience is now less highly regarded. Nonetheless, with a changed focus, as has been applied recently to the Schorstein lecture series, such events can continue to play a role in contemporary medical life.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 35-45
Author(s):  
M. A. Savchenko ◽  
A. M. Panteleev

Over the past decade, in Russian Federation there has been a steady increase in the incidence of MAC-infection in patients with HIV (the growth of nosology over the past five years, on average, was 57% per year). This determines the interest in this problem, especially in terms of the high inefficiency of treatment for the disease, the long term and cost of treatment. The history of the study of Mycobacterium Avium Complex-infection (MAC) originates in the early eighties in the United States, when the prognosis for a patient with AIDS and mycobacteriosis was extremely poor: mortality within one year after the detection of pathogen reached 71%. The role of infection in the thanatogenesis of patients was, however, established only by the beginning of the nineties. The detection of macrolide activity against the pathogen significantly improved the prognosis for patients, especially in combination with highly active antiretroviral therapy. The widespread introduction of antiviral drugs into practice and the ability to achieve immune reconstitution prevented the development of opportunistic infections, but did not solve the remaining issues of the treatment of the MAC-infection. The main one is the treatment of patients with a clarithromycin-resistant pathogen. There is no consensus on the sensitivity of non-tuberculous mycobacteria to antibacterials.


Author(s):  
Corwin Smidt

This article examines the role of Catholics within the 2020 presidential election in the United States. Although Catholics were once a crucial and dependable component of the Democratic Party’s electoral coalition, their vote in more recent years has been much more splintered. Nevertheless, Catholics have been deemed to be an important “swing vote” in American politics today, as in recent presidential elections they have aligned with the national popular vote. This article therefore focuses on the part that Catholics played within the 2020 presidential election process. It addresses the level of political change and continuity within the ranks of Catholics over the past several elections, how they voted in the Democratic primaries during the initial stages of the 2020 presidential election, their level of support for different candidates over the course of the campaign, how they ultimately came to cast their ballots in the 2020 election, and the extent to which their voting patterns in 2020 differed from that of 2016.


2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-56
Author(s):  
Sai Polineni

President Obama's and President Xi Jinping's visits to Tanzania — and the associated jubliation and fanfare accompanying them — seem to validate much of what has been written in the past few years of the supposed competition between the United States and China for influence and resources in Africa, with many authors proclaiming that the U.S. was losing this competition. Aside from propagating the idea that Africa is some sort of homogenous collection of people, ideas, and cultures, many of these authors view the role of Africa as primarily an economic battleground in which the U.S and China must battle to determine control while ignoring the fact that the differing strengths and focuses of the American and Chinese economies do not lend themselves to any sort of outright competition in Africa. 


2018 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 102-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Petersen ◽  
Carsten-Andreas Schulz

AbstractThere is a growing scholarly consensus that Latin American regionalism has entered a new phase. For some observers, the increasing complexity of regional cooperation initiatives renders collective action ineffective. For others, the creation of new schemes signals a “posthegemonic” moment that has opened a space for collaboration on social issues. Both camps attribute this shift to the absence of the United States and the presence of left-leaning governments. By contrast, this study demonstrates that this agenda is not new, nor has the United States impeded similar initiatives in the past. In fact, the United States was instrumental in expanding regional cooperation on social issues in the early twentieth century. Instead, this article argues that agenda shifts are best explained by an evolving consensus about the role of the state. The “new agenda” is in line with historical attempts by governments to use regionalism to bolster their own domestic reforms.


Author(s):  
Joseph A. Bellanti

Background: Vaccine hesitancy has been defined as a delay in acceptance or refusal of vaccines, despite the availability ofvaccine services. In the past, despite an impressive record of vaccine effectiveness in the United States, several factors havecontributed to a decreased acceptance of vaccines that has resulted in outbreaks of infectious diseases, e.g., measles. More recently, vaccine hesitancy has spread to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines. There are many causes of vaccine hesitancy, such as misinformation, fallacies, and myths, that have contributed to vaccine hesitancy.Objective: The purpose of the present report is to address the many causes of vaccine hesitancy and to suggest ways that the allergist/immunologist can be involved in the promotion of vaccine acceptance.Methods: The current COVID-19 vaccines were reviewed, together with their mechanisms(s) of action and adverse reactions to them.Results: The many causes of vaccine hesitancy include many doubts and concerns related to COVID-19 vaccines as well asa diminished level of confidence and trust by segments of the public in the nation's leaders in government, medical, and business communities, that those groups once enjoyed.Conclusion: Vaccination with COVID-19 vaccines is the only way that COVID-19 will be eliminated or at least controlled today, and vaccine hesitancy is the potential nemesis. The present report describes how the allergist/immunologist not only plays a major role in the delivery of specialized therapy of COVID-19 but also in educating the public with regard to the importance of COVID-19 vaccines, in dispelling misinformation, and in promoting trust for vaccine acceptance but must be informed with the most accurate and current information to do so.


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