• The Italian Dementia National Plan Commentaries

    Di Fiandra, Teresa; Canevelli, Marco; Di Pucchio, Alessandra; Vanacore, Nicola

    Resumo em Inglês:

    The Italian Dementia National Plan was formulated in October 2014 by the Italian Ministry of Health in close cooperation with the regions, the National Institute of Health and the three major national associations of patients and carers. The main purpose of this strategy was to provide directive indications for promoting and improving interventions in the dementia field, not limiting to specialist and therapeutic actions, but particularly focusing on the support of patients and families throughout the pathways of care. Four main objectives are indicated: 1) promote health- and social-care interventions and policies; 2) create/strengthen the integrated network of services for dementia based on an integrated approach; 3) implement strategies for promoting appropriateness and quality of care; and 4) improve the quality of life of persons with dementia and their families by supporting empowerment and stigma reduction. These objectives and the pertaining actions are described in the present paper.
  • Medicine saved ethics: Has ethics harmed medicine? Commentaries

    Petrini, Carlo; Alleva, Enrico

    Resumo em Inglês:

    In an article in The Boston Globe, Steven Pinker holds that the primary moral good of bioethics should be to "get out of the way". The accusation that bioethics is an obstacle to research because it calls attention to basic principles such as personal dignity and justice is clearly contradicted by the facts. There are, nonetheless, other ways in which bioethics can stand in the way of science, two of which, bureaucratisation and the loss of cultural vivacity, are worth addressing. Ethics committees provide a framework for evaluating problems and determining an appropriate course of action.
  • EU guidelines for the care and welfare of an "exceptional invertebrate class" in scientific research Commentaries

    Berry, Alessandra; Vitale, Augusto; Carere, Claudio; Alleva, Enrico

    Resumo em Inglês:

    Cephalopods have been defined as "advanced invertebrates" due to the complexity of their nervous system and to their sophisticated behavioural repertoire. However, until recently, the protection and welfare of this class of invertebrates has been mostly disregarded by EU regulations on the use of laboratory animals. The inclusion of "live cephalopods" in the Directive 2010/63/EU has been prompted by new scientific knowledge on the "sentience" of animals used for experimental or other scientific purposes, a fundamental criterion to which animal species are included or not under the protective umbrella of the Directive. In this scenario, the imminent publication of the Guidelines for the care and welfare of cephalopods in research as an initiative by the CephRes-FELASA-Boyd Group is a sign of ethical progress in the consideration of animals in research, and is likely to have a significant impact on both scientific and practical aspects of research conducted with these animals.
Istituto Superiore di Sanità Roma - Rome - Italy
E-mail: annali@iss.it