The impact of genetic enhancement on equality

There apparently is a genuine possibility that genetic and non-genetic mechanisms eventually will be able to significantly enhance human capabilities and traits generally. Examining this prospect from the standpoint of equality considerations is one useful way to inquire into the effects of such enhancement technologies. Because of the nature and limitations of competing ideas of equality, we are inevitably led to investigate a very broad range of issues. This Article considers matters of distribution and withholding of scarce enhancement resources and links different versions of equality to different modes of distribution. It briefly addresses the difficulties of defining "enhancement" and "trait" and links the idea of a "merit attribute" to that of a "resource attractor." The role of disorder-based justifications is related to equality considerations, as is the possibility of the reduction or "objectification" of persons arising from the use of enhancement resources. Risks of intensified and more entrenched forms of social stratification are outlined. The Article also considers whether the notion of merit can survive, and whether the stability of democratic institutions based on a one-person, one-vote standard is threatened by attitude shifts given the new technological prospects. It refers to John Stuart Mill's "plural voting" proposal to illustrate one challenge to equal-vote democracy.     

Does the amount of participation matter? Public comments,agency responses and the time to finalize a regulation

The notice and comment rulemaking process is a fundamental part of how agencies write regulations. While this process is starting to receive more empirical attention, the question of how the number of comments that an agency receives affects its decision-making process has received little examination. This paper uses Boolean analysis to examine nine rules from two agencies at the Department of Health and Human Services and evaluates the impact of a high volume of comments on agency changes to proposed rules and the time an agency takes to finalize a proposed rule. These nine cases suggest that agencies are most likely to change their proposals when they receive a high volume of comments on highly complex rules that are not very politically salient. Highly complex rules are also likely to take a long time to finalize when there are many public comments however it is often other factors that cause a long delay between proposed and final rules.

The diagnosis of diffuse axonal injury in routine autopsy practice

A 40-year-old pedestrian was involved in a road traffic accident. He lost consciousness immediately and remained comatose for 6 months until he died of a bronchopneumonia. Examination of the fixed brain revealed the late results of diffuse axonal injury. Not all the features were readily visible macroscopically, but required a limited number of histological sections from readily predictable sites for demonstration. Special stains played only a confirmatory role. This case illustrates some of the problems in diagnosing one of the commoner patterns of brain damage in head injury, and shows how the problem may best be approached in practice.