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A M Moulin

Publications and source records attributed to A M Moulin.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2001

[Living donors for transplantation and bioethics laws. Survey with French transplantation professionals].

OBJECTIVES: Renewed interest in living donor transplantation in France led us to survey French transplanters to determine their opinion concerning this technique and the ethical issues involved. Their concerns and suggestions about current legislation were examined. METHODS: An anonymous questionnaire was sent to physicians working in the different kidney, liver and lung transplantation units operating in France. RESULTS: French transplanters expressed a wide range of opinions concerning living donor transplantation and possible broadening of the current regulations. Sixty-two percent of the transplanters had a positive opinion on living donor transplantation compared with 22% who expressed a negative opinion. For 23% of the transplanters, it is preferable to transplant with a living donor graft compared with 64% who preferred cadaveric grafts. A living donor transplantation program is under study in 65% of the units. There is some debate concerning the legitimate nature of the emergency donation situation for spouses. About one-half of the transplanters were in favor of controlled extension of potential donors to second degree relatives and to the recipient's spouse or living partner. CONCLUSION: There is no real consensus among French transplanters concerning living donor transplantation due to the complexity of the ethical issues involved. Their opinions reflect medical tradition with background marked by autonomy and paternalism. This leads to a wide range of opinions concerning current bioethics legislation and the usefulness of more flexible laws.

Bioethics↗
PubMed2001

Evaluation, selection, and follow-up of live kidney donors: a review of current practice in French renal transplant centres.

BACKGROUND: A resurgence of interest in the concept of live-donor renal transplantation has prompted a closer look at methods of live donor evaluation, selection, and follow-up. The aim of this study was to describe these methods in all 46 French renal transplant centres. METHODS: Questionnaires were sent to all chief renal physicians. RESULTS: The survey was completed by 78% of centres, which accounted for 95% of all live-donor renal transplants carried out in France in 1995 and 1996. There was a substantial variation in all three steps of live-donor management. For example, we observed variations in the screening for specific short- or long-term risk factors (especially cardiovascular or thrombotic risk factors and diabetes). In addition the exclusion criteria differed, especially the cut-off age for donation, which ranged from 45 to 75 years. The composition of teams evaluating and selecting potential donors and the role of the potential donors in the decision-making process varied greatly among centres. Finally, we observed less variation in the methods of donor follow-up. CONCLUSIONS: The current survey revealed a marked disparity in the management of live donors in France. It raises the question of whether these practices should be codified into a set of guidelines for live-donor transplantation.

Adult↗
PubMed2001

[Vaccines outside of Europe. Light and shadow of a victory].

In the beginning of the 19th century, vaccination against smallpox spread rapidly in Europe and out of Europe. Although most statesmen eagerly adopted the vaccine, populations displayed mixed attitudes, ranging from mild enthusiasm to resistance. The article illustrates the social response with examples drawn from Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt and Brazil. This analysis puts in sharp focus the crucial importance of a factor for the managers of public health: the adhesion of populations.

Africa, Northern↗
PubMed1997

[French expatriates in the tropics. One hundred years of health history].

It is difficult to synthesize, for the 20th century, the evolution of mortality among travellers, since they make up a heterogenous and elusive category. Data for soldiers sent abroad are the most easily available and suggest two rates in the decline of mortality: one before and one after the Pasteurian revolution. There is no direct link between demographic curves and optimistic or pessimistic biological theories which have alternatively sought to interpret the phenomenon of being "transplanted" in the tropics. Today, the debate remains open as to the respective roles of genetic, behavioural, and ecological factors in the adaptation of the individual and the group. Although traumatology comes first among risks associated with voyaging, infectious disease still occupies an important place in how travel is perceived, perhaps because it symbolizes coming into contact with "strangers".

Colonialism↗
PubMed1996

[A scientific object interlinking the biological and social sciences: the immune system].

Immunology gained legitimacy when it became the science of the immune system, a definition that announced the existence of a previously unknown body function. The very concept of immune system goes beyond the biological, offering opportunities for a renewed dialogue between biological science and the human sciences. This paper discusses the manifold viewpoints regarding the immune system.

Biology↗
PubMed1996

[Current aspects of infectious diseases in industrialized countries: development or history?].

Man's conception of nature is a historically dated phenomenon. Thus the recent development of infectious diseases in industrialized countries could either be a real phenomenon or simply an artifact related to our current conception of medical progress and research. Is the return of infectious disease a natural process or has modern civilization been less prudent than its predecessors? What are the characteristic features of modern pathogenesis? Are these "changes" the result of some natural dynamics or an evolution in our means of investigation? Modern civilization has not invented technological deviation or diseases of civilization, phenomena well know in the past, but what is new is the fact that science today, with an ever growing amount of information on molecular epidemiology, is still raising questions about infection, recognized new unsuspected forms of the living world which do not fit into our well-knitted outline of infectious agents. We have applied our simplistic and mechanistic schemas designed for the timespan of human life to the evolutionary processes. The effects of evolution and history are thus combined today in a novel way composing a new future for infectious diseases. This new way of looking at infectious diseases is not totally natural nor totally historical. It is perhaps an epistemological revolution going on within epidemiology. The return of infections disease would appear to have a direct effect on magnifying the knowledge and the delinquency of our culture.

Communicable Diseases↗
PubMed1995

[Historical development of vaccines. Introduction: Hazards and rationality in the vaccinal approach].

The aim of this paper is to introduce the one hundred years of vaccination that has passed since Louis Pasteur first coined this generic term. According to the late Jonas Salk, vaccinology is a science encompassing all aspects of vaccine from its conception in the laboratory to its production by companies and its application and distribution in the field. In this historical survey I explore how vaccination never consisted of a simple and uniform application of a rational model, but rather diverged along various pathways, several of which were discarded in retrospect as being hazardous, and I analyse the ongoing interplay between rational and inventive thinking.

AIDS Vaccines↗
PubMed1992

[The vaccine metaphor. From inoculation to vaccination].

The episodes of cowpox inoculation (1798) and rabies preventive treatment (1885) are celebrated as the landmark of modern medicine. Paradoxically, these two advances have been accomplished without any theoretical breakthrough in the understanding of immunity. Going further, they were made possible by a long past of empirical procedures among which smallpox inoculation played an outstanding role. The paper explores the paradox of 'Immunization without Immunology' and Pasteur's reconstruction of the past, through his successful use of a metaphor. 'Vaccine', originally linked to the jennerian method, was meant by Pasteur to designate a general program of virus attenuation. The paper investigates the scientific factors accounting for why viruses played such a leading role in immunization. The longlasting immunity, the easy transmission from man to man characteristic of smallpox allowing in vivo experimentation, may explain how crude procedures of early immunizers shaped scientific ideologies and strategies of public health and family initiated modern 'vaccinology'.

History, 18th Century↗
PubMed1989

The immune system: a key concept for the history of immunology.

The definition of immunology as the science of the immune system that emerged in the 1960s provides a sound basis for both reconstructing its past and constructing its future. The choice of this point in time of course involves important consequences, on the one hand, sociological and institutional, epistemological and conceptual on the other. I will attempt to demonstrate that this perspective allows us to assess the history of immunology in an innovative way while elucidating in the process some of its theoretical paradoxes.

Allergy and Immunology↗
PubMed1985

[Not Available].

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History, Modern 1601-↗