JOSHA – Table of Contents Volume 2 Issue 5

We heartily welcome our readers to the new Issue 5 of Volume 2 in which we present the first part of the talks from the Bioethics Symposium “Science, Ethics and Society” which took place on 14th of August in Freiburg. Our special Issue guest is Florencia Luna, a bioethicist and researcher at CONICET (National Research Council Argentina) and FLACSO (Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences), Argentina, who addresses the topic of assisted reproductive technologies and points out some particular challenges of the technology in her talk “To say or not to say?”. A further special contribution to the Symposium and this Issue is the talk “Ethics in Epidemics and Disasters: Rights and Obligations of Healthcare Workers” by Andreas Reis from the World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland. In his presentation, he raises many important ethical issues related to the responsibilities of health care workers in epidemics and disasters, a discussion that gained in importance in the light of the recent Ebola outbreak. Ignacio Mastroleo, Facultad de Filosofia, Universidad de Buenos Aires, addresses an important aspect of clinical research, the post-trial obligations, in his Spanish language contribution. This topic that will continue to be of importance for many aspects of academic medicine. JOSHA continues to provide a broad range of important and timely topics. Thus our special topic of bioethics is complemented by two fascinating articles, one in the field of epigenetics, and more specifically by an article on epigenetic mechanisms of embryonic induction as well as social imprinting by Horst Kress, Free University of Berlin, Germany, and in the field of law: “Minimum Labour Standards in a Globalized Economy” by Manfred Weiss,University of Frankfurt, Germany, a topic of special interest in the context of the current refugee situation in Europe. The JOSHA editors wish you an exciting and enjoyable reading experience. Felicitas Holzer for the JOSHA Team