COVID-19 and Religious Ethics.

The editors of the JRE solicited short essays on the COVID-19 pandemic from a group of scholars of religious ethics that reflected on how the field might help them make sense of the complex religious, cultural, ethical, and political implications of the pandemic, and on how the pandemic might shape the future of religious ethics.

ST Segment Elevation Myocardial Infarction Following a Crotalus horridus Envenomation.

Cardiac ischemia or myocardial infarction after pit viper envenomation is rare. Few case reports have been published, none describing cases reported after crotaline snake envenomation in the United States. We report a case of ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) occurring in a 73-year-old man after an envenomation by a juvenile canebrake rattlesnake (Crotalus horridus). The man was bitten on the left index finger and subsequently developed localized edema followed by hypotension, chest pain, and altered mental status. His initial electrocardiogram revealed ST-segment elevation in the inferior and lateral leads. His hospital course included emergent left heart catheterization with thrombectomy and cardiac stent placement. This case captures the unique medical situation involving the approach to treatment and management of a patient with a severe crotaline envenomation complicated by a STEMI.

Renal denervation in a patient with Alport syndrome and rejected renal allograft.

Renal denervation is a new intervention to treat resistant hypertension. By applying radiofrequency (RF) to renal arteries, sympathetic nerves in adventitia layer of vascular wall can be denervated. Sympathetic hyperactivity is an important contributory factor in hypertension of hemodialysis patients. Hyperactive sympathetic nervous system aggravates hypertension and it can cause complications like left ventricular hypertrophy, heart failure, arrhythmias and atherogenesis. Our report illustrates the use of renal denervation using conventional RF catheter for uncontrolled hypertension in a patient with Alport syndrome and rejected renal allograft. Progressive and sustained reduction of blood pressure was obtained post-procedure and at 24 months follow-up with antihypertensives decreased from 6 to 2 per day, thereby demonstrating the safety, feasibility, and efficacy of the procedure. There are some reports available on the usefulness of this technique in hemodialysis patients; however, there are no studies of renal denervation in patients with Alport syndrome and failed allograft situation.

How International Monetary Fund and World Bank policies undermine labor power and rights.

Based on reviews of hundreds of loan and project documents from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, this article provides detailed evidentiary support for critics who have long claimed that the international financial institutions require Third World countries to adopt policies that harm the interests of working people. After reviewing loan documents between the IMF and World Bank and 26 countries, the authors show that the institutions' loan conditionalities include a variety of provisions that undermine labor rights, labor power, and tens of millions of workers' standard of living. These include downsizing of the civil service and privatization of government-owned enterprises; promotion of labor flexibility: the notion that firms should be able to hire and fire workers, or change terms and conditions of work, with minimal regulatory restrictions; mandated wage rate reductions, minimum-wage reductions or containment, and spreading the wage gap between government employees and managers; and pension reforms, including privatization, that cut social security benefits. These labor-related policies take place in the context of broader IMF and World Bank structural adjustment packages that emphasize trade liberalization, with macroeconomic policies that further advance corporate interests at the expense of labor.