Erren Thomas C, Shaw David M, Wild Ursula, Groß J Valérie
Institute and Policlinic for Occupational Medicine, Environmental Medicine and Prevention Research, University Hospital of Cologne, Cologne, Germany.
Institute for Biomedical Ethics, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
J Occup Med Toxicol. 2017 Mar 16;12:8. doi: 10.1186/s12995-017-0154-9. eCollection 2017.
A thought experiment places Henry Ford and Thomas Alva Edison in a modern regulatory environment. In a utopian occupational world devoid of night-shifts or artificial light, Ford wants to experiment with "working through the night". To support Ford's project, Edison offers his patented electric lamps to "turn nights into days". An ethics committee [EC] does not approve the night-work experiment and Utopia's Food and Drug Administration [FDA] does not approve the potential medical device as safe for use by humans. According to the EC and FDA, complex effects on circadian biology and thus safety of work and light at night are not understood. The thought experiment conveys that we should pay more attention to possible risks of work and light at chronobiologically unusual times.
一个思想实验将亨利·福特和托马斯·阿尔瓦·爱迪生置于现代监管环境中。在一个没有夜班或人造光的乌托邦式职业世界里,福特想要试验“通宵工作”。为了支持福特的项目,爱迪生提供了他的专利电灯,以便“将夜晚变成白昼”。一个伦理委员会(EC)不批准这项夜间工作实验,乌托邦的食品药品监督管理局(FDA)也不批准这种潜在的医疗设备对人类使用来说是安全的。根据伦理委员会和食品药品监督管理局的说法,对昼夜节律生物学的复杂影响以及因此导致的夜间工作和光照的安全性尚不清楚。这个思想实验表明,我们应该更加关注在生物钟异常的时间进行工作和光照可能带来的风险。