Ford and Edison in a modern regulatory environment: the first-in-human trial of night-work and artificial light.
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.
Institute and Policlinic for Occupational Medicine, Environmental Medicine and Prevention Research, University Hospital of Cologne, Cologne, Germany.
Thomas C
TC
Erren
Institute for Biomedical Ethics, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.|Department of Health, Ethics and Society, CAPHRI Research Institute, Maastricht University, Maastricht, the Netherlands.
David M
DM
Shaw
Institute and Policlinic for Occupational Medicine, Environmental Medicine and Prevention Research, University Hospital of Cologne, Cologne, Germany.
Ursula
U
Wild
Institute and Policlinic for Occupational Medicine, Environmental Medicine and Prevention Research, University Hospital of Cologne, Cologne, Germany.
J Valérie
JV
Groß
Chronobiology, Chronodisruption; Edison; Ford; Light; Night work; Public health; Shift work; Thought experiment