SummaryCoronary heart disease (CHD) is the leading cause of death in Western civilizations, in particular in chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients. Serum total cholesterol and LDL have been linked to the development of atherosclerosis and progression to CHD in the general population. However, the reductions of total and LDL cholesterol in the dialysis population have not demonstrated the ability to reduce the morbidity, mortality, and cost burden associated with CHD. The patients at greatest risk include those with pre-existing CHD, a CHD-risk equivalent, or multiple risk factors. However, data in the dialysis population are much less impressive, and the relationship between plasma cholesterol, cholesterol reduction, use of 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-CoA (HMG-CoA) reductase, and reduction in incidence of CHD or effect on progression of renal disease have not been proven. Adverse event information from published trials indicates that agents within this class share similar tolerability and adverse event profiles. Hepatic transaminase elevations may occur in 1 to 2% of patients and is dose related. Myalgia, myopathy, and rhabodmyolysis occur infrequently and are more common in kidney transplant patients and patients with CKD. This effect appears to be dose related and may be precipitated by administration with agents that inhibit cytochrome P-450 isoenzymes. Caution should be exercised when coadministering any statin with drugs that metabolize through cytochrome P-450 IIIA-4 in particular fibrates, cyclosporine, and azole antifungals. Elderly patients with CKD are at greater risk of adverse drug reactions, and therefore the lowest possible dose of statins should be used for the treatment of hyperlipidemia.
The episode “Nosedive” from the Netflix series Black Mirror (dir. Joe Wright, Netflix, UK, 2016) provides a dystopian version of a popular narrative about digital culture, according to which the ascent of social media marks the “feminization of the Internet,” its transformation from an open wilderness of hackers to a domesticated web of social performance and consumerism. This essay draws forward an argument implicit in “Nosedive”: social media use is a specific form of labor that Marxist feminists have taught us to call reproductive, the un- or underpaid labor sustaining domestic and social life (and thus also the global economy), which is compelled through normative idealizations that erase its status as labor. Reading the episode and the contemporary social media economy in dialogue with the Marxist feminist Wages for Housework movement, the essay argues that individual social media users’ unpaid digital labor—creating, sharing, and responding to content—sustains the platforms that extract their data as “surplus value.” It further draws on sociologist Erving Goffman’s account of “face-work” in order to clarify the way in which a person’s digital identity is produced in collaboration with others through ceaseless labors of interactive self-maintenance. This analysis foregrounds the limitations of Black Mirror’s political vision and reveals the political and theoretical resources provided by a materialist feminist critique of the tech economy.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.