539:
The Leap
Transcript
ORIGINALLY AIRED 11.07.2014
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Clearly, we needed to talk to some seniors. And so, like Al Pacino in a geriatric version of cruising, we set out at night, to a park, looking for old people.
Jonathan Goldstein
Oh, we've got these guys, here.
Sean Cole
Oh, which guys?
Jonathan Goldstein
These guys, right here.
Sean Cole
We found this Mutt and Jeff type pair of elderly guys sitting on a bench.
Jonathan Goldstein
We make them answer for their elderly brethren and sisteren. Is it true what the survey says? Are they not interested in time travel?
Elderly Man 1
No. I've divested myself from all fantasy.
Elderly Man 2
The only thing I believe up there is the UFOs.
Sean Cole
Seems consistent with the research. Sort of.
Elderly Man 1
Why would I believe in a fantasy like that? Why are you even interviewing me and putting that supposition to me? It's a waste of your time. It's a waste of valuable time--
Sean Cole
Because it's--
Elderly Man 1
--on the radio. This is all fantasy. Why are you even bringing that question?
Sean Cole
Did you always feel that way, or--
Elderly Man 1
The world is coming to and end. Why are you wasting my time?
Sean Cole
I mean, but don't you like to indulge in--
Jonathan Goldstein
But after a mere 8 and 1/2 minutes of cross examination, it turned out these two were just as ready to climb into a time machine as a person half their age.
Jonathan Goldstein
You don't just want to go back in time to like--
Elderly Man 1
What reason would-- the only way would--
Elderly Man 2
I would like it.
Elderly Man 1
The only reason I would want to go back in time is to be young, so I could have orgasm. Have you ever heard of the PTO movement?
Sean Cole
No.
Elderly Man 1
The Peace Through Orgasm movement.
Sean Cole
I have not heard of that.
Elderly Man 1
Well, now you've heard of it.
Jonathan Goldstein
So wait, you were saying that you would like to go back?
Elderly Man 2
Oh, sure I would. I would like to go into the future. Now let's talk about the UFOs. This is documented in the library. In 1947--
Jonathan Goldstein
But going back to time travel though, do you ever dream about going back in time? Do you wish you could?
Elderly Man 2
I don't dream it, but I would like to. Maybe see the dinosaurs.
Jonathan Goldstein
You want to see the dinosaurs, why?
Elderly Man 2
It'd be nice. Well, just to see how they are. I'd have to be equipped with some sort of a laser something. You never know.
Jonathan Goldstein
It was beginning to seem as though when you scratched the surface, even those opposed to time travel might soften their position and find some reason to go back. Perhaps this is the limitation of a cold, by-the-numbers survey. Scratching surfaces is exactly what Pew cannot do.
Jonathan Goldstein
Thank you very much. It's good to meet you.
Elderly Man 2
You believe in UFOs, don't you?
Jonathan Goldstein
I think I do, yeah.
Elderly Man 2
Good.
Elderly Man 1
And that's another form of insanity. You're a rube.
Sean Cole
So we went looking for senior citizens who truly have zero interest in time travel, like the Pew study found, so we could ask them why. Which is how we ended up at a senior center in Brooklyn.
Jonathan Goldstein
There was maybe a couple dozen people sitting around in the cafeteria after breakfast, watching Let's Make a Deal on a big-screen TV. The director of the Center turned the sound down and told Sean to introduce himself.
Sean Cole
Hi, sorry to bother you guys. My name's Sean Cole, and I'm a radio producer--
Jonathan Goldstein
Not so much the radio professional when you're being stared at by a room full of silent seniors who hate you for getting their game show muted.
Sean Cole
Meanwhile, Johnny just stood there, helping not at all.
Jonathan Goldstein
And because you weren't making any sense at all, the director, Rosemary Bland, had to step in.
Rosemary Bland
OK. So he's just going to be talking to you all about time travel, whether you enjoy time travel, or whether you do time travel, or whether you don't do time travel. OK?
Elderly Woman 1
OK.
Elderly Woman 2
OK.
Sean Cole
Of course, those were not our questions, nor anything like them.
Jonathan Goldstein
Nevertheless, we made our way from table to table.
Elderly Woman 3
Well, I'm not interested in time travel.
Elderly Woman 4
No, I'm not interested in that. I think going backwards is not helping us.
Elderly Man 3
When I was younger, but not now.
Elderly Woman 5
If it's going to cost them money, that's another no-no. [LAUGHS] You've gotta remember, you've got retirees. You know? [LAUGHS]
Elderly Woman 6
People that have Alzheimer's, they go back in time.
Sean Cole
People that have Alzheimer's?
Elderly Woman 6
Yeah. They go back in time. We don't have that yet.
Elderly Woman 7
Going up there to the moon, you know, exploring. They're probably already up there with time travel.
Jonathan Goldstein
Fun fact-- when talking with seniors about time travel, they sometimes throw the question into a big, science-fiction food processor with space travel. But the Pew finding did bear out. Most people at the senior center were pretty dismissive of the idea, some more emphatically than others.
Wallace Nottage
Hell, no. [LAUGHS]
Jonathan Goldstein
Why not?
Wallace Nottage
Why?
Sean Cole
This is Wallace Nottage, a stately 86-year-old-- it was his birthday actually-- with a cane, and he was wearing a colorful fez on his head. We were called over to talk to him by two women who said, he'd probably have a lot to say to you. And he did. We sat with him for about 20 minutes, until finally, he gave us what felt like the most plausible reason why old people wouldn't want to go back in time.
Wallace Nottage
It's not so much that you're at peace with the way things are. It's that you've come to the realization that ain't much going to change.
Jonathan Goldstein
Maybe the thing that much older people understand isn't that time travel is frivolous. It's that it's pointless. When you have half a century of past behind you or more, and you look at those decades in one swath, you realize that even if you fix one thing, something else will go wrong.
Henrietta Lacks and HeLa Cells
ReplyDeleteI apologize for putting my blog on your post,but I am not an author on here....
Over this whole semester, we have learned about so many people and their contributions to bioethics. However, in my personal opinion, we have not talked about one of the most important people. She is not only important in her contributions to medicine, but how her contribute came about is one of the biggest medical ethics issue ever. Her story covers one of the most controversial issues with patients which is privacy and consent. I will be doing my final report on a woman named Henrietta Lacks in order to educate the class, and spread her story.
Henrietta Lacks, born Loretta Pleasant, was an African American woman born in 1920 from Virginia. She had nine brothers and sisters whom were distributed to relatives of the father, John Pleasant, after the death of her mother, Eliza Pleasant. She grew up in Clover, Virginia in a little log cabin, once slave quarters, owned by her grandfather Tommy Lacks. Over the course of her life she had 5 children with her husband and first cousin David “Day” Lacks. One of her children named Elsie died in a hospital for the “Negro Insane” in 1955. During her marriage to Day Lacks, she had been experiencing a lot of physical pain from raising 5 children, to working long hours. She thought hard work was the cause of her pain, and even blamed some of it for a possible transaction of syphilis from her husband. However, many future visits to Johns Hopkins Hospital would prove that was not the case.
On January 29th, 1951 Lacks went to the hospital complaining of a “knot” in her side. She would later find out that she had a malignant epidermoid carcinoma of the cervix. She underwent radiation treatments and testing after her diagnosis. During her stay her primary doctor took two samples of her cervix without her permission. These cells were given to a doctor named George Otto Grey who would create the famous cell line known as HeLa Cells. Unaware of the ethical dilemma that she was a part of she continued treatment at Johns Hopkins until her death on October 4th, 1951. She died at the age of 31.
HeLa cells are one of the most commonly used cells in biomedical research with a power to be kept alive and grown in the right environment. They have helped with many medical breakthroughs and have knocked down barriers in biomedicine. However, with every good thing that the HeLa cells have done, are they to this day unethical because of the way they came about? Should we ignore the fact that an African American woman, whom nobody knows, made one of the biggest contributions to medicine without her consent? Should we forgive the doctors at Johns Hopkins who allowed a breach of privacy of a patient? I am doing this report in order for you to decide.