1. Concern for individual autonomy and personal sovereignty can obscure what other issue?
2. Why should we expand our notion of bioethics to biopolitics?
3. What popular sentiment on human reproductive cloning did Planned Parenthood not adopt, "fortunately"?
4. As the field of Bioethics evolved, to what approach did it stake a claim?
5. Name two of the distinctive concerns of the "new biopolitics" marking its difference from mainstream bioethics.
6. What "strand in the identification of the undeserving poor" is enjoying a revival?
7. Who was the Social Darwinists' leading spokesperson, and what did conservatives oppose in his name?
8. To whom did German eugenicists say they owed a debt?
9. Who said "low intelligence is a stronger precursor of poverty than low socioeconomic background"?
10. What assumption, according to a cited philosopher, encourages people to treat differences as pathologies?
Discussion Questions:
- Why is disproportionately white and middle-class patronage of 23andMe a problem?
- Is it inherently and unexceptionally wrong to prescribe dosages based on the patient's race and ethnicity?
- Should the role of medical professionals in the Nuremberg (etc.) atrocities have surprised us?
- Can any form of public/government-sponsored eugenic screening or counseling ever be seriously and cautiously entertained in a free society? Can "university presidents, MDs, judges, scholars" et al ever again advocate respectably for any form of eugenics? (xxi)
- What do you imagine would be the negative consequences, should human reproductive cloning ever be left to "individual choice"?
- How would you respond to any of the "thorny ethical questions" arising from germline engineering, CRISPR, etc.? (3)
- Is our social obligation to ameliorate poverty altered in any way by considerations of poverty's source, particularly in the case of the children of poverty?
- Is the promise of epigenetics to account for the so-called achievement gap, and in support of various interventions in the lives of poor children, scientifically sound? Is there a danger that its misuse will actually set back the cause of effective social reform?
Why You Should Be Careful About 23andMe’s Health Test
Last month, the DNA-testing company 23andMe secured Food and Drug Administration approval for a new screening for gene-based health risks. Along with celiac disease, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, breast cancer and several other medical conditions, the company can now screen clients for two mutations that have been linked to colorectal cancer.
But “F.D.A.-approved” does not necessarily mean “clinically useful.” 23andMe relies on much simpler technology than tests that you’d get at your doctor’s office. As a result, the company’s tests cannot tell you much about your actual risk of developing the diseases in question.
Here’s how those tests work — and why you should interpret them with caution.
You can think of your genes as long text documents. The words are your genetic code. Genetic mutations are like typos — imperfections that scientists can spot with some scrutiny... (continues)
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When Is the Surgeon Too Old to Operate?A handful of hospitals have instituted mandatory screening procedures for medical professionals over 70. Many have been unenthusiastic about the idea.
In the fall of 2015, Dr. Herbert Dardik, chief of vascular surgery at Englewood Hospital and Medical Center in New Jersey, nodded off in the operating room.
Note that Dr. Dardik, then 80, was not performing the operation. He’d undergone a minor medical procedure himself a few days earlier, so he’d told his patient that another surgeon would handle her carotid endarterectomy, in which plaque is removed from the carotid artery to improve blood flow.
But when she begged Dr. Dardik at least to be present during the operation, he agreed to sit in. “I was really an accessory,” he recalled. “It was so boring, I kind of dozed off” — whereupon an alarmed nurse-anesthetist reported the incident to administrators.
Within days, the hospital’s chief of anesthesiology and chief medical officer were in Dr. Dardik’s office, praising his surgical skill while urging him to reduce his workload... (continues)
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Sackler Scion’s Email Reveals Push for High-Dose OxyContin, New Lawsuit Disclosures Claim
Purdue Pharma tried to maximize profits by marketing the drug to keep patients on higher doses for longer periods, a lawsuit charges.By BARRY MEIERMcKinsey Advised Purdue Pharma How to ‘Turbocharge’ Opioid Sales, Lawsuit Says
The disclosures about the consulting firm are part of the Massachusetts attorney general’s suit against the pharmaceutical giant, which is accused of misleading doctors and patients about the safety of the medication.
23andMe Is Terrifying, but Not for the Reasons the FDA ThinksThe genetic-testing company's real goal is to hoard your personal data
If there’s a gene for hubris, the 23andMe crew has certainly got it. Last Friday the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ordered the genetic-testing company immediately to stop selling its flagship product, its $99 “Personal Genome Service” kit. In response, the company cooed that its “relationship with the FDA is extremely important to us” and continued hawking its wares as if nothing had happened. Although the agency is right to sound a warning about 23andMe, it’s doing so for the wrong reasons.
Since late 2007, 23andMe has been known for offering cut-rate genetic testing. Spit in a vial, send it in, and the company will look at thousands of regions in your DNA that are known to vary from human to human—and which are responsible for some of our traits. For example a site in your genome named rs4481887 can come in three varieties. If you happen to have what is known as the GG variant, there is a good probability that you are unable to smell asparagus in your urine; those blessed with the GA or AG varieties are much more likely to be repulsed by their own pee after having a few spears at Spargelfest... (continues)
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Aug 16, 2018 - 23andMe claims to inform the customer about recessive genetic variants that may not affect their health but could affect the health of their children. ... The problem is that the customers think they are getting the same kind of precision genetic testing that they would get from a certified clinical laboratory...
Jul 27, 2018 - For more than a decade, 23andMe has been selling saliva-based DNA kits to consumers to give them a glimpse into their health and ancestry data. ... Researchers use genetic data to help them understand how diseases begin and which proteins and pathways diseases use to progress...
Jun 16, 2018 - 5 biggest risks of sharing your DNA with consumer genetic-testing companies. Genetics testing companies, like Veritas Genetics, Ancestry and 23andMe, are providing consumers with an unprecedented level of access to their personal genome. Privacy risks are not well understood by consumers.
Apr 23, 2018 - The company is offering free kits to researchers studying populations in Africa, Asia, and elsewhere—but the ethics are tricky.
Sep 13, 2018 - This is one of the new ethical questions arising in the age of precision health. Find out more about ethical dimensions of genetic testing, gene ...
This week the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a warning letter to the direct-to-consumer genetic testing company 23andMe, demanding that it ...
On December 9, 1946, an American military tribunal opened criminal proceedings against 23 leading German physicians and administrators for their willing participation in war crimes and crimes against humanity. In Nazi Germany, German physicians planned and enacted the Euthanasia Program, the systematic killing of those they deemed "unworthy of life." The victims included people with severe psychiatric, neurological, or physical disabilities. Further, during World War II, German physicians conducted pseudoscientific medical experiments utilizing thousands of concentration camp prisoners without their consent. Most died or were permanently injured as a result. Most of the victims were Jews, Poles, Russians, and also Roma (Gypsies). After almost 140 days of proceedings, including the testimony of 85 witnesses and the submission of almost 1,500 documents, the American judges pronounced their verdict on August 20, 1947. Sixteen of the doctors were found guilty. Seven were sentenced to death. They were executed on June 2, 1948...
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The Doctors Trial considered the fate of twenty-three German physicians who either participated in the Nazi program to euthanize persons deemed "unworthy of ...
Apr 22, 2017 - This year marks the 70th anniversary of the Nuremberg doctors' trial where 20 Naziphysicians were brought to account for heinous crimes ...
by GJ Annas - 2018 - Related articles
Nuremberg was a geographic center for Nazi rallies and gave its name to the Nazi racial laws.Nuremberg also was the site of post–World War II trials that ...What Is Late-Term Abortion? Drumpf Got It Wrong
In his State of the Union address, he used scary imagery that scientists say is incorrect.
President Drumpf on Tuesday evening asked Congress to ban a type of abortion often referred to as “late-term abortion.”
He said he wanted to protect “children who can feel pain in the mother’s womb.” He scorned New York’s recently passed Reproductive Health Act, saying that lawmakers had “cheered with delight upon the passage of legislation that would allow a baby to be ripped from the mother’s womb moments before birth.” It was an image he has used before, including in a campaign debate with Hillary Clinton.
There are inaccuracies and gray areas in Mr. Drumpf’s assertions. Here’s an explanation of the terms and the science.
What is late-term abortion and what does federal law allow?
Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion, said that abortion should be allowed until the time a fetus could survive outside the womb, a point (known as viability) that medical science generally considers to be at about 24 weeks of pregnancy. The Court has also specified that abortion should be legal after viability in certain cases — if continuing the pregnancy would seriously threaten the woman’s life or health...
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The Prescription Drugs That Rich People Buy
Though they tend to be healthier and fill fewer prescriptions over all, they’re likelier to purchase certain serious medications, an analysis finds.
There are many, many things that rich people buy in larger quantities. It turns out medications for certain serious diseases may be one of them.
A new analysis has found that, for some types of medications, income is a pretty strong predictor of how often someone is picking up a drug to treat an ailment.
The analysis, by GoodRx, a company that tracks prescription drug prices, looked at how often residents of different neighborhoods filled prescriptions for different categories of drugs.
Patients in wealthier neighborhoods were much more likely to pick up prescriptions for lifestyle problems: erectile dysfunction, baldness, anti-wrinkle Botox injections and an eye medicine that thickens eyelashes. This may be unsurprising.
But the analysis also showed that richer patients were more likely to buy drugs for certain serious conditions, including mental health disorders. This was the case even though the analysis showed that income doesn’t track with overall prescription use.
These prescriptions for serious conditions were filled disproportionately in rich neighborhoods despite evidence that the rich tend to be in overall better health. In fact, people in rich neighborhoods filled fewer prescriptions than people in middle-class neighborhoods. The blend of data suggests that, while prescriptions and income don’t track well over all, there are points where they do...
"When is a surgeon too old to operate" response:
ReplyDeleteI feel that it isn't appropriate to have a cut-off age or specific time a surgeon should be forced to retire. Everyone is different and ages differently. As long as the surgeon is demonstrating competency in the operating room, he should be allowed to continue. However, I believe there should be checks and balances. There should be intermittent observations, evaluations and health checks to ensure patients are protected. Physicals and eye exams should be expected when we are young, but even more so as we are getting towards retirement age.
I agree, age is a factor we should take into consideration when assessing risk, but not as an overall deciding factor of worth to society.
DeleteCaveat emptor, right? But we do still need to be concerned about the children whose care is entrusted to their parents' long-standing and sentimentally-preferred physicians. It's not inappropriate for the medical community to regulate itself to the extent even of issuing public health advisories and warnings as to the statistical probability that the services of any given doc of years might be less than optimal, is it? But does the profession regulate itself in this way? Will it?
DeletePeculiar correlation:
ReplyDeleteI know that some things correlate, but sometimes I feel like our time and resources should be spent on searching on cures for cancer or finding a better way to get organ donors. However, this article is saying that the “gait” of a person’s walk might be indicative of depression later on in life. Could this information be useful? How would we study this? Is this feasible?
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/02/190206091415.htm
I think that although not all observations directly lead to relevant discovery, continued vigilance in research into the connections between things is how innovation begins. But it's important to remember that we are dealing with human beings, not a walking set of variables. But maybe seeing a human for the variables they contribute and sloughing off all the historical and political insinuations is the only way to prevent bias
DeleteThis is the age of correlation, marketing algorithms designed to sell stuff under the guise of extrapolating from your consumer behavior ("if you like Z, you mifht like X"). It really is dehumanizing, and thereally unsettling thing is that it works. So I hope we'll resist profiling of all kinds in health care, without entirely disregarding potentially useful data. It's a challenge. On this general topic, I recommend Michael Lynch's book "The Internet of Us".
DeleteAlternative Quiz Question:
ReplyDelete1.What study was published by "Science" in early 2013 and what percent of it actually pertained to the three genetic variants associated with educational attainment? (xxi)
2.What was the "Happy Workers:Creation of a Free Market Empire" scenario?(1)
3.What notion does Carl Elliot describe in"The Ethicists"?(6)
4.What commitment pulled Eugenicists away from environmental and Neo-Lamarkian theories?(25)
5.What article by Arthur R. Jensen led the revival of hereditarianism?(26).
Alt quiz questions:
ReplyDelete1. In the eyes of Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray "low intelligence is a stronger precursor of poverty than _____________" (p. 27)
DQ question: cloning and individual choice.
ReplyDeleteI think there are a number of dystopian fantasies you could have about cloning. My first thought goes to identity theft. What if instead of simply stealing your government identity (SS card), economic identity (CC card/bank accounts), social media identity, your personal identity could be stolen to the extreme extent of someone making a clone of you.
Say you donate (which would be your individual choice) your DNA to a company advancing a cloning agenda, and it gets stolen! If government regulation of cloning wasn’t strict enough, I could see a lot of possibilities.
Alt quiz questions
ReplyDelete1)What law in India was exploited to determine the sex of a fetus instead of detect birth defects? (xviii)
2)The Nuremberg Trials, the Tuskegee syphilis experiments and other scandals gave rise to what scholarly field and figure? (5)
3)In contrast to bioethics, what is biopolitics' focus? (8)
4)Which historical figure is quoted "... If the misery of our poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin..." (21)
Alt quiz Q’s
ReplyDelete1. Our text, Beyond Bioethics, is a collection of prior publications. What is the main focus of this heterogenous collection? Pg 11
2. IVF was created clearly within what kind of framework? Pg 19
3. The ancient “biblical” view of poverty was...? Pg 21
4. Hereditarian beliefs fed widespread fears of what? Pg 23
5. Which state passed the first sterilization law? Pg 24
6. Which Supreme Court case upheld the constitutionality of sterilization laws? Pg24
7. Epigebetics is the study of what? Pg28
8. Describe principalism. Pg 5