Beyond 9-12; Premonition 11/epilogue. PRESENTATIONS: 1. Julianna, “Ethical Care of Underserved Patients"; 2. Pierce, HIV pandemic
Premonition
1. What was the CDC's greatest trick?
2. Who makes the hard decisions in public health?
3. What's so embarrassing to Carter about the US pandemic response?
4. From the point of view of American culture, what's the trouble with disease prevention?
DQs
DQs
- Why doesn't the US have the institutions it needs to save itself? 279
- What should be done about the CDC?
- If you were the chief public health officer for the US, what would be your top priorities?
1. Some researchers see sex selection leading to what?
2. What does Catherine Myser mean by "whiteness"?
3. Decentering whiteness would enable bioethics to do what?
4. What obvious bioethical significance in Freddie Gray's death was generally ignored by the bioethical community?
5. Who "invented" Bob Dole?
DQs
Five Things I Wish I’d Known Before My Chronic IllnessBy Tessa Miller
Finding out you have a chronic illness — one that will, by definition, never go away — changes things, both for you and those you love.
Seven Thanksgivings ago, I got sick and I never got better.
What I thought was food poisoning turned out to be Crohn’s disease, a form of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) that doesn’t have a cure. It fools my immune system into attacking my digestive system, resulting in what I can only describe as the attempted birth of my intestines through my butthole. It’s a cruel and often debilitating disease.
Since that first hospital stay, I’ve had colonoscopies, biopsies, CT scans, X-rays, blood and stool tests, enemas, suppositories, rectal foams, antiemetics, antidiarrheals, antivirals, antibiotics, anti-inflammatories, opiates, steroids, immunoglobulin, biologics and three fecal transplants (if you want to hear a story about my 9-year-old poop donor and a blender, find me on Twitter).
My disease is managed now thanks to an expensive drug called infliximab, but the future is unpredictable. IBD works in patterns of flares and remissions, and little is known about what causes either.
When I was diagnosed, I didn’t know how much my life would change. There’s no conversation about that foggy space between the common cold and terminal cancer, where illness won’t go away but won’t kill you, so none of us know what “chronic illness” means until we’re thrown into being sick forever...
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A Better Path to Universal Health Care
2. What does Catherine Myser mean by "whiteness"?
3. Decentering whiteness would enable bioethics to do what?
4. What obvious bioethical significance in Freddie Gray's death was generally ignored by the bioethical community?
5. Who "invented" Bob Dole?
DQs
- Has disability rights become an effective movement? Will its stature rise in the future?
- What "animal farm bioethics" issues concern you?
- Who should decide the meaning of "cosmetic"?
- Is disease a social construct?
- What's your initial response to any of Myser's questions of origin & knowledge? 118
- What do you think of James Baldwin's statement about whiteness? 121
- Is "decentering whiteness" liable to make white people, especially politicians, uncomfortable?
- Did the Obama presidency do anything to dismantle the historical legacy of equating American-ness with whiteness? Will the Drumpf presidency unintentionally have that impact, eventually?
- Is there something inherently wrong, unseemly, or troubling about bioethicists who are also entrepreneurs?
- Are bioethicists overly fixated on technology? 130
- Is there something inherently troubling about bioethicists like Glenn McGee starting their own businesses? 132
- Did Arthur Caplan do the right thing with his Celera stock options? 133
- Should financial incentives for participation in clinical trials be regulated, reduced, or eliminated?
- Do you think the Nashvillian who participated in Eli Lilly's drug tests was typical? 135
- Is it unwise to prognosticate, particularly with respect to future developments in biotechnology? Was Glenn McGee just a little ahead of the curve in his forecast? 140
- Are IRBs effective? How might they be improved? 143
- Is our culture's seeming obsession with ED symptomatic of more deeply rooted issues?
Five Things I Wish I’d Known Before My Chronic IllnessBy Tessa Miller
Finding out you have a chronic illness — one that will, by definition, never go away — changes things, both for you and those you love.
Seven Thanksgivings ago, I got sick and I never got better.
What I thought was food poisoning turned out to be Crohn’s disease, a form of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) that doesn’t have a cure. It fools my immune system into attacking my digestive system, resulting in what I can only describe as the attempted birth of my intestines through my butthole. It’s a cruel and often debilitating disease.
Since that first hospital stay, I’ve had colonoscopies, biopsies, CT scans, X-rays, blood and stool tests, enemas, suppositories, rectal foams, antiemetics, antidiarrheals, antivirals, antibiotics, anti-inflammatories, opiates, steroids, immunoglobulin, biologics and three fecal transplants (if you want to hear a story about my 9-year-old poop donor and a blender, find me on Twitter).
My disease is managed now thanks to an expensive drug called infliximab, but the future is unpredictable. IBD works in patterns of flares and remissions, and little is known about what causes either.
When I was diagnosed, I didn’t know how much my life would change. There’s no conversation about that foggy space between the common cold and terminal cancer, where illness won’t go away but won’t kill you, so none of us know what “chronic illness” means until we’re thrown into being sick forever...
==
A Better Path to Universal Health Care
By Jamie Daw
Dr. Daw teaches health policy and management at Columbia University.
The United States should look to Germany, not Canada, for the best model.
As a Canadian living and studying health policy in the United States, I’ve watched with interest as a growing list of Democratic presidential candidates — Senators Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand and Cory Booker — have indicated support for a Canadian-style single-payer plan with little or no role for private insurance. Approval of such a system has become almost a litmus test for the party’s progressive base.
But rather than looking north for inspiration, American health care reformers would be better served looking east, across the Atlantic.
Germany offers a health insurance model that, like Canada’s, results in far less spending than in the United States, while achieving universal, comprehensive coverage. The difference is that Germany’s is a multipayer model, which builds more naturally on the American health insurance system.
Although it receives little attention in the United States, this model, pioneered by Chancellor Otto von Bismarck in 1883, was the first social health insurance system in the world. It has since been copied across Europe and Asia, becoming far more common than the Canadian single-payer model. This model ensures that all citizens have access to affordable health care, but it also incorporates age-old American values of choice and private competition in health insurance...
Dr. Daw teaches health policy and management at Columbia University.
The United States should look to Germany, not Canada, for the best model.
As a Canadian living and studying health policy in the United States, I’ve watched with interest as a growing list of Democratic presidential candidates — Senators Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand and Cory Booker — have indicated support for a Canadian-style single-payer plan with little or no role for private insurance. Approval of such a system has become almost a litmus test for the party’s progressive base.
But rather than looking north for inspiration, American health care reformers would be better served looking east, across the Atlantic.
Germany offers a health insurance model that, like Canada’s, results in far less spending than in the United States, while achieving universal, comprehensive coverage. The difference is that Germany’s is a multipayer model, which builds more naturally on the American health insurance system.
Although it receives little attention in the United States, this model, pioneered by Chancellor Otto von Bismarck in 1883, was the first social health insurance system in the world. It has since been copied across Europe and Asia, becoming far more common than the Canadian single-payer model. This model ensures that all citizens have access to affordable health care, but it also incorporates age-old American values of choice and private competition in health insurance...
(DQ)Are IRBs effective? How might they be improved?
ReplyDeleteI think IRBs are as effective as they can be. When you limit the ethical decision making to the institution where the research is being done, there is already opportunity for biases to play a roll. However, I think having IRBs with a diverse group of people can combat this. When I did research in educational psychology, I had to present my survey to an IRB, which was daunting. But they asked good questions about the security of my survey information and made suggestions to keep it safe for students and faculty involved. I think IRBs are better than nothing in place at all, but I think a community-led version would keep biases in check.
2. What does Catherine Myser mean by "whiteness"?
ReplyDeleteWhen referring to whiteness, Myser does not mean skin color or white people but rather "a marker of location or position within a social, and here racial, hierarchy—to which privilege and power attach and from which they are wielded." Myser mentions how the U.S. and whiteness have been linked. Later in the article, Myser mentions that whiteness in the U.S. context refers to the implicit belief that "to become American, one had to assimilate white Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) whiteness, culture, values, and practices."
DQ: Is disease a social construct?
ReplyDeleteI suppose it depends on how you define disease. Is it a state that prevents you from living normally? If so, what is normal? For example, being deaf might have a significant impact on a person's life if they always compare it to a hearing person. But I would think that most people wouldn't consider deafness a disease. Some wouldn't even want it to be "fixed" even if it could be done.
Does disease mean that without medical treatment, you would die? Fibromyalgia is a condition that can cause excruciating pain, but does not reduce life expectancy.
Perhaps it's the suffering component that makes a disease a disease. I suppose there can be a line of what is disease and what is just the trials of life. Is there a point where living becomes dying? Or are they really the same?
1. Some researchers see sex selection leading to what?
ReplyDeleteA line of argument sees sex selection leading to designer babies and selection based on cosmetic reasons.
3. Decentering whiteness would enable bioethics to do what?
ReplyDeleteBioethics could undergo a change where dominant bioethics values could be adjusted or revised.
5. Who "invented" Bob Dole?
ReplyDeleteArthur Caplan invented Bob Dole.