Presentation: Jaxon
Premonition
1. What did Joe DeRisi tell the governor about his lists?
3. What was the final impetus for government intervention in research ethics?
4. What would be the key problem of letting each Institutional Review Board determine its own principles?
DQs
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2. Why were local public health officers so slow to accept Biohub's offer of free testing?
3. What were the big takeaways from the test results?
4. In February '21 the US was doing less of what than any other industrialized country?
DQs
- Are you surprised at the response to Biohub's call for volunteers? 243
- Why does financial ambition interfere with science and progress? 246
- How do we fix the screwed-up incentive structure of the medical-industrial complex? 249
- How can the Strategic National Stockpile be made more functional and responsive to a crisis?
Beyond
1. The advent of what common metric made it possible to calculate the efficacy of selling?
2. What was lacking in the '60s that Principlism offers to provide?
3. What was the final impetus for government intervention in research ethics?
4. What would be the key problem of letting each Institutional Review Board determine its own principles?
DQs
- Has feminist theory been successful?
- Do you agree with Simone de Beauvoir that women are made (by objectifying societal expectations), not born?
- Are most surgeons really "uncaring"? Why do so many patients say they feel "abandoned"?
- Is the culture of business healthy, on balance, for healthcare?
- Why is the medical profession so slow to respond to whistle-blowing like Henry Beecher's "Ethics and Clinical Research"? What might make it more responsive and generally more vigilant in policing itself?
- Is the culture of mistrusting authority in our society good for healthcare and the regulation of healthcare?
- Is there a general problem with individuals and aggregates of individuals (committees, boards, states...) determining their own principles of conduct? Is there a problem with them not doing so? Is there a solution to the dilemma?
- Have you ever questioned the "system" of a committee of which you were a member? How did that go? 92
- Can you give an example of gender bias resulting in unethical behavior by health practitioners?
- Have we moved significantly away from androcentrism in your lifetime? Will we move further?
- Can the medical profession, or any particular profession, become less gender-biased if the larger society remains relatively moreso? As women increasingly join the ranks of physicians, will that happen?
- What do you think of the stereotypical "association of women with emotion and men with reason"? 100
- Do you associate emotion more with the body than the mind? How in general does the classic mind-body problem relate, in your thinking, to gender issues (if at all)?
- Do you think sex selection and disability deselection are ethically equivalent or commensurable? Is any stipulated difference between them arbitrary or "hierarchical"?
- How do you define "cosmetic" (vs. "medical")?
- How do you define "disease"?
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How Each of Us Can Prepare for the Next Pandemic
The COVID pandemic has killed more than half a million people in the United States and caused the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression. If this pandemic taught us one thing, it's that we weren't ready for it. The scientific and medical community wasn't ready. The government, the military and industry weren't ready. And most of us at home weren't ready either: scrambling for basic supplies, regretting not having a deeper pantry and struggling with the financial fallout... (Scientific American, continues)
Cousin Jamie
Jamie Oliver's Ministry of Food... "We've gotta start teaching our kids about food in schools. Period."
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Health news... Health news quiz...
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‘The Unwinding of the Miracle’ Is About How to Die — and Live
She didn’t know it then, but Julie Yip-Williams began her memoir, “The Unwinding of the Miracle” — which enters the list at No. 8 — in July 2013. That’s when the 37-year-old mother of two, in the E.R. with stomach pains and nausea, learned she had Stage 4 colon cancer.
The next month, she started a blog, partly as a record for her daughters, Mia and Belle (“especially if this cancer-fighting journey doesn’t end in the way we all hope it ends”), and partly, she wrote, “to carve out my own little space out there to express my sadness, anger, joy, hope, despair and a slew of other emotions that come with living with cancer.”
Mark Warren, her editor at Random House, says, “Julie was my friend for a couple of years before the prospect of a book even came up. It was in the last year of her life, when her health was turning toward its end, and she was resolving all she could resolve, that we began to contemplate whether the blog could be a book.” Yip-Williams had been searching for a book that would help her prepare to die, but she hadn’t found one. “She was unnerved by the level of denial that she found in the culture at large,” Warren recalls...
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Embryo ‘Adoption’ Is Growing, but It’s Getting Tangled in the Abortion Debate
As evangelical Christians, Paul and Susan Lim believe that life begins at conception. So when they decided to have a third child, in vitro fertilization was out of the question, since the process often yields extra embryos.
But “adopting” the frozen embryos of another couple who had gone through I.V.F. was not.
Dr. Lim called it a “rescue operation.” To him, transferring donated embryos to his wife’s uterus was akin to saving a life. “These children are being abandoned in a frozen state,” he said. “If they don’t get adopted, they’re dead.”
As I.V.F. becomes more widespread and the number of spare embryos rises, giving birth with donated embryos is becoming more popular, especially among couples who oppose abortion and are struggling with infertility. But many of the agencies that offer donated embryos, including a vast majority of those supported by federal grants, are affiliated with anti-abortion rights or Christian organizations, leading some people to question whether single people, gay couples and others who might be interested could be missing out.
Even the term “embryo adoption” is caught up in the rhetoric of debate over abortion.
“The issue in the medical community is that by calling it ‘adoption,’ we give too much personhood to the embryo,” said Kimberly Tyson, the marketing and program director at Snowflake Embryo Adoption in Loveland, Colo...
Health news... Health news quiz...
==
‘The Unwinding of the Miracle’ Is About How to Die — and Live
She didn’t know it then, but Julie Yip-Williams began her memoir, “The Unwinding of the Miracle” — which enters the list at No. 8 — in July 2013. That’s when the 37-year-old mother of two, in the E.R. with stomach pains and nausea, learned she had Stage 4 colon cancer.
The next month, she started a blog, partly as a record for her daughters, Mia and Belle (“especially if this cancer-fighting journey doesn’t end in the way we all hope it ends”), and partly, she wrote, “to carve out my own little space out there to express my sadness, anger, joy, hope, despair and a slew of other emotions that come with living with cancer.”
Mark Warren, her editor at Random House, says, “Julie was my friend for a couple of years before the prospect of a book even came up. It was in the last year of her life, when her health was turning toward its end, and she was resolving all she could resolve, that we began to contemplate whether the blog could be a book.” Yip-Williams had been searching for a book that would help her prepare to die, but she hadn’t found one. “She was unnerved by the level of denial that she found in the culture at large,” Warren recalls...
==
Embryo ‘Adoption’ Is Growing, but It’s Getting Tangled in the Abortion Debate
As evangelical Christians, Paul and Susan Lim believe that life begins at conception. So when they decided to have a third child, in vitro fertilization was out of the question, since the process often yields extra embryos.
But “adopting” the frozen embryos of another couple who had gone through I.V.F. was not.
Dr. Lim called it a “rescue operation.” To him, transferring donated embryos to his wife’s uterus was akin to saving a life. “These children are being abandoned in a frozen state,” he said. “If they don’t get adopted, they’re dead.”
As I.V.F. becomes more widespread and the number of spare embryos rises, giving birth with donated embryos is becoming more popular, especially among couples who oppose abortion and are struggling with infertility. But many of the agencies that offer donated embryos, including a vast majority of those supported by federal grants, are affiliated with anti-abortion rights or Christian organizations, leading some people to question whether single people, gay couples and others who might be interested could be missing out.
Even the term “embryo adoption” is caught up in the rhetoric of debate over abortion.
“The issue in the medical community is that by calling it ‘adoption,’ we give too much personhood to the embryo,” said Kimberly Tyson, the marketing and program director at Snowflake Embryo Adoption in Loveland, Colo...
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A Mother Learns the Identity of Her Child’s Grandmother. A Sperm Bank Threatens to Sue.
The results of a consumer genetic test identified the mother of the man whose donated sperm was used to conceive Danielle Teuscher’s daughter. Legal warnings soon followed.
The results of a consumer genetic test identified the mother of the man whose donated sperm was used to conceive Danielle Teuscher’s daughter. Legal warnings soon followed.
Danielle Teuscher decided to give DNA tests as presents last Christmas to her father, close friends and 5-year-old daughter, joining the growing number of people taking advantage of low-cost, accessible genetic testing.
But the 23andMe test produced an unexpected result. Ms. Teuscher, 30, a nanny in Portland, Ore., said she unintentionally discovered the identity of the sperm donor she had used to conceive her young child.
The mother of the donor was identified on her daughter’s test results as her grandmother. Excited and curious, Ms. Teuscher decided to reach out.
“I wrote her and said, ‘Hi, I think your son may be my daughter’s donor. I don’t want to invade your privacy, but we’re open to contact with you or your son,’” she recalled. “I thought it was a cool thing.” (continues)
But the 23andMe test produced an unexpected result. Ms. Teuscher, 30, a nanny in Portland, Ore., said she unintentionally discovered the identity of the sperm donor she had used to conceive her young child.
The mother of the donor was identified on her daughter’s test results as her grandmother. Excited and curious, Ms. Teuscher decided to reach out.
“I wrote her and said, ‘Hi, I think your son may be my daughter’s donor. I don’t want to invade your privacy, but we’re open to contact with you or your son,’” she recalled. “I thought it was a cool thing.” (continues)
Do you agree with Simone de Beauvoir that women are made (by objectifying societal expectations), not born?
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely. While there exists some difference between men and women naturally, and these differences extend beyond just physical strength, they are heavily influenced by cultural and societal norms. From birth, men and women are subjected to societal pressures to conform to gendered norms. The "norms" that are equated with women are always equated with less instrumental roles in society: nurse instead of doctor, secretary instead of lawyer, vice president instead of president.
Simone de Beauvoir's explanation of how we got into this position is compelling. She articulates that women's skills were not as useful for early warring societies and that men, who could physically dominate them, predictably created rules that favor men. Each generation "inherits" these rules. Because men benefit from these rules and men most often hold the positions of power, ridding society of these unwritten rules has proven most difficult.
What do you think of the stereotypical "association of women with emotion and men with reason"? 100
ReplyDeleteI think it is totally false and antiquated idea. The philosophers who espoused these ideas were so brilliant in other ways, but totally missed that these traits that they so early attributed to be inherently a part of women were actually products of their society. For instance, Schopenhauer, the pessimistic philosopher, wrote that women could only concern themselves with things of the moment and who their partner was. He said they were incapable of faraway abstract reasoning and could only pay attention to what was in front of them. Ironically, despite his brilliant and unique observations on other phenomena, Schopenhauer was unable to see beyond what was in front of him, namely, that women were not allowed in higher education which would empower them to participate in the higher and spent their days thinking about how to get a man because that was the only meaningful way a woman could advance herself in society at the time.
This pervasive and upsetting stereotype asks us to ignore what we see right in front of us. Women can be just as reasonable as men, and men can be just as emotional as women. I've never seen punch a whole in the wall to get right of her anger. I'm just saying.
2. Why were local public health officers so slow to accept Biohub's offer of free testing?
ReplyDeleteThe reason they could not accept the Biohub's free testing. Was becasue they didn't know how to input free testing into their system. In addition to this, hospitals had contracts with labs already which were slower and less efficient. This inefficiency of testing was in large part why containment was so horrible.
It is essential for testing to be done in a fast and urgent manner during the beginning of a pandemic so hospitals can prevent the spread of COVID. It seems that the period before disaster is just if not more important to manage during a pandemic.
Are you surprised at the response to Biohub's call for volunteers?
ReplyDeleteYes, this act is in stark contrast to the main portion of the chapter that showcases the selfishness of corporations during times . I am suprised that so many people would be willing to work for a lab without pay. Additionally it is suprising that volunteers from all different areas were willing to go to San Fransisco.
“Are surgeons really uncaring?”
ReplyDeleteI don’t think so, but they never really connect with the patient and are instead more focused on their work. They may perform the life-saving task, but for them it’s not about connection or connecting with someone and it’s more about being tasked with and goal oriented it seems.
For the culture of mistrusting authority, it is a good thing for healthcare, because if we as a people don’t hold authority accountable for medical malpractice and other such issues, problems won’t get better and malpractice will continue and get away with worse and worse things.
I define “disease” as an acquirable or inherited factor that gets progressively worse with time before it gets better. Mostly I think of long-term diseases such as HIV or AIDS.
Have we moved significantly away from androcentrism in your lifetime? Will we move further?
ReplyDeleteI would say we've moved quite far from androcentrism in my lifetime. At least in the collective understanding of the culture in the USA, it definitely feels like people are generally becoming less sexist and I think this will continue as women become more accepted into the roles that men have traditionally occupied.
How do you define "disease"?
ReplyDeleteI define disease as anything that puts your body at "dis"ease. A disease can be an abnormal condition that affects the body or mind, leading to dysfunction or discomfort.
How do you define "cosmetic" (vs. "medical")?
ReplyDeleteI define cosmetic as being anything done to please someone. For example a surgery that isn't needed but will enhance something aesthetically. I define medical as something that's needed to increase a patients wellbeing and prevent health issues.
Are most surgeons really "uncaring"? Why do so many patients say they feel "abandoned"?
ReplyDeleteI don't think that most surgeons are uncaring. They went through years of training to preform procedures and provide positive outcomes for patients. However, I think many patients feel abandoned by their surgeons because they don't receive active care directly from the surgeon. Typically nurses follow up and not having a "relationship" with your surgeon after your surgery can lead to that abandonment feeling.
I would say that it seems like surgeons are uncaring because they are forced to desencitize themselves to the process of doing surgery on people. Additionally, the fact that they don't get direct care from them is also a good reason why this is the case.
Delete1. The advent of the common metric known as “profit” made it possible to calculate the efficacy of selling. Having this metric would certainly shape the motives and strategies of companies in decades to come.
ReplyDelete2. In the 1960’s, the ethics of the medical field were described by K. Clouser as “a mixture of religion, whimsy, exhortation, legal precedents, various traditions, philosophies of life, miscellaneous moral rules, and epithets.” With principlism, a central approach can be adopted to provide proper and simple analysis and care.
3. The final impetus for government intervention in research ethics was events such as the Tuskegee Institute. Such atrocious oversights of ethics brought quite a lot of attention to the ethical restrictions. It’s unfortunate that it took such a tragic event for proper legislation to be passed.