Presentation: David
(We can adjourn to the conference room again if it gets loud downstairs... or if we just want to.)
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...
==
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...
Is disease a social construct?
ReplyDeleteNo, not solely. Some diseases would not exists without social environment like down syndrome, but others would exists even in complete isolation. Even if a person had never came into contact with other humans, his cancer would still hurt and or kill him. From that perspective, no, disease is not a social construct.
Is "decentering whiteness" liable to make white people, especially politicians, uncomfortable?
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot of people who are uncomfortable with this concept. My reply to these sort of people is immediately a sarcastic "why? is there something wrong with how we treat people that aren't in the "center?" Unfortunately, there is, but reframing the issue in this way shows why it is important that we create practices that are racially neutral.
1. Some researchers see sex selection leading to what?
ReplyDeleteAs stated in Chapter 9, some researchers say that they can see sex selection leading to designer babies. Designer babies is an concept we have already brought up multiple times in class and seeing the arguments + questions the book makes just furthers my non-support of the matter. An interesting question that the book brought up is that what do we consider “cosmetic?” Cosmetic is used in this context because the book says sex selection falls under cosmetic reasons/selection. It also question on whether cosmetics are characteristics that affect abilities or not. Therefore, furthering the books comparisons of sex selection and deselections of characteristics considered “disabilities.”
2. What does Catherine Myser mean by "whiteness"?
ReplyDeleteMeyer does not mean color of the skin white, white/caucasian people, or Anglo-Saxon Protestant white but markers or location or position within a social and racial hierarchy that privilege and power attach themselves and weld. I think this was an interesting approach and definition to whiteness but I understand what she means (I think.) Whiteness is a privilege and power tool that can tends to overpower not only in the US but around the world. An example I can think of is how in LATAM, people are not considered white (Hispanics and Latinos) but there is a “whiteness” like European Argentinians or Spanish Mexicans. These groups tend to be the dominant group in academia, politics, media and more and they are more privileged despite not actually being white or the majority.
3. Decentering whiteness would enable bioethics to do what?
ReplyDeleteDecentering whiteness would enable bioethics to better serve a richly pluralistic society in the United States. I agree with this statement and think it’s necessary to not only make bioethics more accessible to people who are not in whiteness but also more popular.
Is there something inherently wrong, unseemly, or troubling about bioethicists who are also entrepreneurs?
ReplyDeleteI think being an entrepreneur is not a bad thing but if you're exploiting other people's labor then I think you've crossed into unethical territory.
How does one even determine if their labor is being exploited? I assume we mean "used unfairly" here. In the US there are zero laws forcing you to continue to work for a company. You can quit whenever you want.
DeleteThis is opposed to say, Germany, when you cannot do so and must put a notice in a two weeks notice and work at least those two weeks.
Whiteness is about all of the associations that come with the historical role of "white". I think decentering whiteness would help us to better understand ourselves and each other because we're stepping away from a concept that puts people into arbitrary categories. The more people divide themselves into "white" and "nonwhite", and follow assumptions that we have carried for hundreds of years, I think the more we hold ourselves back in our capacity to understand ourselves.
ReplyDeleteIs “disease” a social construct? It depends. Some ailments are considered diseases for good reasons, such as AIDS, or other such infection or genetic caused impairments that debilitate someone’s way of life. There are other ways disease can be a social construct, however. Take homosexuality for example. There are many people with bigoted viewpoints that consider it a disease, same with transgender. This is why it “depends”.
ReplyDelete“Are bioethicists overly-focused on technology?” I wouldn’t say so. Bioethical issues go hand in hand with where and how we use technology, such as ai tools or other medical machines or programs. Ai has shown promise in the medical field to help doctors learn new things about extremely difficult tasks, such as protein folding. However, ai can be used for malicious use as well.
Regarding our culture’s obsession with ED, I’m not really sure how we’re obsessed with it. I think it boils down to personal embarrassment and the need to be more masculine and looking for sources to make yourself look and feel more masculine. It’s the same mentality that leads you to toxic masculinity and by extension a lot of rightwing ideologies.
Is "decentering whiteness" liable to make white people, especially politicians, uncomfortable?
ReplyDeleteYes, especially politicians, because whiteness is used to legitimize power, so if it's less of a consideration then politicians will have less to stand on. This is a process that's been happening since the civil rights era.
Is there something inherently wrong, unseemly, or troubling about bioethicists who are also entrepreneurs?
ReplyDeleteNo. While there easily could be abuses for profit, the same could be said any other reason one would pursue bioethics. Prestige for example.
I believe pure ethics is mostly useless. It needs to be balanced out by actually practical application and entrepreneurs tend to be good at that.