1. What do Athanasiou and Darnovsky fear we're at risk of losing, if the human genome is privatized?
2. What future social classes does Lee Silver predict will effectively become separate species? Who are some prominent figures who endorse his views?
3. What published opinion do our authors cite as committing a "naturalistic fallacy"?
4. Brave New World was what, "first of all"?
5. What practice continued into the 70s in "that liberal paragon Sweden"?
6. People with congenital disabilities typically feel ____.
7. What's the logical conclusion of the "Kinsley-Sullivan thesis" and what does it conflate?
8. CRISPR is an acronym for what?
9. What's needed most, to reduce the incidence of monogenic disease?
10. Scientists have a responsibility to debate _____.
2. What future social classes does Lee Silver predict will effectively become separate species? Who are some prominent figures who endorse his views?
3. What published opinion do our authors cite as committing a "naturalistic fallacy"?
4. Brave New World was what, "first of all"?
5. What practice continued into the 70s in "that liberal paragon Sweden"?
6. People with congenital disabilities typically feel ____.
7. What's the logical conclusion of the "Kinsley-Sullivan thesis" and what does it conflate?
8. CRISPR is an acronym for what?
9. What's needed most, to reduce the incidence of monogenic disease?
10. Scientists have a responsibility to debate _____.
DQs
Lifelines
- Do you agree with the "biotech boosters" that possible advances in medical science trump all other considerations, and that the prospect of progress is worth the risk of inheritable genetic modification?
- "Designer babies": do you want one?
- "Post-humans": do you welcome them?
- Why don't techno-utopians like Lee Silver (et al) deplore the prospect of a social gap between those who've been genetically enhanced and those who haven't? Do you?
- Was James Watson right about "what the public actually wants"? 160
- Is it alarmist to invoke Huxley's dystopia as a harbinger of things to come?
- Are there any spheres of medicine, or indeed of life, in which perfectionism is an appropriate state of mind and plan of action?
- Who has the right to decide when, whether, or how to edit a child's genome?
- How would you respond to any of the questions posed in the first paragraph on p.173?
Lifelines
1. What could medicine not do for Tony?
2. How is public health a lifeline, and what are some of its tools?
3. What does Duo Duo mean? (And what did it mean for Leana)?
4. What happened to academics during the Cultural Revolution?
5. What led Leana's mother to retrain as a public school teacher?
6. Why did Leana's mother choose to relocate to Canada?
DQ
- Are there enough leaders like Elijah Cummings to ensure our children's hopeful future?
- Do too many Americans accept that "life is like this for some people"? 3
- Do you agree that threats to public health should be understood to include racism, mass incarceration, gun violence, childhood trauma, inadequate housing, ignorance, poverty etc.? 5, 7
- Do you think most younger people consider health care a (neglected) human right?
- How do we "bend the arc of justice"? 8
- Do you think Americans generally accept the premise of chi ku? 11
- Why do you think people in Utah are so nice? 20
- Why do you think Leana's family met with such adversity in LA? 25
Public Health as Urban Solution (TEDx)...
Lifelines: A Doctor's Journey in the Fight for Public Health
From medical expert Leana Wen, MD., an insider’s account of public health and its crucial role—from opioid addiction to global pandemic—and an inspiring story of her journey from struggling immigrant to being one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People
“Public health saved your life today—you just don’t know it,” is a phrase that Dr. Leana Wen likes to use. You don’t know it because good public health is invisible. It becomes visible only in its absence, when it is underfunded and ignored, a bitter truth laid bare as never before by the devastation of COVID-19.
Leana Wen—emergency physician, former Baltimore health commissioner, CNN medical analyst, and Washington Post contributing columnist—has lived on the front lines of public health, leading the fight against the opioid epidemic, outbreaks of infectious disease, maternal and infant mortality, and COVID-19 disinformation. Here, in gripping detail, Wen lays bare the lifesaving work of public health and its innovative approach to social ills, treating gun violence as a contagious disease, for example, and racism as a threat to health.
Wen also tells her own uniquely American story: an immigrant from China, she and her family received food stamps and were at times homeless despite her parents working multiple jobs. That child went on to attend college at thirteen, become a Rhodes scholar, and turn to public health as the way to make a difference in the country that had offered her such possibilities.
Ultimately, she insists, it is public health that ensures citizens are not robbed of decades of life, and that where children live does not determine whether they live. g'reads
“Doctors end up adopting the role of automaton, following recipes and doing as directed, but no longer empowered to listen, to think, to diagnose, and to heal. Patients end up believing that their role is to help speed the checkbox ticking as quietly and as obediently as possible. Worse still, they begin to internalize that this is the best and only way to receive medical care.”
“These “social determinants of health” play a major role, in fact, the major role, in determining a person’s health and well-being. Studies have shown that as much as 90 percent of a person’s life expectancy depends on these factors, and only 10 percent on medical care.”
Health Care and Insurance Industries Mobilize to Kill ‘Medicare for All’
- Doctors, hospitals, drug companies and insurers are intent on strangling the idea before it advances from an aspirational slogan to a legislative agenda item.
- Their tactics will show Democrats what they are up against as the party drifts to the left on health care.
- ==
Genetically modified mosquitoes could help eradicate malaria — by eradicating themselves
Scientists recently released genetically engineered mosquitoes into a high-security lab in Italy. The insects carry a sterilizing mutation that spreads to progeny, meaning the modification would be lethal to the species — and potentially reduce the spread of malaria. Some are worried, though, that releasing the engineered mosquitoes into the wild could have unforeseen consequences, such as eliminating important crop pollinators.
60 Minutes (@60Minutes)Last year alone, more Americans died of drug overdoses than in the entire Vietnam War. Who is responsible for the opioid crisis? 60 Minutes' three-part investigation: cbsn.ws/2NtOCut
4. Brave New World was what, "first of all"?
ReplyDelete"It was, first of all, a world of caste." This highlights the disparity between the richest and poorest people in the world. Brave New World brought up many ethical issues, but I think this is a good point that at the center of it all was income inequality. How can this be fixed? I'm not sure. I don't know if there is a way to get rid of economic "classes" completely. But surely there is at least a way to raise the living standards of the most disadvantaged groups.
8. CRISPR is an acronym for what?
ReplyDeleteClustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats. Say that 10X fast. The ethics of designer babies may be up for debate, but it definitely provides exciting opportunities for future therapies to treat diseases. However, I'm not sure when something like this would be available to the general population. Sometimes clinical trials can go on for years before actually being approved.
(DQ) Do you agree that threats to public health should be understood to include racism, mass incarceration, gun violence, childhood trauma, inadequate housing, ignorance, poverty etc.? 5, 7
ReplyDeletePublic health already considers these components in regards to census information and personal information. Researchers all over the world have concluded that poverty and poor living conditions can results in the altering of gene usage; in the US, living in an inadequate house surrounded by poverty and violence can result in increased methylation of one's genes, which prevents appropriate transcription and further production of necessary proteins. Something as small as not having the means to afford a healthy diet can affect a kid for their entire life. These factors should be considered a threat not only to our humanity, but also to the public health.
9. What's needed most, to reduce the incidence of monogenic disease?
ReplyDeletewhat's needed most is not embryo editing, but routine genetic testing.
5. What practice continued into the 70s in "that liberal paragon Sweden"?
ReplyDeleteThe practice of compulsory sterilizations of "unfit" persons in an effort to improve the gene pool in their population. This practice reminds me of the WWII crimes we've been discussing this semester. It is still insane to me that this kind of thing isn't as recent as history books make it out to be; I can't help but think that it continues in our modern world as a way to keep some attribute deemed undesirable low in our population.