Exam 1 Study Guide

Wednesday's exam will be drawn as much as possible from questions the class has submitted. Here's what we have so far. It's not too late to add or amend. (Group 3?)

Don't forget you can prepare your extra credit discussion question in advance. Just a paragraph or two, on a relevant topic of your choosing... worth up to ten points (enough to offset a couple of misses).

And remember, the best way to study for this is to locate the relevant textual passages and familiarize yourself with them.

Proposed Exam questions: Group 1

[Komron MacLean] Questions for Bioethics

What is Craig Venter best known for?

Answer: creating the first self replicating microorganism in a lab. 

Which contraceptive stops the period entirely?

Lybrel 

What scandal is Woo-suk Hwang of South Korea best known for? 

Fabricating Data to support research

What was the name of the clinical trial in Alabama in which hundreds of African American men were infected with Syphilis and left untreated? 

Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment 

In Carl Elliott's article "This is Your Country on Drugs", steroids were used as a platform for the misuse of what? 

General enhancement technology

Given a scenario where one woman donates an "egg shell" another donates her DNA and a third carries the fertilized egg to term, who is considered the biological mother?

The woman who donates the most genetic material 

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Possible Questions Group 2

Bioethics Factual Questions:
Case 2: According to a February 2011 Gallup poll, what percentage of Americans believe in evolution? Answer: 40 percent.
Case 10: In 2005 the NIH announced that employees would have to sell their stock interests and would no longer be able to purchase stock. To whom did these regulations apply?
a.) Only Doctors currently writing prescriptions
b.) All Doctors and researchers
c.) All employees
d.) All employees and spouses (Correct Answer)
Case 14: The concern with testing at the Indian Pharmaceutical Facilities was...
a.) Subjects were not receiving full disclosure of possible dangers (Correct Answer)
b.) Subjects were not told what drugs they were on
c.) Subjects were abducted off the street
d.) Subjects were not paid what they were promised

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Group 3???

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Group Four Study Guide Questions

1.      Which rule was not among the three guidelines adopted by the South Korean government’s Code for Robot Ethics committee that were outlined in Isaac Asimov’s story ‘Runaround.’

a.      A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

b.      A robot must defer to governmental laws and ethics when not in the presence of his original master as long as this does not conflict with either of the other two laws.

c.       A robot must obey orders given by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the first law.

d.      A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the other two laws.    

     

2.      What does iPSC stand for?

a.      Iatrogenic Pharmaceutical Stem Cells

b.       Idiopathic  Physicochemical Stem Cells

c.       Immunological Paliative Stem Cells

d.      Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells

3.      Which ‘reproductive freedom model’ have the National Bioethics Advisory Commission used to make the claim that cloning is physiologically unsafe?

a.      Pediatric Model

b.      Adoption Model

c.       Adolescent Model

d.      Paternal Model

4.      True or False? IVF is most affordable in the United States.
False

(Post by Betsy)

Nick Barlow needs to move to the blog post group. I am still under the flu bug and public speaking would not be great for me at this time.

In Refutation, A Conversation on Ray Kurzweil's Singularity

Download Article

A sample of the Resolution: "Ray Kurzweil has discovered through his Law of Accelerating Returns, which is an expansion of Moore's Law, that computer technology's progression, due to it being absorbed as an Information Technology, is undergoing an exponential increase that will result in said technology’s interpretive faculties exceeding humans. The root of this exponential growth will come from the study and implementation of the advanced hierarchal thinking found within the Neo Cortex into various emergent technologies. (Authors@Google, 2012)"

Alex Sarheed: I'd like to go second if possible

My presentation will target the dilution of the problems we've covered in class; I'll to take us through the complexity of doing the  "right thing" and help explain why it so dense, and why society has so many conflicts in terms of bioethical research, treatment, and healthcare. I will be discussing far more than presenting, however, i will use my presentation as a guide so the class follows me to final conclusion. That bioethics cannot be addressed individually, that a doctor cannot perform ethical medicine; instead, society determines the ethics by which it expects from its citizens, and each individual operates within the infringements the ethical framework instills. These infringements contain the harshness of our primitive nature, our desire to excel, suppress, investigate, overpower, strengthen and advance.

I hope this embeds correctly.  This TedMed talk is about the fascinating, and unacceptable, practice of "data choosing."  Peer-reviewed journals are always looking for the newest and coolest avenue in science to publish about.  There are a few hot topics like stem cells, cancer, and pharmacology that are received with gratitude when submitted for publication by researchers.  However, the less exciting topics, in particular the ones that did not come to fruition experimentally, are ignored and refused publication.  The problem is that in essence we are seeing some of what we did right and almost none of what we did wrong.


http://www.ted.com/talks/ben_goldacre_what_doctors_don_t_know_about_the_drugs_they_prescribe.html

Singular medicine

Our scheduled #Bioethics cases today concern the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, Eclipse pseudo-cigarettes, the continuing absence (despite the presence of the 2010 Affordable Care Act) of universal healthcare in America, and special interest neo-natal screening. The main connecting theme here is the ever-rising cost of healthcare and how much cheaper it would be to provide real prevention on the front end, rather than hit-or-miss cures on the downslope… and how much entrenched resistance and counter-investment blocks that approach.

 Interesting topics all, and I hope we don’t get to them today. (Don’t worry, class, they’ll not be on Wednesday’s exam.)

That’s because I hope we get immersed instead in our midterm report presentations, commencing with William’s “disproving Ray Kurzweil’s numbers on the Singularity.” Guess he wants to squash my last thin reed of hope that I might still live long enough to live forever. Or is he going to tell us it’s nearer than even Ray thinks? Not likely...

(Continues at Up@dawn)

Group Four Study Guide Questions

1.      Which rule was not among the three guidelines adopted by the South Korean government’s Code for Robot Ethics committee that were outlined in Isaac Asimov’s story ‘Runaround.’

a.      A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

b.      A robot must defer to governmental laws and ethics when not in the presence of his original master as long as this does not conflict with either of the other two laws.

c.       A robot must obey orders given by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the first law.

d.      A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the other two laws.    

     

2.      What does iPSC stand for?

a.      Iatrogenic Pharmaceutical Stem Cells

b.       Idiopathic  Physicochemical Stem Cells

c.       Immunological Paliative Stem Cells

d.      Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells

3.      Which ‘reproductive freedom model’ have the National Bioethics Advisory Commission used to make the claim that cloning is physiologically unsafe?

a.      Pediatric Model

b.      Adoption Model

c.       Adolescent Model

d.      Paternal Model

4.      True or False? IVF is most affordable in the United States.
False

(Post by Betsy)

Enhancement of the Eyes and Beyond

[Austin O'Connor] As we began to discuss our case on optics enhancement we began, as most of these discussions do, asking is it ethical to make enhancements to ourselves.  I believe some of us said yes without restriction but others of us felt that some enhancements were acceptable but that some are too extreme. At which point we began to ask if these eye enhancements we were discussing were cosmetic or to improve quality of life.  If they were for enhanced quality of life then it seems these extreme means would be well worth it.  We then began to discuss the social justice aspect in enhancement, asking whether it is fair because these types of procedures would most likely not be covered by insurance and therefore would come out of pocket so only the rich would be able to have such procedures.  We also asked at what point does these types of enhancement change your nature (god-given or nature given depending on your beliefs).  

We also discussed being able to select traits for your children to create so called designer babies.  Someone raised the question about if it could create animosity between parent and child.  Or perhaps a parent selected a trait to specifically keep their children from doing something? For example the parents do not want their child to play basketball for some reason so they make them short and make it so they cannot jump very high or something like that.  This type of genetic selectivity begs the question would parents just use this as a tool to create what they want or what they wish they could have been instead of a new unique human life.  

I'm sorry that this post is delayed.  

Case 22 Group2

The case we discussed today was about the Planktos company and their project to improve the world's atmosphere. Planktos is working on a way to make plankton absorb more CO2 and produce more oxygen.

The project involves dumping a refined form of iron into the ocean, where the plankton exist. Some people in our group are worried that such dumping may negatively effect other marine life. Someone mentioned the mercury poisoning problem with fish and was curious to know if excess iron might also prove hazardous to people consuming fish from these areas.

Later we found that the CEO went ahead and dumped the iron without permission (100 tons I believe). This is an interesting case, because if this plan negatively effect the plankton then we may have problems, due to the fact that they produce a large amount of oxygen for the planet.

Group 3 Man, Machine, and all the rest

This was actually written by Mary, I'm just passing it along:

The idea of man and machine converging even further with the exploration of nanotechnology did not strike us as unethical. It was mentioned that many circumstances already exist in which life forms depend on machines for survival, such as a person in a coma using a ventilator.

We discussed the issue of identity to help decide whether a person is still a person if they are made from non-human parts. We decided yes, and that a person's identity is not determined by how "biologically natural" they are. Just as a person who has a prosthetic leg is still a person, so is someone who is made from cloned DNA and gestated in a bubble. Ongoing identity was also mentioned, which we didn't have a definite answer for, but decided that people decide for themselves whether or not they are the same person after whatever biological change it may be.

Genetic engineering also made its way into discussion. We decided it would be much more logical for people to decide what traits to give themselves rather than their children. We aren't sure how this would work, but nanotechnology and cloning would probably have something to do with it. Once again, identity would be an issue, but the importance of that would be up to the individual.

The last part of our case mentions using nanotechnology to "keep people alive well into their hundreds." This raised the issue of whether it would be natural or ethical to extend our lifetime past the point of how far current medicine will sustain us. To combat the problem of overpopulation and unsustainability this would create, there would have to be some kind of authority over reproduction. Denying potential life for the sake of extending our own seems selfish, but how can it be unethical if the lives we are discussing don't exist?

Nanotechnology seems like the natural step for science to take, and humans altering the way nature works does not seem unnatural or unethical, because nature itself is constantly being altered by all forms of life in a big swirl of chaos.

Case 25- Group 1

[Komron MacLean]
I felt that Mcgee probably wrote this case while sitting in bed reflecting on his day and simply jotting down thoughts in an incoherant manner and calling it a case. Nevertheless, from what we (Group 1) could muster, Mcgee is conflicted about where funds for nanotechnology research should be allocated, how much should be spent and who would best spend it. For guy who claims not to have a firm grasp on what nanotech even is, he sure did have a lot to say about it. He seems to believe too much is allocated for ELSI in nanotech. Consolidating all the ELSI nanotechc research under one roof would be efficient but would it provide for the most diverse platform on which to build nanotech. Would we see progress as quickly if one institution handled everything with limited input from other sources?

Proposed Exam questions: Group 1

[Komron MacLean] Questions for Bioethics

What is Craig Venter best known for?

Answer: creating the first self replicating microorganism in a lab. 

Which contraceptive stops the period entirely?

Lybrel 

What scandal is Woo-suk Hwang of South Korea best known for? 

Fabricating Data to support research

What was the name of the clinical trial in Alabama in which hundreds of African American men were infected with Syphilis and left untreated? 

Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment 

In Carl Elliott's article "This is Your Country on Drugs", steroids were used as a platform for the misuse of what? 

General enhancement technology

Given a scenario where one woman donates an "egg shell" another donates her DNA and a third carries the fertilized egg to term, who is considered the biological mother?

The woman who donates the most genetic material 

Zizek on Nature

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIGeDAZ6-q4&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Hope this embedded right. Essentially his argument for Anthropocentricism sets an underlying tone that may answer a lot of questions raised so far here- those in regard to nature's relationship with man, for those who agree with him. Personally, I do.

Making nano work for us

Things behave very differently in the nano-world, but Stephen Fry makes it all sound so inviting: Now we can understand nature's nano-secrets and use them for ourselves. Hope so.



"It's all about changing the molecular structure of matter, atom by atom...You are already a masterpiece of nanotechnology... It's a world that's always been around, but that we're just beginning to understand... Many think this coming age will be the age of nano... It could take you into atoms and beyond the stars. Good luck."







More nano video... Smalley Institute (Rice)... What I'm Worried About: Bill Joy... Nano nyt… TEDmap… Nano shockwaves…NanoSOTU

ALSO OF INTEREST. The New Yorker author I mentioned appreciated my RT & suggested we might also like to check out:

What Neuroscience Really Teaches Us, and What It Doesn't : The New Yorker - http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/12/what-neuroscience-really-teaches-us-and-what-it-doesnt.html?mbid=social_mobile_tweet …

 A Collection of Essays About What We Should Fear : The New Yorker - http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2013/01/a-collection-of-essays-about-what-we-should-fear.html?mbid=social_mobile_tweet …

Just heard this while driving into campus:

Scientist Eric Lander was named today as one of the winners of the new Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, the world’s richest academic prize for medicine and biology.

The prize was established by four Internet entrepreneurs, including Google co-founder Sergey Brin and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

It awards $3 million – twice the amount of the Nobel Prize – to scientists “who think big, take risks and have made a significant impact on our lives.”

Lander was one of the leaders of the Human Genome Project, the effort to map the entire human genetic code.

He went on to found the Broad Institute biomedical and genomic research center often described as “Disneyland, a playground for scientists.”

Lander also advises President Barack Obama, who named Lander when asked for his favorite scientist or mathematician.

Lander gave Here & Now’s Robin Young a crash version of his Introduction to Biology class, saying he hated biology when he took it in high school.

What Lander tries to do is teach the story of the greatest scientific revolution of the last century, and put the details on the context of that story.

The class, “Introduction to Biology – The Secret of Life,” will be available free online via edX starting March 5th...

Listen to Here & Now...

Group 3 : Anonymous Baby Disposal

We never really reached a consensus on how to resolve the issue, aside from the fact that we thought McGee made too much of a fuss about the issue altogether. He was very passionate about the mechanical nature of the German baby depositories, but aside from that, there seemed to be nothing remotely inhumane about the practice, other than the fact that the people involved dealing with people with questionable parenting qualifications and ethics. We doubt that anything like this could really be instituted in the United States due to the issue of funding, and the fact that it's already possible to put your child up for adoption, and with the text citing 100 infant deaths a year WORLDWIDE due to abandonment, while it is extremely unpleasant to think about, it isn't enough to "wage war on infanticide," as Glenn fervently announced at the end of the article.

Postmortem Sperm Collection

[by William Phillips] Today we discussed the ethics of the postmortem collection of sperm, and the psychological implications of having a child through a deceased sperm donor.

One of the major questions that arose was would it be possible to use Hitler's sperm, and if so, would the child grow up to have the same personality traits, and thus attempt to achieve the same goals. However, we unanimously agreed that in that specific circumstance, without the context of the time, and amid the stigma of the child's father's legacy, the child would not grow up to fulfill any of his father's goals.

Basically, it's the text-book nature-vs-nurture argument. While we all agreed that genetics plays a major role in shaping in the blue-prints of the human vehicle, one's environment builds the car.

Possible Questions Group 2

Bioethics Factual Questions:
Case 2: According to a February 2011 Gallup poll, what percentage of Americans believe in evolution? Answer: 40 percent.
Case 10: In 2005 the NIH announced that employees would have to sell their stock interests and would no longer be able to purchase stock. To whom did these regulations apply?
a.) Only Doctors currently writing prescriptions
b.) All Doctors and researchers
c.) All employees
d.) All employees and spouses (Correct Answer)
Case 14: The concern with testing at the Indian Pharmaceutical Facilities was...
a.) Subjects were not receiving full disclosure of possible dangers (Correct Answer)
b.) Subjects were not told what drugs they were on
c.) Subjects were abducted off the street
d.) Subjects were not paid what they were promised

Case 22 Group 2

Today we discussed case 22, in which a woman became pregnant from sperm harvested from her deceased husband. The couple was known to have been trying to conceive, but some people believe that this may be a case of rape. Personally I think rape is not an appropriate term. I can see how this could be abused, but I think there is a simple solution. With new technologies rising, new legislation is going to have to be put in place. When a couple seeks a doctor to help with fertilization I think that this topic should be broached. If the father approves then this is an option, otherwise It is not. (A will for postmortem conception).

Reading this article made me wonder if the other side of this process is possible. If a man's spouse dies, can he extract an egg from her corpse and use a surrogate mother to produce offspring. I am curious to know if there would be more opposition to this process.

Some opinions from our group from the male students were that they would not care what happened to their sperm postmortem. I personally think that your genetics is one of the few things that trancends your death, so I would like to have a say it what happens to them. Cas doesn't see the problem in stealing dead guy's sperm because "They're dead!"

Case 21 Genetic Motherhood?

Point of importance: is this a pseudo-confusion?

The author makes the mistake of associating the term "mother" and "parent", we can speak of mother in different senses, medically it's defined as the biological contributor, socially, it's the child's caretaker. However there is no confusion in the two definitions; social, lawful, & medical references agree that when it comes to a child's trace, the beginning stems from the "parents" not biological contributors. Any other issues are mediated through the "parents" because they deem all the responsibility of death and are thus credited his or her life too.

My baby is a genius

most new parents want to believe their progeny will be prodigies.What if new reproductive technologies allow some of them to put their money where their vicarious dreams are?

our question today is really not just about too many moms, but too many overbearing moms and dads  and way too many sperm.

New reproductive technologies already fuel the confusion of children “who may have many Moms” not just because they’ve been multiply nurtured, parented, step-parented etc., but because one mom “donates an egg, another carries the embryo and a third mom raises the resulting child.” Interesting. I prefer to reserve the term Mom (or Dad) for the one who changes the diapers, dispenses the formula, hosts the sleepovers, and foots the bill for school and college. But there will surely be sticky issues to sort through. Let’s hope it doesn’t really come to lawsuits over mom’s bad egg shells.

Post-mortem sperm retrieval? Advance consent is the big issue there, but I remember a particular initiative to bank the sperm of nobelists. If that ever caught on there really would be a question about the ethical propriety of “cloning Abraham Lincoln” et al. “My Baby is a genius” is a clever song by Jessica Harper I know too well, because my first little genius used to wear it out. But it may not be such a great social engineering proposal...

Continues at Up@dawn...

Genetic Discrimination

[by William Phillips] The wide availability of personalized genetic evaluations for the average person reveals a myriad of difficult questions.

While it is unquestionable that the existence of these records would be a quantum leap for medicine, they also could potentially lead to problems within our current society. When does religion, and specifically the hand of god, come into play when altering his supposed creation through genetic manipulation? Similarly, how does the human mind react when knowing its fate? How do parents treat their children when genetic discrepancies occur,possibly rendering one more "perfect" than the other, or perhaps one "at risk." We also discussed privacy laws for genetic information, as well as if it was a good idea to disseminate that information to private sector business

Designer Babies and infinite possbilities

The concept of commercial genetic engineering of babies, from simple modifications to building from scratch, poses a vast multitude of questions and nigh endless possibilities.
The first problem we tackled was the problem of safety and the possibility of unknown long term effects.  We determined that in order to make a decision on this we needed to know how reliable the process was and how likely to result in malfunctioning babies, like not being able to reproduce naturally if wanted.
We also discussed at length the social ramifications of allowing genetic building of babies. could this possibly cause "class" disputes through either the people who can/cant afford them or naturally born children and designer children.  Could it be used by governments to either mandate certain physical traits or certain more internal and health related changes, how would one combat a hitler-esk leader mandating a physical trait.
Finaly we went over the possibilities and implications that might come of us as a species.  If we engineered out all health problems, how would we combat overpopulation?  Could we reduce our eco-footprint enough to allow growth until we can leave the planet?  How would one combat exploitation of this technology for monetary gain, or power?
~Radiance

Case14 &18- Group 2

Its Cas again: Today our group mainly discussed case 14 which was about whether or not it was moral to have pharmaceutical testing agencies in India where the majority of people are very poor.
I said no. lol. But allot of people pointed out that even though they didn't like it, they thought the tests needed to be done on someone. I felt like it was praying on the poor and pointed out that I thought rich people would volunteer for it it.... maybe in the name of "science".  Some agreed but said that there would probably not be enough pure (not taking advantage) volunteers to make the research successful. .... and I reluctantly agreed.
We also talked about cloning... and how that might affect our communities socially. We didn't think it would be right to clone people for recreational reasons... and that the subject would definitely give cause for more laws to regulate how and when someone could be cloned. :)
We talked some about case 18, which was about how the genetic make up of some people whom were in the Gulf War, had been changed by something they were exposed too. We thought that this was cool... but didn't see very much implications of the subject into Bioethics.

Group 1: case 13 & 17

In today's discussion we evaluated the ethics of participants chosen for research trials, are current methods of informing individuals of potential risks in research trials ethical? Does the researcher take advantage of individuals who are ignorant or desperate for money, as presented by McGee? We came to the consensus that there should be stricter protocols on the extent  of informing individuals that desire to participate in research experiments. If a participant "understands" the risks involved in a particular experiment then nothing else can be done to further protect them, as an adult they have made their decision.
Case 17 dealt with performance enhancing drugs, the discussion went on a tangent with the question, does Lance Armstrong deserved to have his Tour de France titles taken if indeed "everyone" in cycling uses PEDs. I personally don't think we could make the assumption that PEDs are used by every cyclist in the race, and I think those that placed last during the 7 Tour de France races that Lance won would agree with me. Nevertheless, I think McGee was trying to point out the flaws in the arguments presented by those opposed to any type of performance enhancement, whether that be a facelift or steroids. McGee seemed to make the stand that there should be a distinction between good Performance enhancements and bad performance enhancements, if there is a distinction at all. Will these good performance enhancements become a new way of life? Do they provide a way to be better?

Legal Perspective - Google Goggles

An article posted by Falkvinge, who some of you may or may not be familiar with. Don't let the title dissuade you from giving it a look, though it was highly controversial when it hit a few months back.

http://falkvinge.net/2012/09/07/three-reasons-child-porn-must-be-re-legalized-in-the-coming-decade/

The overall gist of the article asks "what if I were wearing google glasses, or something similar fifteen years from now, and I witness a violent crime, like rape, happening in public? Does that make me a pornographer? What are the legal implications of that?"

I don't agree with Falkvinge on about half of the things he talks about, but this was enough to raise some serious questions for me.

(Also I apologize for not being able to attend class. Eating campus food can be like playing Russian Roulette with your entire digestive and/or immune system)

Google glasses and neural implants

imagine implanting telecommunications, data transfer, and enhanced entertainment directly into your brain, prompts Glenn McGee. I’m trying.  

I’m trying not to fret too much about information-overload and nature-deficit disorder, when it becomes literally no longer possible to turn off the receiver. You can put on and take off your google glasses at will, Sergei, addiction issues aside; but how easy will it be to shut down the implants? And yet, how alluring to imagine random internal access to an entire universe of information, culture, and personal memory!

Continues at Up@dawn
==
This is your brain on neural implants...

Group 2 Case 14

Today's case was about drug company testing in India. The author seems to think that Gandhi would be against drug companies using the population of India as a convenient source of test subjects. It seems that because there is a large number of people who need extra money and because there are less regulations, India is an ideal place to test products that are not yet approved.

Obviously, there is and ethical issue here. If people choose to be a part of medical testing, then that is their prerogative. On the other hand, if people are signing up for this type of testing and they are not being made aware of problems with drugs or possible side effects then that is not acceptable.

We did not really get to this topic today, so I don't have much to say about this. What we did do was talk to a visitor about the Peace CORPS. I would be curious to know what countries people would like to go to whether in the Peace CORPS or just to visit. Personally if I were going to go somewhere I would like to go to Asia.

Rogue scientists

Hwang has become the wrong kind of symbol. He was a superstar, he’s now the mad scientist of popular lore representing “a rogue lot who can’t be trusted.” That, says McGee, is precisely why we need more U.S. government-sponsored and regulated research of embryonic stem cells to prevent more science fraud.

And does the same go for genomics?

Craig Venter, as we noted the other day, is another superstar, and a private-sector profiteer. Should we be worried about people like him going rogue, too? We should. But we should be less concerned with the lapses and foibles of particular celebrity scientists than with the ethical implications of their science for us all...

Continues at Up@dawn
==
Best ever debunking of homeopathy by a broadcaster. Well done @JuliaHB1 (24/1/13) lbc.audioagain.com

Relax! You’ll Be More Productive

By TONY SCHWARTZ

To be at your peak, don’t work so much.

Why Can Some Kids Handle Pressure While Others Fall Apart?

By PO BRONSON and ASHLEY MERRYMAN

Scientists think bouts of panic in stressful situations can be traced to genetics. But don’t freak out. Biology is not necessarily destiny.

F.D.A. Demands More Tests of Novo Nordisk’s New Insulin to Gauge Heart Risks

By REUTERS

The request by the F.D.A. for more data on the heart risks of a diabetes drug will delay an important product for Novo Nordisk of Denmark.

Think Like a Doctor: A Confused and Terrified Patient Solved

Genetic Gamble

New approaches to fighting cancer.

A Race to Leukemia's Source

The Digital Doctor

How technology is changing the world of medicine.

• Redefining Medicine With Apps and iPads

Dr. Oz junk mail

I thought this was really funny. I was deleting my junk mail right after I posted about Group 4's case, and I noticed this was in there.

Clinical Trials

In yesterday's group discussion we were once again in agreement with what we considered to be the issue with clinical trials. Most of us decided that the issue with clinical trials is not the trials themselves, but like most other ethical problems, how they are regulated. In the book it stated that in order to be on a review board for clinical trials, all a person had to do was say "yes." If this is the case, then we were all against this method of admission, but unfortunately, we were not given enough evidence from Glenn McGee that this was true. We have all started questioning his validity.

Another issue was how easy it is to be on a clinical trial, and how the participants may not be that well informed about the trial. Basically McGee was saying that the only thing between the participant and researchers is a signed consent form. More education about the trials would definitely benefit the participant in knowing what to expect, but we discussed in class that many patients that are offered clinical trials may not have time to be educated,  or may not care either way. For example: a patient with stage four cancer or an Alzheimer's patient that will not remember anything they are taught.

We also talked about how being on a clinical trial is always a personal choice, or in some cases the last choice/option a person has. A person is most likely not going to be offered to be on a clinical trial if it may not possibly benefit them or others with the disease or health issue they have. Most people with diseases are willing to do anything to help the future of their disease.

As far as people getting paid to be on clinical trials, I believe that most of us didn't really have a problem with that. If you need the money, and are willing to take a risk, then why not?

[Amber]

(Sorry for the late post, totally forgot I was the writer for today!)

Fad diets, 3-D drugs

another #Bioethics topic we've not yet bitten into. Gluten-free is hot right now, but is it right?

Eat no wheat. That is the core, draconian commandment of a gluten-free diet, a prohibition that excises wide swaths of American cuisine — cupcakes, pizza, bread and macaroni and cheese, to name a few things. For the approximately one-in-a-hundred Americans who have a serious condition called celiac disease, that is an indisputably wise medical directive...

But what about the 99%? Gluten-Free for the Gluten Sensitive - NYTimes.com
==
Print your own drugs:

Chemist Lee Cronin is working on a 3D printer that, instead of objects, is able to print molecules. An exciting potential long-term application: printing your own medicine using chemical inks.

A professor of chemistry, nanoscience and chemical complexity, Lee Cronin and his research group investigate how chemistry can revolutionize modern technology and even create life

Clinical trials and Hippocritical oaths

We (group 3) addressed the immorality of doctors misinforming their patients in order to convince them to participate in clinical trials, or misleading them about the risks involved.
We all agreed that it is morally reprehensible and a flagrant violation of the hippocratic oath.  We could not even justify it trying to play devils advocate, The closest reason was using these practices to try and get a drug or procedure approved that was not particularly profitable but very helpful.  However, these practices would either make the trials show it was not useful, or cause the results to be falsified. One of which is counterproductive to the concept, the other is more unethical practices and causes question of the drug is really helpful.

In our agreement we shifted the conversation to the problem of profit.  How many potential "cures" never reach public use because the "treatment" is far more profitable than curing the individual.  We spoke on how companies are allowed to lobby and affect the laws of our country, and how that is probably not the thing we should be allowing as its people.

We also touched on genetics and both social and biological evolution and the paths we are taking as a species in both.

~Radiance

Group 2, NIH Conflict of Interest

Hey guys its Cassie, and today we talked about the case #10 which was about the NIH (which from what we gathered has some pharmaceutic researchers) and how the company told its employees that they cannot hold stock with the companies they are researching, because this would be a conflict of interest. Well, we decided that it would be far to implement this rule on ones employees except many of the employees has been relying on the stocks for income, kind of like giving someone a cookie and then taking it away  ->not cool.
We all pretty much agreed that the ability for the employees to hold stock needed to be eliminated, but this dilemma lead us into a few other conversations.
One conversation was how people look for a high paying job vs choosing a career that they would enjoy, while another about the definition of terrorism and how the terrorist in any situation... would be the people whom are opposing you.... no matter who you are!
Nicole noted a movie called "the Kingdom" that touched on the subject.

Even though our rabbit trails lead us to more rabbit trails, we all concluded that it would not be cool to have benefits taken away from you, like the employees of NIH, but we agreed it needed to be done for morale issues.  Some thoughts we had on helping to ease the situation would be to offer another benefit in its place...... but as Nick noted.... he did not think that telling the employees to stop buying stock from companies would actually keep them from doing it.... because they could just "give the money to an uncle and tell him to invest it for you". *shrug

Cas :)
(And we welcomed Michael to our group!)

Research Practices and Beyond! - Group 1

Glenn McGee uses researcher Hwang's mistake has an initiation for the conversation on responsible research. I think that he is a little heavy with placing blame on science students regarding unethical decisions.  It seems to me that if someone has made it to the position of researcher it is likely that they understand right from wrong and should not have to look to their boss, like a child to parent, on such a basic skill. Someone who is going to make the unethical decision of lying about results is likely to do it regardless of what their boss says. Kamron and Alex make good points too, in that NEW students should be engaged in critical thinking regarding research ethics.  

I think we can all agree that if someone is looking to one's management for guidance on their moral compass as an adult, they have probably missed something essential as a child. 

The group discussed other topics as well, and to keep from making this post a short novel I'll simply post them as my notes read from the discussion. Others can comment if they'd like regarding each. 

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It seems that we, as a societal collective, are becoming more a group of dependents rather than givers. 

Our country seems like it has a deep crack in its moral foundation. This is easy to see and have access to because of the media's love for airing immorality. It affects the attitude of many who see these types of actions on a daily basis; they may want to "act out" in order to get their own "fame". 

It is important to continue to think about those that are actually surviving thanks to the government's interventions rather than those that seek out easy alternatives and hand outs. 

Physicians are expected to be ethically elite and provide services that, at the base of the decision, are a simple, true good for their fellow man.  However, through out history, society has witnessed physicians who perform unethical procedures, in some cases with ill will.  In fact, there have been murderous doctors.  Sometimes I think it is easy to forget that medical professionals are people that struggle daily with ethical decisions in the same way you or I do. Should the existence of bad medicine break down patient confidence in all physicians or should we be able to continue to keep our romantic ideals of medicine when we enter the healthcare system?  The group discussed how this question affects patients in every decision and the practice of "Defensive Medicine" often becomes a waste of resources as physicians have to be weary of pleasing patients to avoid claims of malpractice. 

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-Tim

Group 3 : Spuria Sanguis

I hope I conjugated my Latin right. Anyway, I know I'm not the author this time around, but I think we may have encountered technical difficulties. The ethics of our case didn't necessarily focus on the ethics of blood substitutes per se, but rather the ethics in which they are being presented to the public, which raises an eyebrow or two. Tests and commentary on the reliability of the products being manufactured are scant or entirely nonexistent,  meaning we are dealing with a contingent product that could mean the difference between the life and death of a noncommunicative, rational actor. We agreed if the victim, patient, or otherwise rational actor or custodian of said actor can communicate the will of the victim by sign or contract, it's a different story entirely, but otherwise it would be unjust to deviate from the ordinary realm of treatment to a contingent product without other specification.

Is Dr. Oz Doing More Harm Than Good?

We're talking bad science in #Bioethics today, with @Glenn_McGee, @BenGoldacre, and Michael Specter:

“...Either data works or it doesn’t,” I said. “Science is supposed to answer, or at least address, those questions. Surely you don’t think that all information is created equal?”

Oz sighed. “Medicine is a very religious experience,” he said. “I have my religion and you have yours. It becomes difficult for us to agree on what we think works, since so much of it is in the eye of the beholder. Data is rarely clean.” All facts come with a point of view. But his spin on it—that one can simply choose those which make sense, rather than data that happen to be true—was chilling. “You find the arguments that support your data,” he said, “and it’s my fact versus your fact...” 

Michael Specter: Is Dr. Oz Doing More Harm Than Good? : The New Yorker

Bad science

all our cases today in #Bioethics raise issues of integrity, bad science,  bad research practices, and how to protect the vulnerable and desperate from being victimized by insult and injury, on top of ill health. “Bad science” is Ben Goldacre‘s beat... @bengoldacre

Continues at Up@dawn

the Public vs Stem Cells

[by William Phillips] In our short class discussion, we covered the multiple avenues of stem cell research, as well as the issues' relationship with abortion and the public eye. Within our own ranks, no one was opposed to stem cell research, and we all agreed that its opposition was rooted in ignorance, and that an informed public would definitely be in favor of further research and implementation. However, we did run into a slight confusion about the definition of "human" and the point of life in relation to appeasing religious groups. Coincidentally, our biggest derision was not about the research itself, but it's political context. What would the pharmaceutical companies do to compensate for losses, how could we implement stem cell research into our current health care system without losing profits, and should implementation be decided on a state or federal level? These questions remained relatively unanswered and, in my opinion, are definitely the more pertinent questions for proponents.

Group 2 Case 6

Today's case was focussed on the topic of memory mapping technology. The author puzzles over the idea of a perfect memory and whether or not it should be sought after. McGee quotes several authors on their opinions of memory and its effects on the human experience. The majority of this case seems to be McGee's opinion of the process of applying technology to the mind. I found this to be disappointing because I hoping to learn more about this technology.

Personally I think that the combination of computer technology and the human mind is extremely exciting and I hope that I get to experience it soon. In my experience technological advances have improved my life and my educational progress. Being able to access information quickly, through the internet, has made my work more productive. I can only imagine that having access to my own memories and possibly other information will benefit me greatly.

Our group discussion in class focussed on what effect technology in your mind would have on you. Cas was interested in whether having a technological mind might effect a person's artistic side. Nick commented that the mind can only process so much information at once, so could this technology be overwhelming. I was curious as to whether or not you would be able to access this while  you were asleep. If so, would this change human existence? Could future generations be productive while they sleep?

The logistics of this technology was also in question. People were curious about the form this idea might take. Would there be something installed in the mind or would the mind itself be the equipment.

Group One: Case Five

On Contraception:

1. There is a clear line between drugs that aid and drugs that conquer; for example, over the counter drugs addressing cold symptoms, allergies, and other common bodily "inconveniences" help reduce the discomfort while the body maintains control of the process. For example, taking dayquil for the flu does not replace the body's immune system in the Innate Immune Response or Adaptive. Instead, it allows the body to continue its work, while reducing physical symptoms so that the patient maintains activity. 
2. To address the first issue the author contemplates; we must decide whether contraception is an "aid" or a "conquerer". Does the pill, Seasonale, and Lybrel help address discomforting symptoms like cramping and emotional "swings" or does it "eliminate" them completely.
3. Designating what the drug is meant to do, and comparing it to what it actually does would allow us to designate its "unnatural" or "acceptable unnaturalness". 
4. Like cigarettes in the 60s; the effects of tobacco were studied sufficiently, however, the addition of tar, nicotine, and other chemicals in cigarettes were not common knowledge during the time. Cigarettes were considered an acceptable risk because the harm they caused was smaller than the stress they satisfied. However, after extensive research and serious physiological diseases becoming more visible and linked to cigarette smoking, the product's image has completely changed, and so has the public's attraction to it.
5. In my opinion, one of very little value given that the matter in no way applies to a man's body, I imagine that we should maintain the body's functionality and focus on addressing the symptoms rather than curing the process and ridding women of it. I'm not scientifically adequate to appropriately make the following statement but feel confident in its truthful value: "if the body, without any outside interference, requires a monthly excretion of its filtered fluid than shutting off that mechanism seems quite dangerous."
6. While we're at it; peeing and pooping are also quite an inconvenience, maybe one day we'll find a way to stop those too. Imagine all the extra room you'll have in your bathroom when you don't need a toilette lol