Blog #2

The process of scientific inquiry in the immortal life of Henrietta Lacks really amazed me. This happened some time ago, but sill not so long from when I was born and it amazes me how new a lot of medical procedures, drugs and research are. What I didn’t like was when the duty of mass culturing cells got taken over by businessmen. But I feel that this was bound to happen because of simple supply and demand. The HeLa cells were a scientific breakthrough and were so easy to produce, it made sense to mass produce for profit. I definitely am not in favor of big business but living in a capitalistic society things like these are bound to happen, this is an extremely smart move for any business man. As the story continues more history of research was brought about, for instance the men at the Ohio state prison. The researcher used prisoners who agreed to be used as subjects. Although he apparently received consent to practice on them I still do not feel that all the men n jail regardless of criminal history should be targeted. Some were interviewed later claiming to be doing this to payback society for all they have done. I do not feel that every subject in the jail willingly participated in the research. I feel there were small, ridiculous incentives that a man with no rights would be willing to take in exchange for being used as a subject. Also, the same research Chester Southam conducted more research on humans. He began to inject cancer cells into patients without telling them. Again I feel certain people were targeted and that even when sick couldn’t do much to defend and take care of themselves. When he went to trial, he defended himself and his beliefs saying that cancer isn’t such a bad thing, yet telling people would cause fear in them and would possibly cause patients to reject participation in the study. When he was finally brought to trial, not much changed. He was put on probation for a year, and then became the president of the American Association for Cancer Research. He was one of the few public cases, but I cannot even begin to imagine how many cases weren’t exposed. The Numberg trials, showed the disgusting possibilities that were occurring and I am sure they were even worse. But it leads me to think, was this all nessecary for where we are today. We know so much more than we did hundreds of years ago, but within these last 60 years the medical and science industry has been booming. We have amazing medical machines, procedures, and drugs to treat so many diseases and viruses. Is this all possible because of these few scientists that had questions, and didn’t hold back in trying to answer them. There are many sides to the story; the same goes in this time 2012. I am working in a lab where we conduct a study on rabbits, which I personally do not care much for. I see animals as life, just as see humans. They have personalities, but little rights. We have tons of restrictions when dealing with them, but still they are used to test on, kept in cages. And are deprived of a life, they were created for our research, that is all. It hurts me growing up in a family with dogs that grew up with my family and I. Yet I want to go into research and study metabolism and the body, and possibly my best subjects will be animals. This is where is face decisions, and either change my mentality about animal subjects, or attempt to study it differently.  Therefore in conclusion I feel that there are many risks when conducting research as well as benefits. One of the biggest risks is endangering numerous people’s lives and health. This can also hurt families, because they can pass it on to next generations, which can mutate and become something else. Sadly, it can be very beneficial to the medical, and pharmaceutical companies because this drives their research and allows better breakthroughs and medicines, which in turn produces enormous amounts of profit.  Yes, it benefits the people because it can cure diseases, and fight off bacteria, and kill viruses, but we all know how insurance companies work, and that’s another problem.