Blog #2

Maria Vazquez

Writing Workshop: Blog 2

3 August 2012

            Profit-driving health system is a very controversial issue. One of the biggest arguments against giving tissue ownership to people is what David Korn once said that donation of tissue is many times driven by a morality in order to gain knowledge and to help others while everyone may benefit from it. Although it is well know that a lot of people do not have health care, consequently they do not have access to treatment and medication which was produced from cell research.  It has also been known that in many cases discrimination in the health care system existed based on class.  This is shown in many different scenarios in the book “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot.  Rebecca states ‘They recruited hundreds of African-American men with syphilis, then watched them die slow. They were poor and uneducated …[R]esearchers chose black subjects because they, like many whites at the time, believe black people were “a notoriously syphilis soaked race.”’ (50). This shows us how discrimination in health care system was present in the 1950’s and how the researchers were able to observe people die as they  observed  the different stages of syphilis. Also, this indicate that they were very intelligent in the way they attracted people in order to make sure that the people were the most susceptible because of their needs.

            One may also argue that people should have the right to decide whether or not to allow researchers to do further studies in either tissue or blood sample. However, one may also say that it is also important to inculcate donation of tissue for new medical advance because this will benefit others. One should be able to donate a bit part of him or her without expecting a profit from it since if someday this gesture helps in the discovery of cure for a disease. This should be more gratifying than any monetary stimulation.

            On the other hand, it is well know that our health system is profit driven, since all people are not equal to the system. Many people cannot afford health insurance and in consequence they do not have access to medication or treatment. Moreover, pharmaceutical companies are also known to be profit organization which allows for the main focus to shift to selling their product. One could say that this is understandable since the researchers and workers from the pharmaceutical company had done all the work they should be more interested in the sales and the profit from a specific drug in the market.       

            Moreover, going back to the 1950’s and to Henrietta Lacks story, some of the research that was done at the time was very unethical since research was not regulated at the time and very cruel situations were known. One example is when George Hyatt, a Navy doctor created a wound a volunteer office’s arm and place the cells across the officer’s hand. The cells grown but Hyatt found out that the cell were cancerous cells. Hyatt intension for this unethical study was that doctors could use skin-cell transplant to treat wounds. One can say that the drive of this study was mainly fame along with profit. Another unethical issue in the book was when a virologist named Chester Southam injected people with HeLa (cancerous) cells in order to see if the humans will grow tumors knowing the rats in his lab did. However, people did not know they were being injected with cancerous cells and what he told them was that he was testing their immune system. This indicate the importance of regulation regarding research it is very important to be ethical no matter the field.