REFLECT ON ONE OF THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS FOR YOUR NEXT BLOG:
One of the arguments against giving people legal ownership of their tissues is summarized in the following quote from David Korn, vice provost for research at Harvard University: “I think people are morally obligated to allow their bits and pieces to be used to advance knowledge to help others. Since everybody benefits, everybody can accept the small risks of having their tissue scraps used in research.” However, in a profit-driven health care system, all citizens do not have equal access to the treatments and medications made possible by tissue and cell research. What are the intended and unintended consequences of a profit-driven health care system?
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Discuss the process of scientific inquiry in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Examine the often contradictory forces of altruism and profit as they influenced research related to HeLa. What are the risks and benefits of allowing profit to guide research? What are the obstacles involved with conducting research purely for altruistic reasons? (Random House)
Private ownership is a tantamount principle that underlies the idea of a profit based economy. It is the trading of privately owned goods and services that drives a free market. Another essential component of the principle of profit based economics is that altruism and philanthropy are practiced by those who already have more than enough. People who live under more dire circumstances can hardly afford to be as generous.
ReplyDeleteIn a profit base health care system, only those with the means to afford the necessary care and novel procedures will benefit from the efforts of researchers and medical experts. It can be argued that as time passes and procedures become more common , the general population will have more access to them. However mortality rates due to common infections and malpractice in inner cities would indicate otherwise. Not everybody benefits from medical advancements.
David Korn demands that people should willingly give away their tissues for the overall common welfare. He claims that everyone benefits from the exchange and that it is a moral duty to do so. His argument might hold some weight if he was speaking in another world. In this one, the concepts of profit and morality are incompatible to say the least. If the system is not prepared or willing to provide due aid to those who helped initiate research with their 'bits and pieces', then the morality argument is nullified.
With a profit-driven health care system, regardless of intended or unintended consequences, the persons receiving the health care are not considered. When the main concern of the system is be a profitable entity, the people you're providing to are not of importance so long as they are paying their health care. This system is one that has existed long before Henriette Lack's time and present day.
ReplyDeleteTo an extent, our health care system is steered by large companies, but at the core of these companies are people who care. I think that these systems understand the intended consequence, that providing to people who can only fork over large amounts of money for coverage means many people go without proper medical care. In the United States, millions of people live without the ability to even go for a routine check up, because they cannot afford insurance. During Henrietta's time, care was provided at John Hopkin's medical center, but I feel that she did not receive the same treatment had she been a paying customer to the system. Health care systems are aware that their is a large variance in the quality of care they provide, all depending on how much money they are paid by the person. Although Henrietta was lucky to have the ability to receive free care, her life may have taken a different path with better quality attention.
What I do not think profit health care systems expect as a consequence is how low the quality of care is for those receiving cheap health care. As stated before, the people at the core of these systems are humans who feel like any other, they have set a standard to ensure people are treated decently. Whether this happens now or during Henrietta's time is questionable.
Profit driven health care systems understand that they fail to provide health care universally, but excuse that with the fact that these people not receiving benefits cannot pay them what they want. They do not understand , I think, the harm they inflict on a huge part of the poor or lower class people who do not have the means to pay for health care. The system really needs to reconsider the amounts they charge for basic benefits at the doctors and moreover for other treatments, like chemo for cancer patients. The chance of surviving an illness should not be determined by the amount of money provided.
David Korn is an advocate for tissue and cell research, his intentions are for the greater good of mankind but, he uses the word "everybody" too vaguely. In Rebecca Skloot's book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks she writes about the consequences of profit driven heath care system and medical research ethics in the 1950's. Henrietta was diagnosed with cervical cancer at John Hopkin's Hospital, her doctor took samples from her cervix for medical research without her consent. Which later, boomed into a multi-million dollar industry and provided us now with what we know about polio vaccine, chemotherapy, large-scale cell line production and many others techniques developed from "HeLa" cells.
ReplyDeleteHenrietta was born as a poor girl and raised as a tobacco field picker, with no access to education and heath care due to the color of her skin. In these times "colored" people where economically disadvantaged, John Hopkins hospital was in a remote area which was not easily accessible. She suffered the most through the unethical conduct of her medical doctor but, her family suffered the consequences of a profit driven heath care system.
Although, George Get motives where non profit driven, It where his fellow colleagues that make those selfish and profit driven motives. When Richard Nixon the president of that time provides funding for cancer cell research, he expects to find the cure with in 5 years. This gives all the cancer cell researchers pressure and this causes them to stray away from their morals and finish the race. Southam is a well know researcher, he believes cancer is a vaccine. So he begins to inject cancerious cells into cancer patients, healthy prisoners, and every gynecological surgery patients most without any formal consent form. Although, lack of knowledge about cancer and its ways to prevent it are still largerly unknown, no one benefits from that type of treatment and society perceives research as taboo.
If people are morally obligated to allow bits and pieces of themselves to be used to advance knowledge to help others. Then others are morally obligated to help anyone who needs help. When we start to talking about advancing as a whole we need to remember that we do not normally do so. We stand divided in our different socio economic statuses. Those with money will get to have the best that science has to offer. Those who do not have enough money will remain unable to get help.
ReplyDeleteWe talk about Universal health care for everyone. But is it something everyone wants. With universal care for everyone comes higher taxes. Taxes that only increase with the more money a person makes. And if scientist are the people profiting from the "advancement" of science then if anything they should be the one who support universal health care the most. But that is not the case.
Our health systems are profit driven. No one wants to help others without getting what they are due in return. So why should people from low-income households give and contribute so greatly and yet not get anything in return except the good consciences that their contribution to science might one day lead to the cure for a disease that they never heard of?
Our system seems to want to use the uneducated without giving back to them. The intended consequence of a profit driven health care system is that someone wants to profit, people will be asked for a certain fee, and not everyone will be able to afford it. The unintentional consequences is that people who can't afford the treatments will suffer and if the disease is severe enough those people will die without release from the pain.