The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Ethical Book Critique Andrea Burroughs University of Alabama at Birmingham Introduction The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks was written by Rebecca Skloot who is from Springfield, Illinois. She is an award winning science writer. She first became familiar with the name Henrietta Lacks and HeLa in her college biology class. She was so intrigued with the information her professor Dr. Defler provided that she immediately went home to research more about this and searched the topic “cell culture” in her biology textbook index.…
The pharmaceutical industry spends billions of dollars every year with the intent…
Bad, the product of good. Science is evolving. Each day, new inventions, discoveries are made. Most of them is good.…
White House. “White House Precision Medicine Initiative.” National Archives and Records Administration. National Archives and Record Administration, 26 May 2016. Web.…
“The Bitter Pill” starts off with an acrimonious tale of how a man that was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma ended up borrowing from his in-law to pay for his exorbitant cancer treatments. After I picked my jaw from my desk, I started pondering what could the cancer treatment breakdown be that warrants the price to be so high? I, of course, am aware of how corrupt the healthcare system is in the US, but, to what extent, not so much. The medical jargon used in the hospital bill, along with the codes and symbols is indicative of how confusing the healthcare system is to their patients, and sometimes, unfortunately, their litigants. The seven or so months it took for Brill to conduct his research using bills from hospitals, doctors, drug…
Cancerette At night, dogs move around the streets with their huge paws hitting the pavement as they wander around jerking at their pollution stained chains. Their masters walk next to them holding their thick ringed chains. These people were called the guards. The city was dark and distroyed as any other place would be at this time. Its filled with old-fashion glass and steal shaped by decades of destruction and chaos.…
The doctors no longer manage their patient’s care and are told by insurance companies what tests can be done, what medications to use and have been burdened with unending paperwork due to the new laws. Medications that have been proven helpful are often denied by insurance companies. We should be aware of the conflict of interest of insurance companies having stock in the drugs that they do…
The issue is the one-size-fits all approach. The reason that is the issue is because, it can lead to over treatment in diabetic case and their studying other cases as well. I am interested in this topic because, partnerships bring together people with different skills and different experiences, and maybe even different points of view. These are the types of partnerships we need in the medical workforce to help solve for other health needs. I am concerned about the new medicines that doctors are trying to test on patients because they haven't been tested yet.…
The documentary, Orgasm, Inc, discusses the evolution of “female dysfunction disorder” and how this had inevitably led to the medicalization of female sexuality. The filmmaker, Liz Canner, begins by explaining how it was in the first place that she came about studying female sexual dysfunction “for nine years” and how this led her in making a documentary exposing the pharmaceutical companies’ roles in making profit by creating and defining the very diseases they “claim” to be able to cure. Canner was asked by the pharmaceutical company “Vivus,” to “put together erotic video for use during the testing of their new drug.” She explains how, because Vivus lost the fight against Viagra in creating the most widely popular used drug to treat male…
Moynihan, Heath and Henry argue that the pharmaceutical industry capitalises on the want of consumers to eliminate undesirable conditions. They claim that pharmaceutical companies partake in “disease mongering”: that is, they fabricate new diseases by “widening the boundaries of treatable illness”. Critics such as Healy and Dossey agree with this claim. However, I will argue that, although not unfounded, the claim that pharmaceutical companies are guilty of disease mongering is not justified. I will argue that the definition of disease presented by Moynihan, Heath and Henry does not conform to the accepted definition of disease.…
The evolution of health care and pharmaceutical regulation in this country began prior to the creation of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Throughout history there have been key events that have occurred resulting in pivotal changes in health care regulation. From the formation of the FDA to the passing of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), there has been a focus of safety and consumer protection as purpose for increased of health care regulation in United States. Several events laid the groundwork for the formation of the FDA. It was theorized that many American soldiers lost their lives during the Mexican-American war due to the use of adulterated medications.…
She doesn’t want to miss out on things in life, such as playing hockey, that she wouldn’t normally have to if she wasn’t born for the sole purpose of keeping her sister alive. However, if I was in Anna’s situation I would have donated everything I could to my sister to keep her alive. The difference is that Anna had been donating since the day she was born, and I’ve never had to donate anything or give anything up because of it. Since we find out in the end that Anna wanted to donate and that Kate wanted her to fight against it so she could die, I found that I differed from Anna’s character in this aspect of the book. I wouldn’t have listened to my sister and I would have tried even harder to keep her alive.…
When patents on genes were first granted it stirred up quite a controversy, since then there have been quite a bit of papers that support and oppose gene patenting. In their respective articles, Michael Crichton and John E. Calfee both discuss the controversial topic of gene patents; however Crichton is against gene patents and Calfee is for gene patents as an economist and brings up the pros of gene patents in his article. In their articles both of them talk about obtaining a patent from the United States Patent Office, how gene patents affect researching in areas that are patented, and how gene patents can affect medical cost. In “Patenting Life” Crichton says the “bizarre situation” of gene patents began when the “understaffed and underfinanced” U.S. Patent Office made a mistake and misinterpreted previous Supreme Court rulings (4).…
Cassandra C. is a 17-year-old girl who was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Cassandra C. refused treatment for her cancer with the full support of her mother, Jackie Fortin, and their decisions pitted them against Cassandra’s doctors, the lower court system, and eventually the Connecticut Supreme Court (Macklin, 2015). This paper discusses the ethical dilemma posed by Cassandra’s case and will include the ethical principles of patient autonomy, which means “that individuals have the right to determine their own actions and the freedom to make their own decisions” (Black & Chitty, 2013, pg. 97), beneficence, which means “the doing of good” (Black & Chitty, 2013, pg. pg. 97), and nonmaleficence, which is defined “as the duty to do no harm”…
Why is Health Care Expensive? Today’s world revolves around money, whether it be for food, clothing, or bills. Hospital visits involve an extreme amount of money and appears to increase each day. People visit hospitals for illness, check-ups, broken bones, etc.…