Viviane Bearing

While reading through Mrs. Lyons’ lectures, and perusing both the ‘Ethical and Regulatory Aspects of Clinical Research’ and ‘Ethics and the Pharmaceutical Industry’ textbooks, while dissecting the minutiae that permeates all the ethical policies we have come across during the span of this course – The Common Rule, The Council for International Organization of Medical Sciences and its ethical guidelines, the role of purpose, power, profit in medical research, the extent to which rule, purpose and ethos dictate the balance of this fragile ethical framework, a framework that depends predominately on those in power heeding these policies, we can lose sight of the big picture, what this means for a research subject. In the attempts to masters these concepts, one can lose sight, one can forget, one can begin to ignore, the very thing these ethical constructs seek to protect – humans. Humans that are physically and emotionally fragile. Humans that with one artfully placed blow, whether physical or emotional, can be irreparably …show more content…
The film recounts Viviane’s fierce and unwavering battle against the disease. We bear witness, as Viviane falls down the barrel of a microscope. With each passing minute we observe as she becomes less and less human, and transforms into nothing more than a specimen. We watch as her physician, Dr. Kelekian, preys upon her eagerness to survive this disease, and selects her for countless experimental drug campaigns, most which bear little to no fruits, and only succeed in further isolating our already lonely protagonist. The film does well, in allowing us to witness all aspects of Viviane’ life. Alternating between past and present, we observe, with a jeweler’s eye, paramount moments in Viviane’s life that made her the woman that she is