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Dominic Wilkinson

Anaesthe-steak™: pain-free meat and the welfare paradox

A recent article in the New Scientist raises the prospect that alongside ‘gluten-free’, ‘GM free’, ‘sugar free’, and ‘dairy free’ our supermarket shelves may soon contain ‘pain-free’ meat. American philosopher Adam Shriver, writing in Neuroethics, argues that everyone concerned with animal welfare should support the replacement of animals used in factory farming with livestock genetically modified to have reduced sensitivity to pain. (See here and here for blogs discussing Shriver's suggestion). However, many find the idea of developing ‘pain knockout’ animals disquieting or frankly disturbing. In a survey of attitudes towards the development of pain-free animals (for laboratory experimentation) vegetarians and members of the animal protection community were strongly opposed to such an idea. The strongest opposition to the development of pain-free animals may, paradoxically, come from those who have traditionally been most concerned about animal suffering.

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Premature death or wrongful death?

A headline in the Daily Mail from yesterday highlights the cost of over treatment for extremely premature and marginally viable infants.

    “Parents cause infant to suffer by forcing doctors to give futile treatment”.

Despite doctors counselling a set of parents that their 22 week gestation premature infant (born 4 ½ months early) had virtually no chance of survival, the parents insisted that Warren* be actively resuscitated and treated in intensive care and threatened legal action if doctors refused. Warren received chest compressions in the delivery room and was put on a breathing machine. He developed holes in his fragile lung and had multiple drain tubes inserted into his chest. Warren’s thin skin tore and broke even with gentle handling, and he developed patches of skin loss, like second degree burns, on his trunk and limbs. He developed bleeding in the centre of his brain, and on the 5th day of life perforated his bowel from infection. He died the following day. Meanwhile, 2 infants born prematurely in the same hospital were unable to be accommodated in intensive care because of lack of beds and had to be transferred to another hospital 1 hour away. One of those infants became unstable during the ambulance transfer and developed additional complications. Lawyers representing Warren are now considering legal action against the doctors and against his parents.

But of course, that wasn’t the real headline or case in the Daily Mail, and legal action such as that described is not likely to take place.

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Telling porkies: should the doctor tell her patient where the medicine comes from?

In a column in the New York Times this week Randy Cohen fields a question from an anaesthetist. Should the doctor ask a devoutly religious patient whether he minds that his anticoagulant (heparin) is derived from pigs? In reply Cohen suggests that the doctrine of informed consent requires the doctor to consider the non-medical preferences of the patient and make sure Muslims, Jews and vegetarians know where their medicine is coming from.

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The party line and the flu-line

It has emerged over the weekend that the UK government ignored the advice of a key panel of scientific advisors in the formulation of its pandemic response. The panel advised against the mass prescription of antivirals (Tamiflu) because of the fear that this would accelerate resistance of the virus (see also this previous post in the pandemic ethics series). An expert in influenza, Hugh Pennington, has even called for the national flu hotline to be shut down. It appears that the government may have been influenced in its pandemic response by political sensitivities.

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A change of heart

Earlier this week fourteen-year old Hannah Jones received a heart transplant. This is eight months after Hannah hit the news for her refusal to have the surgery. There was much debate in the media (including this blog) at the time about whether or not teenagers should be allowed to refuse life-saving treatment, though overall there was a lot of support for Hannah’s decision.

But in the last week Hannah has apparently changed her mind, and elected to have the surgical procedure. What is the significance of this for the decision to go along with her earlier choice? Hannah might well have died in the last 8 months, in which case she would never have had a chance to rethink her position on transplants. Does the fact that she has now changed her mind give us more reason, in future, to overrule similar patients who are declining live-saving treatment?

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Feetility – should we pay egg and sperm donors?

Lisa Jardine, the head of the UK Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, has called for public debate about paying egg or sperm donors. Currently donors are given a maximum of £250 in reimbursement for expenses. But donation rates have fallen in recent years, at least in part related to changes in rules in 2005 preventing donor anonymity. As a consequence a significant number of patients seeking donor egg or sperm for in-vitro fertilisation have been forced to travel overseas. In essence Jardine suggests that a regulated local market in donor eggs and sperm may be better than unregulated fertility tourism.

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Pandemic ethics: Mild flu and Tamiflu – the patient’s dilemma

In recent days there have been reports of a jump in the number of cases of H1N1 influenza (swine flu) in the UK. There have been 29 deaths associated with pandemic influenza in the UK, and there are 652 people in hospital in England with the flu. Faced with the prospect of primary health care services becoming overwhelmed, the government has set up a telephone hotline to allow those affected by the flu to access antiviral drugs (for example oseltamivir or Tamiflu) without needing to see a doctor. But there are also suggestions that not all patients with flu-like symptoms should be treated. Patients with mild or vague symptoms of the flu, without other medical conditions that put them at particular risk, may not be given medication.

This sets up a problem for patients who develop mild flu-like symptoms. Although there is only a small chance of them becoming seriously ill or dying from the flu it is possible that early treatment with anti-virals would reduce that risk. (Antivirals were only effective in trials if given in the first 48 hours of illness) Should they demand treatment from their doctor in the hope of avoiding a serious complication of influenza? Should they exaggerate their symptoms? If the doctor refuses, should the patient self-treat with medications that they have obtained privately (for example over the internet)? There is a form of the classic prisoner’s dilemma involved in such questions.

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Informed consent in the Googlesphere

Here's an interesting snippet

But there's also the fact that Google is stuffed full of people who just love to experiment on its users. For instance, Google Mail uses a very slightly different blue for links than the main search page. Its engineers wondered: would that change the ratio of clickthroughs? Is there an "ideal" blue that encourages clicks? To find out, incoming users were randomly assigned between 40 different shades of links – from blue-with-green-ish to blue-with-blue-ish. It turned out blue-ness encouraged clicks more than green-ness. Who would have guessed? And who would have cared? Google, of course, which wants to get people clicking around the net.

I take this sort of experimentation as utterly, boringly unproblematic

But on one view – this is surreptitious experimentation without consent including randomisation.

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Pandemic ethics: Party to the flu (or vigilante vaccination)

A public health expert has warned yesterday against the idea of swine-flu parties, arguing that it may undermine the fight against the emerging pandemic. But others, including James Delingpole in the Telegraph have embraced the idea, hoping that mild influenza now will protect against more serious illness later. Exposure parties might be thought of as a form of vigilante vaccination against influenza.

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