Fears of the spread of pandemic influenza in the UK continue to grow. Three apparently previously healthy patients have died here. There are now plans for widespread immunisation later in the year – though initially this is likely to be restricted to those at highest risk, and those in 'vital' professions.
Who should be vaccinated? This is a question of distributive justice.
Australian Graeme Clark developed the cochlear implant, or bionic ear, in the 1970s. It does not amplify sound but directly stimulates any functioning auditory nerves in the inner ear. The Australian Government has promised a screening program of all babies for deafness from 2011. At present, only 70 percent children who might benefit are picked up early. The earlier deafness is detected, the more effective treatment can be.
Lobby group Deaf Australia says the implant "implies that deaf people are ill or incomplete individuals, are lonely and unhappy, cannot communicate effectively with others and are all desperately searching for a cure for their condition. [This] demeans deaf people, belittles their culture and language and makes no acknowledgment of the diversity of lives deaf people lead, or their many achievements."
Some deaf parents have denied their children cochlear implants. Is this right?
Research recently published in Nature suggests that the drug rapamycin may have the potential to extend human life span by decades: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8139816.stm
If the life is of ‘positive’ value, it might seem obvious that the drug is worth taking. But not everyone would agree. The Hellenistic philosopher Epicurus famously argued that, since it marks the end of conscious life, ‘death nothing to us’. Fearing death makes as much sense as regretting you weren’t around for all that time before your birth.
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.
Read More »Pandemic ethics: Party to the flu (or vigilante vaccination)
Japanese researchers have genetically modified marmoset monkeys, and demonstrated that the modification can be inherited by their offspring. The modification was the standard green fluorescent protein making the monkey's glow green under UV light, a marker to demonstrate that the modification worked (BBC shows a picture of their feet glowing "an eerie green", while the picture in Nature's News and Views shows the cute monkeys in normal light and the original paper shows both). The long-term aim is to be able to produce transgenic primates that could act as disease models for humans – many conditions do not map well onto mice and rats. But is it acceptable to introduce heritable illness conditions into animals?
Recently in
the news, a report published by the independent think-tank Demos reminds us of
the importance of the capacity for self-control (it also mentions empathy, to
which most of the following remarks apply) in determining life outcomes. It
argues that self-control lessons should be taught at school if children,
particularly from deprived backgrounds, are to be given the tools they need to
succeed in life – low-self-control has for instance been shown to positively
correlate with length of unemployment or criminal behaviour, and negatively
with academic achievement. The report echoes renewed interest in the United
States in a now famous experiment by Walter Mischel on deferred gratification,
dating back to the late 1960s. Mischel tested the capacity of a group of
four-year olds to resist the temptation to eat straightaway a marshmallow he
had given them. The children who were able to refrain turned out to be better
adjusted, more dependable and to do better academically on the whole later in
life.
The report
by Demos makes important points and its proposals deserve to be supported.
Nevertheless, even if they are put into practice, we might still feel concerned
about how effective we can expect them to be. There is indeed a body of
evidence suggesting that the capacity for self-control is to a large extent
genetically determined (Wright & Beaver, 2005; Beaver & al., 2009).
Read More »Self-control matters – but to what extent can it be taught?
Designer babies are in the news again. The LA Fertility Institutes, headed by a 1970s IVF pioneer, have offered the opportunity for potential parents to choose traits such as the eye and hair colour of their children: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7918296.stm Unsurprisingly, slippery slope arguments have already begun to appear: http://www.theage.com.au/world/la-delivers-first-designerbaby-clinic-20090302-8meq.html Marcy Darnovsky, director of the Centre for… Read More »Designer Babies and Slippery Slopes
In an opinion piece on the BBC website this week Professor Simon Baron-Cohen has questioned the wisdom of adopting pre-natal screening for autism, raising the possibility that it would prevent the existence of future great mathematicians. This is a variant of a common objection to pre-natal testing or to genetic enhancement.
Read More »The Lost Genius objection to pre-natal testing for autism
Viagra may not just be a performance enhancer in the bedroom, but also on the sports arena. Researchers are studying whether it helps dilate athlete’s blood vessels and improve their oxygen-carrying capacity. If it is found to improve performance it will likely be put it on the list of banned substances for athletes. But should it?
Read More »Keeping Viagra in the bedchamber and out of the arena?
Following
the announcement last week that Oxford University’s controversial Biomedical
Sciences building
is now complete and will be open for business in mid-2009, the ethical issues
surrounding the use of animals for scientific experimentation have been
revisited in the media—see, for example, here ,
here,
and here.
The number
of animals used per year in scientific experiments worldwide has been estimated
at 200 million—well in excess of the population of Brazil and over three times that of the United Kingdom. If we take the importance of an ethical issue
to depend in part on how many subjects it affects, then, the ethics of animal
experimentation at the very least warrants consideration alongside some of the
most important issues in this country today, and arguably exceeds them in
importance. So, what is being done to address
this issue?
Read More »Animal experimentation: morally acceptable, or just the way things always have been?
