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Julian Savulescu’s Posts

Going Green Makes You Mean … and Distracts You

When doing something is worse than doing nothing
By: Julian Savulescu

According to a study reported in the Guardian, when people feel they have been morally virtuous by saving the planet through their purchases of organic baby food, for example, it leads to the "licensing [of] selfish and morally questionable behaviour", otherwise known as "moral balancing" or "compensatory ethics". The article came under the wonderful heading, “How going green may make you mean.”

How should an ethicist respond to yet another psychological study of human limitations? Some would no doubt argue that personal ethics should global, not local. Living ethically is a way of life, not an individual choice. That ethics should infuse all our choices, etc, etc

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The Great Egg Raffle – Why Everyone’s a Winner If We Price Life and Body Parts

By: Julian Savulescu

Imagine someone offered you £1 000 000 to cross a busy road. There is a small chance you might lose your life or a limb. But most people would accept the chance. I certainly would. We do that kind of thing every day for trivial reasons, such as to buy a packet of cigarettes or a pint of beer that might also kill us.

Would you be exploited if you crossed the road for a million dollars? Hardly. You were lucky to get such an offer that you judged made it worth crossing the busy road. After all, you could have stayed put or even crossed the road for nothing.

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Our Lethal Moral Ideals: Having a Child to Save Another

By: Julian Savulescu

In an article in the New York Times, Lisa Belkin relates the story of Laurie Strongin Allen Goldberg who tried to use PGD to create a sibling to provide bone marrow to treat their son, Henry, suffering from Fanconi anemia. Congress, however, shut down the lab that was working on P.G.D., calling it illegal stem-cell research. “That led to an 18-month delay that may well have cost Henry his life. Laurie went through nine in vitro fertilization cycles before and after that pause, and each time the embryos transferred were not only free of the genetic flaw that threatened Henry but were also his bone-marrow match. Nine attempts failed to take, and Henry had to settle for an imperfectly matched unrelated donor. He died in 2002 at the age of 7.”

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Suicide woman allowed to die

By Julian Savulescu

As read about in the Telegraph, doctors allowed 26-year-old Kerrie Wooltorton to die after she swallowed poison and gave them a letter instructing them not to intervene.

 

Reference:  Savulescu J. Should All Patients Who Attempt Suicide Be Treated? Modern Medicine 1995; Feb:113-120.  Reprinted in: Monash Bioethics Review 1995; 14: 33-40. With reply to critics: Savulescu, J. "Response to Bailey." Monash Bioethics Review 1996; 15: 44-5.

Should All Patients Who Attempt Suicide Be Treated?

Summary

Some patients who attempt suicide refuse treatment.  These patients are invariably treated if brought to hospital.  There are several reasons for this.  These reasons justify the treatment of many of these patients, but not all.  Some patients who attempt suicide ought to be allowed to die.  My argument for this claim turns on judging some patients who attempt suicide to be sufficiently competent and rational to be allowed to die. 

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Pandemic Vaccination: Who to Vaccinate?

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.

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Refusing Cochlear Implants: Is It Child Neglect?

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?

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Why We Need a War on Aging

Based on presentation given at 2009 World Economic Forum in the Live Long and Prosper session, January 28, 2009 by Professor Julian Savulescu.

  1. There is no normal human life span, or if there is, it was very short.

Life-expectancy for the ancient Romans was circa 23 years; today the average life-expectancy in the world is circa 64 years.

For the past 150 years, best-performance life-expectancy (i.e. life-expectancy in the country where it is highest) has increased at a very steady rate of 3 months per year.

  1. Aging is the biggest cause of death and misery in humanity.

100 000 people die per day from age-related causes.  150 000 people die per day in total. Cardiovascular disease (strongly age-related) is emerging as the biggest cause of death in the developing world.

  1. Progress is possible

The goal should be to extend the HEALTHY, PRODUCTIVE lifespan, not to just keep people alive longer on respirators or in old people's homes. This is embodied in the concept not of life span but “health span”.  The easiest way to do this is to prolong healthy life not attempt to compress morbidity

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Stem Cell Trials – Should They Go Ahead? Why Harm to Patients Is Not a Reason to Stop Them

Professor Savulescu comments:

Professor Julian Savulescu is Uehiro Chair in Practical Ethics and Director of the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics at Oxford, Director of the Oxford Centre for Neuroethics, and Director of the Program on the Ethics of the New Biosciences. He was also recently awarded a major Arts and Humanities Research Council grant on Cognitive Science and Religious Conflict.


THE FDA has approved for the first time a clinical trial of embryonic stem cells to treat spinal injury patients. The trial will be conducted by Geron. A similar trial by Reneuron has been approved recently in the UK (The Scotsman, and the BBC). The research in the UK to treat stroke patients has already attracted stern criticism from “ethical campaigners.” The first wave predictably objected on the ground that it involved abortion "It involves cannibalising an unborn child.” But no child was aborted for the purposes of providing stem cells. These would have involved abortions that would anyway have occurred for a variety of reasons. Such opponents predictably object to anything involving destruction of embryos and fetuses – abortion, IVF, prenatal testing, contraception – so it is hardly surprising that they would object to this form of medical treatment.

The second wave of ethical campaigners, not clearly distinct from the first, claim now that the treatment is too risky. But is it too risky?

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The Future of Making Organs for Self-Transplantation

Scientists have been able to create a new windpipe using stem cells. They took a windpipe from a dead patient, removed all the cells, and placed stem cells from a patient onto the remaining scaffolding to create what was in effect a new windpipe, with the patient’s own cells. The patient had an irreparably damaged her windpipe from TB.

The significance of this is that it opens the door to creating whole organs, like kidneys, livers and perhaps even hearts and lungs. This is a radical advance because up until now, stem cells have only really been useful to replace tissue, or bits of the body without a complex organized structure. But this means we could potentially replace any part of the body with a person’s own stem cells. New livers for people with liver failure, new kidneys from those with kidney failure – and because the cells would come from the patient, there would be no rejection. Indeed, this patient has shown no signs of rejection.

Does this raise any ethical issues?

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