Data or life? Ethical obligations to present and future patients.
By Jahel Queralt-Lange
Each year 10.9 million new cases of cancer are diagnosed worldwide, and 6.7 million people die. The good news is that better drugs are developing faster. We all want to hear about “wonder drugs” and the scientific and medical communities feel the urge (and sometimes the pressure) to provide them. However, some ethical problems might appear in our way to this breakthrough. Before being released into the market, any drug has to undergo a trial in which its benefits are tested and weighed up against its adverse effects. Of course, the desirability of increasing our knowledge in order to improve our health is beyond question. What poses problems is that those individuals who participate in the trials are the means by which we achieve that knowledge. Past experiences, like the Tuskegee Syphilis experiment that took place in the US showed that it’s morally outrageous to trade the life of some individuals for the sake of benefiting society. Nowadays the issue is regulated but moral dilemmas persist.
Read More »Data or life? Ethical obligations to present and future patients.