Conservative politicians claimed yesterday that there are not enough intensive care beds in the UK to cope with the surge in demand that may occur over winter if the flu pandemic re-emerges. They have called on the government to increase intensive care capacity.
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.
The British Medical Association has called for a complete ban on
alcohol advertising. Wait for the knees to jerk: calls deriding the
‘nanny state’ and its paternalism will soon follow. One common theme, I
predict, will be that the recommendations are infantilizing. We should
trust responsible adults to be capable of making their own decisions.
Advertising simply informs them of their options (so long as it
regulated, so that it doesn’t deceive); so informed, they can be relied
upon to act as they see fit. If they have bad values, they will act
badly, if not they won’t: advertising won’t change that.
Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Interdisciplinary Science or Philosophy
University of Oxford, Faculty of Philosophy, Future of Humanity Institute, James Martin 21st Century School
Grade 7: £28,839 – £38,757 per annum (as at 1 October 2008)
The Future of Humanity Institute is a multidisciplinary research institute. It is part of the James Martin 21st Century School, and is hosted by the Oxford Faculty of Philosophy.
Applications are invited for a fixed-term Research Fellowship at the Future of Humanity Institute. The Fellowship is available for two years from the date of appointment.
Read More »Vacancy: Postdoc Research Fellow, Future of Humanity Institute
The moral debate about whether Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the man convicted for the Lockerbie bombing, should have been released has now morphed into a political debate about who wanted what and who said what to whom: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2009/sep/07/ed-balls-abdelbaset-al-megrahi . But the moral debate itself remains unresolved.
Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that (a) Megrahi was guilty as charged, (b) his trial was procedurally just, (c) he deserved his sentence, and (d) he is very close to death. Those who opposed freeing Megrahi tended to concentrate on (a)-(c), especially (a) and (c), as if that settled the matter. But of course those who supported freeing him believe that there was a case, based on compassion or mercy in response to (d), for releasing him before he had finished his sentence. What is going on here?
Should we use drugs to prolong loving relationships? Should we use drugs to weaken traumatic memories? Research Associate David Edmonds’ article on enhancement for Prospect magazine is available online. The article cites both Anders Sandberg and Julian Savulescu (Neuroenhancement of Love and Marriage: The Chemicals Between Us). It suggests that many of the arguments made against… Read More »The Age of Enhancement
What makes us happy? There is a lot of data on the question now, and some surprising conclusions. One surprising conclusion is cheering: almost all of us (around 95% of people in developed countries) rate ourselves as quite happy or better. The only countries to record high levels of unhappiness are countries in which living standards have declined appreciably, such as some of the countries in the former Soviet Union and its sphere of influence. To be sure, there is some room for scepticism about how much insight people have into their happiness. Dan Haybron notes how susceptible happiness ratings are to environmental infuences – for instance, the weather on the day the person is asked to rate their happiness – and argues that we cannot take these ratings of subjective well-being (as psychologists calls them) at face value. But even Haybron concedes that the differences across large groups provide us with an insight into real causes of happiness.
By: David Edmonds
In April 1915 there were hundreds of thousands of Armenians in Eastern Turkey: a year later they were gone.
One historian told me that this fact was the relevant one. And whether or not we call what occurred a ‘genocide’ is a matter of semantics – of secondary significance.
The family of virtually every Armenian was affected by the events of 1915/16. Estimates about the numbers vary. The Armenians say 1.5 million died. Turkey says this figure is greatly exaggerated.
Ethicists
disagree about very many things, but they broadly agree on how it is we should
disagree: by finding flaws in the reasoning that leads others to a contrary
conclusion, by putting forward arguments of our own, and so forth. The thought
(perhaps the illusion) is that through this process of critical discussion, we
will gradually approach the truth, the truth about what it is we ought to do.
Another assumption, and perhaps a greater illusion, is that all of this intense
debate will also eventually influence what people actually do—that it will
improve policy and practice.
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.
Read More »Telling porkies: should the doctor tell her patient where the medicine comes from?
