quote:The first wave of modification would start as experimental modification, putting the fetus at some amount of risk, at least in those early stages. The justification for engaging in the experimentation would be that risk of death or harm is preferable to the disability itself.
Sndrake said this in the autism thread, and I thought there was something here worthy of its own thread. I've seen several people on this forum express similar concerns about medical experimentation.
Now, insofar as I understand science and technology, everything starts in an experimental stage. We develop new theories, techniques, and technologies by making educated guesses based on previous research. We then experiment to see whether or not our guesses are correct. Now, in the physical sciences the ethical considerations in experimentation are often not as big as they are in the life sciences, just by nature of the fact that experimenting to discover a new chemical process or astronomical phenomenon can often be done with little to no risk to life. (Not to say that there are no ethical considerations, but its usually the results of the experiment that have to be considered, rather than the experiment itself.)
Now, I think most people think that we should be advancing medical science, that we should increase our knowledge of the body and develop new technologies and cures for things that should be cured. That is, I don't think many people would say that we should just stop all medical research and development. But it seems to me that all medical experimentation involves a finite risk to life. Sometimes this will be small (not sure about an example, maybe a new kind of material for casts or something else non-invasive like that), sometimes large (like the sort of genetic modification being discussed in the autism thread). Can the risk be justified in any other way than by the payoff (i.e. the ends justifying the means)? And if not, at what point does the payoff make the risk acceptable?
(As a side note, I am going to be something of a weenie now and take off, because my online time is limited. I'll check back in when I get a chance.)
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quote: Can the risk be justified in any other way than by the payoff (i.e. the ends justifying the means)? And if not, at what point does the payoff make the risk acceptable?
At the end of the day, unfortunately, I don't think there is a viable objective standard by which this can be decided; instead, some arbitrary number will have to be affixed (probably legally), something along the lines of "if X number of people will probably be immediately postively impacted by this experimentation, then it goes forward." However, as is the case with the much debated embryonic stem-cell research, a good number of people will be hesitant to permit certain types of research unless there's a guarantee of results, and science can hardly ever guarantee anything of the sort.
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quote: Can the risk be justified in any other way than by the payoff (i.e. the ends justifying the means)?
There's always the chance that while researching the solution to one problem, an unexpected solution for another may be found. I know that a cure for something in the past was found on accident, but I can't remember what it was.
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posted
Usually, the risk as well as the payoff in science and medicine can be hard to measure. I'll leave aside risk and just mention payoff. The payoff could be serendipitous results unrelated to the original goal, and hence unpredictable. Medicine is replete with unexpected results from research, from penicillin to lithium. One example, the study of beriberi, led to the discovery of vitamins, as well as furthering our understanding of metabolism.
quote: Our second case study deals with a particular disease rather than with a particular scientist. It documents how efforts to understand and halt a ravaging disease, beriberi, played a central role in the discovery of a class of substances vital to the animal economy, vitamins. Then, we examine how subsequent research on the "beriberi vitamin," thiamin, helped to elucidate the biochemical roles of vitamins, through a long and arduous series of studies that led to the identification of thiamin as a coenzyme in intermediary metabolism
Today's Medicine, Tomorrow's Science:Essays on Paths of Discovery in the Biomedical Sciences link edit to add:I found this article looking for an example of what Kaioshin00 mentioned, by googling "serendip cure medicine treatment"
posted
I don't mind this kind of testing in animals for a legitimate medical purpose. (I have issues with hurting the fuzzy bunnies for cosmetics.) Of course, my next question would be do animals get autism? If not, what can we learn about the condition from that fact?
We have the potential to learn more about any condition and still keep it ethical. Yes, at some point it would involve testing on people. By then it should have been tested extensively on animals. We should be as sure as we can that it will cause the least harm and provide the largest benefit. There are plenty of birth defects that do result in the death of a child. I have little problem with responsible testing then because it can't do any worse to the child than if the doctors had done nothing.
But what about experiments on autistic babies? Autism won't kill them. At that point, a parent would be risking their child's life for a non-lethal condition. Would that be worth the cost? To me, no. To plenty of other parents, yes.
Is it ethical of the medical community to allow a parent to risk their child if the end result is the increase in quality of life for thousands of others? I don't know. I just know I wouldn't let a doctor anywhere near my baby on those terms.
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