Famous Operation As Medical Research example essay topic

Questions of justice have long been associated with social practices such as punishment, taxation and political representation. Until recently these questions have not generally been associated with scientific research. However, they are foreshadowed even in the earliest reflections on the ethics of research involving human subjects. For example, during the 19th and early 20th centuries the burdens of serving as research subjects fell largely upon poor ward patients, while the benefits of improved medical care flowed primarily to private patients. Subsequently, the exploitation of unwilling prisoners as research subjects in Nazi concentration camps was condemned as a particularly flagrant injustice. In this country, in the 1940's, the Tuskegee syphilis study used disadvantaged, rural black men to study the untreated course of a disease that is by no means confined to that population.

These subjects were deprived of demonstrably effective treatment in order not to interrupt the project, long after such treatment became generally available. Against this historical background, it can be seen how conceptions of justice are relevant to research involving human subjects. For example, the selection of research subjects needs to be scrutinized in order to determine whether some classes (e. g., welfare patients, particular racial and ethnic minorities, or persons confined to institutions) are being systematically selected simply because of their easy availability, their compromised position, or their manipulability, rather than for reasons directly related to the problem being studied. Finally, whenever research supported by public funds leads to the development of therapeutic devices and procedures, justice demands both that these not provide advantages only to those who can afford them and that such research should not unduly involve persons from groups unlikely to be among the beneficiaries of subsequent applications of the research. (4) To implement these ethical principles to our case we can define this famous operation as medical research. There were no operations of such kind in the past; it is a risky operation, therefore we one can say that the dividing of Egyptian conjoined twins is a research.

And this research was made according to all ethical considerations. The principle of autonomy was not violated, though the twins were not able to speak for themselves due to the young age, because their parents, who are eligible for their protection, gave their consent to the operation. The same was done by the governments of Egypt and United States. (8) The principle of beneficence was not violated also.

The harm of leaving the twins in their stance is obvious. If left on their own, the twins would never be a normal people. They could not move, could not learn, they were incapable of any productive labor. (7) They had all the chances to be psychically affected by being conjoined twins. The benefit of the operation is also obvious helping two little boys to be normal people eligible to all benefits of life.

To perform the surgery is to make the judgment that the quality of life attached is so poor that it's not worth living to preserve it,' 's aid Richard Burgh, who teaches medical ethics at Rider University in Lawrenceville, N.J. (5) Doctors concluded earlier this month that separating Mohamed and Ahmed Ibrahim might be successful, but could result in the deaths of one or both. The twins could live if nothing is done, but could this be life? Dr. Nasser Abdel Al, head of neonatal surgery at the Abu el-Re esh Hospital in Cairo, returned to Egypt to consult with religious and medical experts about the possible scenarios: a successful separation, a separation in which one dies, the death of both, complications causing brain damage in one or both, or skipping the surgery. (6) Doctors and nurses at the Cairo hospital, where the twins had been cared for since shortly after their birth, pleaded for separation this weekend, Abdel Al said.

It's really a weighing process, said Marvin Newman, professor of legal studies and communication at Rollins College in Winter Park, Fla., who serves on the ethics committees of several hospitals around the world. If they remain connected, they'd be terribly debilitated and they'd have a terrible quality of life,' Newman said. (5) One has all the rights to assume that the risk of death of any or both children was justified. The principle of justice was not violated for every side would benefit from success of the operation.

The twins would get a full life and the doctors would get the precious experience. Every party risked from the operation. The twins could loose the miserable kind of existence while the doctors could have their prestige lowered as well as all the prestige of American surgery. (9) We can conclude that the operation was justified by all ethical principles and these estimations were proved by the success of the operation.

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Bibliography

1) L.R. Kass, Toward A More Natural Science: Biology And Human Affairs. New York: Free Press. 1985.
2) B. Freedman, "Equipoise and the Ethics of Clinical Research", N. Engl. J. Med., 318 (1987): 141-55.
3) Reiser, Stanly Joel; Dyck, Arthur J. ; Curran, William J. Ethics in Medicine: Historical Perspectives and Contemporary Concerns. MIT Press; 1977.
4) Morr eim, Ha avi E. Balancing Act: The New Medical Ethics of Medicine's New Economics (Clinical Medical Ethics Series). Georgetown University Press; 1995 5) Associated press.
July 16, 2001.
6) Doctors Say Separating Conjoined Twins Could be Fatal. The Mercury News. July 2, 2002.
7) Making Broken Children Normal. BusinessWeek Online. July 30, 2002.
8) Conjoined Twins Dad to Meet Doctors. First Coast News. October 6, 2002.
9) Twins Destinies: A Dallas Morning News Special Section. Dallas Morning News. August 24, 2003.
10) Conjoined Egyptian Twins Separated. CBC News: Associated Press. October 12, 2003.