...Animal Experimentation: Unethical or Unnatural? Animal research has had a vital role in many scientific and medical advances of the past century and continues to aid our understanding of various diseases. Throughout the world, people enjoy a better quality of life because of these advances, and the subsequent development of new medicines and treatments are all made possible by animal research. However, the use of animals in scientific and medical research has been a subject of heated debate for many years. Opponents to any kind of animal research, including both extreme sides of animal-activist groups believe that animal experimentation is cruel and unnecessary, regardless of its purpose or benefit. There is no middle ground for these groups; they want the immediate and total abolition of all animal research. If they succeed, it would have enormous and severe consequences for scientific research. Animal experimentation has been practiced since ancient times, when the ancient Greeks killed and dissected animals for scientific and religious purposes. Vivisection continued throughout ancient times and into the Christian era, becoming a replacement for human dissection when the Catholic Church banned autopsies. Animals were treated as insensitive objects, mere automatons incapable of pain or emotion. By the 1800s, science and medicine were moving forward at unprecedented rates. Germs were discovered and vaccines invented; pills were created and diseases eradicated. Animals were...
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...and ulcers on the face, eyelids, and eyes of the consumers who used Lash Lure, and it led to blindness for some. In one instance, the ulcers were so severe that a woman developed a bacterial infection and died. This incident and others like it led the United States Congress to pass the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic (FD&C) Act of 1938. This law gave the FDA regulatory authority over cosmetic products, and companies began to test products and ingredients on animals in an effort to assure safety for consumers. The FDA “urges cosmetic manufacturers to conduct whatever tests are appropriate to establish that their cosmetics are safe”, but “does not specifically mandate animal testing for cosmetic safety.” The issue that is being raised is it ethical to harm an animal for the sake of marketing a new cosmetic product. Facts: Every year, an estimated 70 million animals are maimed or killed for cosmetic testing in the US alone, and nearly $12 billion taxpayer dollars are spent yearly on the practice. Labs that use mice, rats, birds, reptiles and amphibians are exempted from the minimal protections under the Animal Welfare Act (AWA). The AWA authorizes the Secretary of Agriculture to promulgate standards and other requirements governing the humane handling, housing, care, treatment, and transportation of certain animals by dealers, research facilities, exhibitors, carriers, and intermediate handlers. The AWA defines animal to mean “any live or dead dog, cat, monkey (nonhuman...
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...Part IV Katie Schulz Mrs. Polski Modern Problems May 2, 2013 Introduction~ Animal experimentation began in the early 3rd and 4th centuries BCE with the Greeks performing the first experiments on living animals. Ever since these early periods there has been a search to answer the question of whether animal testing is ethical. This question is proposed due to the suffering of animals during medical experimentation. Veterinarian, Peter M. Henrickson, found this to be the case in his experience during a veterinary class. The research began on Rodney a shepherd mix. “The first thing we did was neuter him, a seemingly benign project, except it took us an hour to complete the usual 20-minute procedure, and an anesthetic overdose kept him out for 36 hours. Afterward, he recovered his strength quickly and felt good” (Henrickson, Par. 4). They then proceeded to do an abdominal exploratory, opening his abdomen and then closing him again. “This was the first major surgery for any of us, and, with inadequate supervision, we did not close him properly. By the next morning, his incision had opened and he was sitting on his small intestine. Hastily, we sewed him up again, and he survived. But it was a week or more before he could resume walks he had come to eagerly anticipate” (Henrickson, Par. 6). After Rodney’s slow recovery they once again put him under anesthesia. “We broke his leg and repaired it with a steel pin. After this, Rodney seemed in almost constant pain, his temperature...
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...For a long time, scientists used a reliable method to check the effects of new medical treatments on the biological system of humans. Though the method proves to demonstrate sufficient results, the use of animal experimentation is still a controversial issue. Many people argue that it contradicts moral and ethical values because it makes innocent animals suffer or even die. As a result, social activists declare that animal testing must be forbidden on the legislative level, due to the negative consequences which it can cause on the health of animals. However, one cannot agree with the statement because animal testing is the essential condition of the scientific progress and innovation in the medical area. First of all, it must be stated that due to the use of animal testing, scientists managed to find treatment for some serious or even mortal human...
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...Ana Magalhaes David Frisch ENC 1102 30 January 2016 The Morality of Animal Testing in Cosmetic Companies Preface The ethical treatment of animal testing is a controversial topic in the field of zoology. Different aspects on animal testing range from positivity to negativity. Animals such as dogs and rats are used for experimental trials because they have been found to have psychological and genetic correlations that relate to humans. Although the benefits and improvements to modern medicine made it possible to ban animal experimentation completely, animals are still the main subjects in cosmetic industries. Something important to keep in mind when it comes to animal experimentation is that, “Most experimentation has nothing to do with disease research… it is cosmetic product testing” (Medical News Online). According to the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) over one hundred million animals suffer from experiments to test cosmetics. Many people stand against animal experimentation claiming that animals are not ours to experiment on, and even though that’s an important point, there are many other issues that should be discussed. For example, ninety two percent of all animal trials in cosmetics that are effective on animals are ineffective on humans (ASPCA). Meaning that the reasoning behind it is the lower cost of animal testing provided to those companies. Unfortunately, theses experiments are the cheapest options and some companies are required by the FDA...
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...Facebook Unethical Use of User Data for Social Experimentation Bonita V. Earls Longwood University Abstract His paper explores the ethical impact of Facebooks 2012 study on emotional contagion in a social web environment. The study is controversial due to the fact Facebook researchers failed to follow standard ethical guidelines as set forth in the healthcare industry, failed to clearly communicate the study, its intentions, and methodology to its users, and manipulated data in such a way it invoked emotional and mood changes of its unaware users. The idea of algorithmic program use in the social media sphere comes into question as well. Introduction In January 2012, the news feeds of approximately 700,000 users of the popular social media site, Facebook, were manipulated in a manner so that some of its users only had positive news stories show up on their pages and others had only negative news stories show up. The experiment was conducted over the span of a week, from the 11th to the 18th, without the knowledge of the users (Kramer, 2014). According to the researchers, the goal was to see if “emotional contagion” occurs without direct interaction between people and in the absence of nonverbal cues. By manipulating the news stories, either all positive or all negative, they could study what effects, if any, there was on the moods of the users (LaChance, 2014). This is only one of many social experiments that the Facebook Core Data Science Team, has performed...
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...CASE SCENARIO Leo R. is a 45-year-old patient with diabetes and is a widower with three young children. Two of Leo’s children suffer from chronic medical conditions. His oldest daughter, like Leo, has insulin-dependent diabetes. His only son suffers from grand mal epilepsy, which is poorly controlled by a plethora of medications. Leo works for a small printing business, a job he enjoys, but one that makes it difficult for him to make ends meet. With only six employees, the company’s owner cannot afford to offer health insurance. Leo’s annual salary of $30,000 allows him to purchase only the most basic of health plans, one that does not include coverage for prescription medications. Leo frequently must decide between medications and food, often opting for cheap junk food that is neither nutritious for his young family nor appropriate for a diabetic diet. Leo has recently applied for and been offered several other jobs, but at a lower salary and with no health insurance coverage. Recently, Leo’s diabetes has worsened. He has developed a serious infection that has led to lost wages and, far worse, the loss of his right leg below the knee. Leo is weighing his options. He has heard about a new clinical research trial open to insulin-dependent diabetics that pays $100 a week to research subjects. He has also been quite depressed and begun to wonder if his children might not be better off without him. He has several life insurance policies that would pay off generously if something...
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...the human cloning progress. Attempts to clone the Dolly the Sheep, accomplished in February 1997 by the research team at the Roslin Institute, even if the clone grew abnormally large and had certain diseases (“Dolly The Sheep”). When scientists, indicated that they began to study intensively for human cloning; opponents of human cloning imposed serious sanctions against cloning practices. After a while, as stated in an article in The New York Times, on November 26, 2001, the first cloned human embryo was released to the public by the company, called Advanced Cell Technology (Kolata). However, the ethical dimension...
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...Research Studies Questionnaire University of Phoenix PSYCH/610 Brandy Darling 4/20/2015 Part I What is the purpose of each of the sections in a typical research article? There are several parts to a research article including an abstract, which is used to briefly convey the information used throughout the article before reading through the whole thing. It gives a clear idea of what the article is about and what to look forward to before going any further into the research process. Next is the introduction, and that is used to point out what the focus is on and the main points of the article/paper. The introduction in “OCD and Cognitive Illusions” describes cognitive illusions thinking and how that may be contribute to understanding the origin of maintenance of obsessional thoughts. It covers the meaning of cognitive illusions and what they include, current studies pointing to cognitive biases/deficits in OCD, the nature of cognitive illusions and the relations to OCD thinking, and clinical implications/suggestions for further research. Other parts of a research article may include methods/methodology, results, discussion, conclusion and summary, and references/sources. Not all articles are the same, but generally this is how one would be set up. What are the steps to critically evaluate research articles and how does the scientific method help you do this? The first step to critically evaluating a research article is the research question. The research must be clear...
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...Is it ethical to allow individuals with the disease to receive a placebo when participating in a research study into Alzheimer’s disease? Lit Review Dementia is an umbrella term or senility which means an enormous group of symptoms that are caused by disease that affect the brain, for instance Alzheimer’s disease. The brain starts to shrink because increasingly the cells die, which is known as brain atrophy (image below) which can sometimes be seen in a brain scan of someone in the later stages of dementia. When the cells die and it cannot be replaced at all. What is Alzheimer’s disease? The term Alzheimer is named after by Alois Alzheimer, who was a German psychiatrist and neuropathologist in 1906. Alois discovered the Alzheimer’s disease (AD) which is the most ordinary form of dementia that has no treatment, medication or cure at all. Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive disease, that the brain gets damaged gradually, as this happens the symptoms becomes more sever then eventually leads to death. It is a brain disorder that extremely disturbs a person’s knowledge to carry out daily activities. Throughout the course of the disease, protein, ‘plaques’ and ‘tangles’ develop in the structure of the brain, leading to the death of brain cells. People who have AD have a shortage of some beneficial chemicals in their brain, which are involved with the transmission of messages with the brain. However, some drug may help keep symptoms from getting worse for a restricted...
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...Computer Interaction Interface 12 Stakeholders 12 3. Ethical and Legal Concerns with the technology 14 3.1 Legal Issues 14 Inconsistent Medication 14 Number of Impacts of Wireless Technology 15 Data Integrity and Hacking 16 3.2 Ethical dilemma 17 Cultural and religious criticism 17 Public Monitoring/privacy 19 Impact on people with disabilities 20 Cost issues 20 Social Issues/implications 20 Credibility of Source of Information 21 4. Resolutions for these dilemmas 22 4.1 Possible solution 22 Tackling health issues 22 Preventing leakage of personal information 23 Preventing Overuse of Skin Patch 24 Addressing cultural issues 24 Denying any form of tracking human information 25 4.2 Strategy for implementation 25 Conclusion 26 Reference List 26 1. Introduction The purpose of this report is to identify the legal and ethical issues related to electronic skin patch and provide a possible solution to tackle it. The limitations of current medical science lead to the advancement of biomedical science to resolve the gap. The report further deals with the new technology electronic skin patch that promises to overcome the potholes of the traditional medical science. It provides the detailed analysis of the technology and the strategy to provide a solution, when there is a dilemma in distinguishing the legal and ethical issues related to electronic skin patch. 2. Analysis Methodology To effectively examining the technology...
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...Ethics in the Marketing of Medical Services STEPHEN R . LATHAM, J.D., PH.D. Abstract This paper deals with the ethics of marketing medical services by physicians, medical groups, hospitals and other mainstream medical caregivers in the United States. It does not deal with pharmaceutical marketing, since that raises a number of special issues, some of them legal and some having to do with the unique culture of pharmaceutical marketing, which really ought to be dealt with separately. Nor does it touch on the little-explored field of marketing alternative and complementary medicine. It begins with a general description of what is included in "the marketing process." It then briefly tours some of the difficulties faced by those who would market medical services ethically, and ends with some conunents on the relevance of professionalism to ethical marketing. Key Words: Professionalism, medical marketing, market competition, health care, product, placement, price, promotion, ethics. Marketing 101: The Four P's the idea of "marketing" with promotion and advertising. But in fact, "promotion" is only one of the famous "four P's of marketing" taught in most business schools. The first step in any marketing plan is to determine the nature of the Product (or service) one wishes to sell. Next, one determines its Placement, the distribution channels through which the product or service can best be made available to the consumer. Then, one attempts to determine the Price at which the...
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... Informed consent is the procedure of getting permission to take part in a research study or medical procedure founded on access to all vital and easily understandable information about the consequences of participation in terms of benefits and harms (Dolgoff et al, 2009). A healthcare provider may demand informed consent from a patient before providing care or a researcher may request it from a participant before enrolling the individual into a research trial. Informed consent is based on guidelines provided by research and medical ethics. To give informed consent, the person involved must have sufficient reasoning faculties and have all the relevant facts. However, not all individuals may have capacities for informed consent due to impairments to reasoning and judgment such as mental immaturity, severe intellectual disabilities, mental illnesses, high stress levels, being in a coma, Alzheimer’s disease, and severe sleep deprivation. Medical and research actions may be carried out due to lack of informed consent. When a person is considered unable to give informed consent, another person can be authorized to give consent on behalf of that person (Manson & O'Neill, 2007). For instance, legal guardians or parents may give informed consent for young children and the mentally ill. In case a person is given insufficient information to make a reasoned decision, severe ethical issues may arise. In clinical trials, such cases are anticipated and avoided by Institutional Review...
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...Data Mining Data mining began with the advent of databases. Databases are warehouses full of computer data. Computer scientists began to realize that this data contains patterns and relationship to other sets of data. As computer technology emerged, data was extracted into useful information. Often, hidden relationships began to appear. Once this data became known and useful, industries grew around data mining. Data mining is a million dollar business aimed at improving marketing, research, criminal apprehension, fraud detection and other applications. History of Data Mining Computers began to be more widely used in the 1960’s. Computers were used to collect and store data. The data was stored on tapes and disks. The companies and organizations began to wonder about the data that was stored. They wanted to know about past sales, past performances and other pertinent information that was stored on these tapes and disks. The next step was to find an accurate way to retrieve the needed information without manually reading all the data. The next step in this quest came in the 1980’s with relational databases and structured queries. Query language could be used to find out more of what was in the data. The companies and organizations could now identify what has happened in the past. They also wanted to know how to apply this knowledge to future predictions based on past performances. In 1989, the first knowledge discovery workshop was held in Detroit (SQL Data Mining, 2012)...
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...Running head: TESTING WITH A POSSIBLE DEATH SENTENCE Testing With a Possible Death Sentence (An analysis of American mal-practice stemming from the Henrietta Lacks story) Testing with possible death sentence We can perceive past and future medical advancement through two very different lenses. One lens is clean and colorful and paints an innovative and hopeful picture of the present and future, and therefore many folks enjoy looking through it and broadcasting it. The second is foggy, dirty and colorless, and depicts a sad and appalling look at a frightening past. This perception threatens us, as the haunting past often does. Needless to say, most people choose not to look the old lens and is rather kept occult. This is probably the reason that aside from bits and pieces of unethical experiments in our part of the world, I was simply not well-educated on the subject and never expected to hear about so many terrible incidents catalyzed by one patient’s cells. The historic lens shows us that “historically, the health care institution has failed, humiliated and ruined lives in the effort to improve medicine” (Robbennolt, 2009) , and it is important for us as social workers to look through that gloomy, grim lens and envision interventions that would have prevented it from becoming so. In a twisted irony of life, one woman’s ill fate, gave way to many discoveries that have saved many lives, but unfortunately at a heavy price for others...
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