The allergies I have would have killed me if I'd been born 100 years earlier. There is treatment for them. No cure. A former colleague of mine is in a wheelchair as a result of the steroid treatment she received for her severe allergies. She is about 5 years older than I am. Treatment changed dramatically in those few years, and I am very lucky for that. Many people have much better lives because of what was learned during my friend's generation of treatment.
I'm sure she is glad there was some treatment - which allowed her to be alive now - even though she needs a lot of assistance in her daily life. I know that I'm glad that there was treatment which allowed me to live to this point.
My feelings about providing treatment that will increase life expectancy are the same regardless of diagnosis.
dlowan wrote:I believe there is, Wilso.
What is germ line therapy?
Carried out on gametes. Sperm and ova.
Wilso,
I cannot see an ethical dillema in developing and using a cure for the disease. Those who are cured do face a dillema if reproduction risks passing on the disease. The former sufferers may well be best qualified to decide if life with CS and cure is better than no life at all.
Portal Star wrote:Wilso - I feel a similar way about feeding starving children. You send money to a starving child, they grow up and have more children, who will feed their children? Won't that create more starving children in the long run?
That's why I'm a big proponent of the "If you teach a child to fish" method, in which people with pathos use their goodwill in an effective manner, sort of like that leasing a cow to a village program.
With cystic fibrosis, if there was a way to live longer and children were had, and if those children could make enough money to get food and treatment, then good for them and more power to em'. If they are dependent on a socialist-based welfare society in which others would be made to pay for the drugs, then it would be unfair (but that would be the result of politics, not the drugs themselves.)
If society crashes and there is no medicine available, it would wipe out such a populus as well as many other members of the population.
And is cyctic fibrosis a dominant gene? It may not neccessarily be expressed in all cases.
Let me suggest that the disease of economic rationalism costs humanity much more than diseases such as CS; the costs of ideoligical intransigence are even greater.
gozmo wrote:Wilso,
I cannot see an ethical dillema in developing and using a cure for the disease. Those who are cured do face a dillema if reproduction risks passing on the disease. The former sufferers may well be best qualified to decide if life with CS and cure is better than no life at all.
If it could be "cured" then it wouldn't be a problem. Cure the children it's passes onto, and it's a non-issue. But what I"m referring to is a treatment that doesn't cure. The result being that an ever increasing number of people are born with the disease, creating an ever greater number of people requiring the treatment. The professor actually made a mention of the fact that he didn't see it to be beyond the realms of possibility that such a situation may be the actual aim of a drug company. Engineering a situation that results in an ever increasing number of patients to purchase their treatment. With the greed that present today, I have no trouble believing that as a possibility.
Starving children I do believe is a different issue, because there's not actually a shortage of food in the world. The western world discards more than enough food to feed everyone. The only reason that situation exists is due to the lack of social/political will to see an equitable distribution of wealth.
Wilso,
I take your point, there is a difference between cure and treatment which alleviates the condition. I understood we were considering treatment that enabled sufferers to lead lives sufficiently normal for procreation and raising children. I did not assume that descendants would be free from the disease but I did assume that similar treatment will be available to them.
I think the pursuit of relief for those who now suffer is not subject to ethical considerations. I believe the ethical dillema arises when suffering is sufficiently alleviated that victims are able to make a choice to have children. I suggest their experience of the disease will have prepared them for wise decision making.
The possibility that drug companies take decisions which enable them to extort wealth is another matter and the considerations are moral not ethical. Portal Star's mindset may even allow for justification of such action, I am certainly opposed.
Wilso wrote:
Starving children I do believe is a different issue, because there's not actually a shortage of food in the world. The western world discards more than enough food to feed everyone. The only reason that situation exists is due to the lack of social/political will to see an equitable distribution of wealth.
Woah! You lost me there, buddy. It's not like we can fed-ex the poor children of___ our supper scrappings. Sure, we have wealth, which is wonderful, but it is a result of the work of the people of this nation, and the fact that our goverment works. The system you propose would be a form of socialism, which didn't work. Capitalism involves motivating people to do things for themselves. We don't need equitable distribution of wealth in order to fix other countries, we need to help them fix themselves. If they have bad soil and cannot farm, charitable groups could help them fix their soil, for example. Then they would be helping themselves and responsible for their own welfare, as it should be. Not everyone who is ever born is supposed to survive to reproduce, either. If they did, we would become very overpopulated very quickly. It is the responsibility of the individual to survive. We can help them to accomplish this task, but we should not use our wealth to nurse the world like they were children - it only leads to disaster in the long run, and further dependency.
Gozmo - I'd take total cure over symptomatic alleviation anyday, but you've got to take what you can get.
I will NEVER accept that feeding everyone is too difficult. It's the conservative belief that the INDIVIDUAL is most important that is biggest burden this world carries. The fact remains that there is enough food in the world to feed everyone, and even worse that many famines are political in nature. Maybe if the US would use their military might to even those suffering from political famine, many less in the world would starve, but unless they've got oil, they haven't got a hope.
I just remembered that the US doesn't even have the political will to see that all of it's own citizens are adequately housed, fed, and clothed, so maybe we should return the discussion to the question at hand.
Hypothetical situation: No one starves. Ever. Or dies of illness. They all live, and bear children. Then their children all live, and bear children, and so on. If the people who live keep having more children, the population increases. In effect, by feeding everyone we would feed more people, then more people, then more people, and so on, until we reached some sort of biological carrying capacity. Doesn't sound fun to me.
Your second statement is illogical. The united states *does* take care of it's people in terms of all kinds of social programs. We have government sponsored ones like welfare and medicaid etc. And we have privately owned organizations like goodwill, the salvation army, localized church groups, shriners, etc. America is a great place for a poor person.
I think your error, Wilso, is at the base of human nature: if humans don't have to work, they won't. This is because of biology - if you can sleep comfortably, be fed, and reproduce, you won't do extra work to get those things. That is why communism didn't work, why socialism doesn't work, and why many welfare systems don't work. There is a distinction between the deserving and undeserving poor (look up Thomas Chalmers). If people are responsible for themselves, they are motivated to work. A good charitible person will not give them a nickel, but a means to make their own money.
"If you give a child a fish, he will eat for a day. If you teach a child to fish, he will eat for life."
Don't forget that one of the major reasons for global poverty is intolerable government, and if I remember correctly, you are anti-war and nation-building.
IF I understand correctly, in the US if you haven't got an address, you can't get social security. This is a great place to be poor? You call what these mass murderers have done in Iraq nation building?
I'm not going to try to reason with people who see the world through conservative, red, white and blue glasses any more. Their opinions aren't worth my time. Is there anyone would actually like to discuss the issue that the thread is about? If not then it's closed. I leave the right wingers to rave all they like.
Well, I told you what I think.
I'll say it again. Yes, to any treatment that improves life/increases life expectancy.
Wilso wrote:IF I understand correctly, in the US if you haven't got an address, you can't get social security. This is a great place to be poor? You call what these mass murderers have done in Iraq nation building?
I'm not going to try to reason with people who see the world through conservative, red, white and blue glasses any more. Their opinions aren't worth my time. Is there anyone would actually like to discuss the issue that the thread is about? If not then it's closed. I leave the right wingers to rave all they like.
There are lots of programs besides social security. Yes, it is a great place to be poor, especially compared to the rest of the world and it is also a great time period to be poor in. I don't remember saying anything about Iraq.
If conservative glasses are the ones that involve rational thinking, count me in.
Star Portal,
It is you who are in error and on a number of counts. firstly you insist upon hijacking the thread and ignoring its intended nature. Secondly you make unsubstantiated assumptions, thirdly you confuse opinion with fact and then you support these opinions with slogans.
I am rather amazed that this discussion has come down to another tussle over a logic nugget.
PortalStar - are you sure you're not getting a little carried away? It really is not great to be poor in the U.S. Not now, not anytime. There are a lot of poor families and individuals in the U.S. living truly miserable, dangerous lives. The support net is not that well woven.
As gozmo points out, the thread's really about something else, but if you and wilso want to continue to provoke each other ... enjoy.
Now, now, I think that the topic is related and that is why I hijacked, but if wished I will discontinue.
Gozmo - you are the first person ever to arrange my screen name to sound like a black hole. Clever, and I mean that with no contempt. Slogans can be useful.
Great to be poor in America by comparison. As in, it is much better to be poor in present day america than it is in America in the 1800's or present most other countries in this world. Surely, it would be better to be rich and healty in America. I am talking about poverty on average, and availability of help and personal opportunity. One thing America has not been keen on in recent years is dealing with the mentally ill, which compose many of America's homeless. Mental health issues also lead to questions about genetic health and societal burden. [On a related note, present day America is one of the best times historically and geographically to be female.]
Clearly this is an emotional subject for many people, everyone wants to help, but the question is, how? Wilso was talking about symtomatic relief of cyctic fibrosis and genetics, and a potential burden on society. I don't see social welfare issues as being that far off topic.
I wasn't talking about a burden on society so much as a potential for an overall weakening of the gene pool.
hmm. Well, as long as someone is able to survive long enough to pass on their genes, and if their children live to reproduce, that is enough for natural selection not to take its toll. I know without medicine I wouldn't be here today. I have often wondered what will happen if/when humans are cut off from such wonderful medical care.
