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Drug Discovery: Synthesizing an End to Cancer
Legality, Ethics, and Social Issues
As cancer treatment progresses, issues have, and will surface, because of course the end all, be all question of any possibly dangerous goal, do the ends justify the means, must be answered.
Experimental Treatment - Unfortunately cancer is a very specialized disease. As has been discovered countless times in countless patients, conventional means of treatment will not always work. This is why some patients or doctors will turn to using experimental drugs and procedures in hopes that it will treat the disease effectively. This comes with a whole host of legal and ethical issues, as most forms of fighting disease do. Seeing as how the treatment is experimental, there is a possibility of unforseen side effects leading to pain, other disease, or even death. Now, ethically it must be decided whether the possibility of curing or treating this disease offsets the risk of further inflicting harm upon the patient.
Costs - Cancer treatments themselves are extremely beneficial to society as a whole, and should be celebrated. However, the process of discovering, creating, and then testing treatments is a very extensive and costly process, totalling possibly upwards of 1 billion dollars. Unfortunately this means that most products will never make it to the market due to the inability to acquire the necessary funds. Should there be a fund created for the benefit of certified companies willing to create drugs solely for the benefit of humanity, or should it be funded by private interest groups bent on creating only the treatments that will benefit them financially?
Placebos - During clinical trials it is common to use an experimental and control group to accurately measure certain elements influenced by the treatment being tested. The experimental group would receive the drug being tested, while the control group would be given a placebo, or a fake treatment designed to ensure the validity of the test. This means that some people undergoing the clinical trial receive fake treatments, wherein their condition will most likely not improve regardless of testing. The ethics of the situation are not completely black and white. Unfortunately, this is necessary to conduct a trial, as a group is needed as a basis for the test, but these people are also receiving a fake treatment that would give them false hope.
Parental Consent - While some treatments are proven to be beneficial in the treatment of cancer, some parents will not allow their children to undergo these treatments based on religious or social barriers. Depending upon the views of any particular person, allowing the child to undergo the treatment against the wishes of the parents could either be viewed as an extreme violation of rights, or a necessary option.
Reference: Image 40-44 Website 27-29
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